Claire Luce

The Queen of Broadway. The Society Girl, Miss Claire Luce

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We have a lot to do for the blog. Yes! New stuff coming right up. :)

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Just so people know this (I may have said this a bunch of times) but my fellow MCL (@msclaireluce) admins and I are working on a Claire Luce biography called “Society Girl: The Claire Luce Story”; however, we do need as much help as we could possibly get from Claire Luce fans and Old Hollywood or Old Broadway fans in general, because information about Claire is so hard to gather on our own that we have both decided to plot some possible theories on why she was hired by Ziegfeld or why she and the Astaires went head to head in 1924. It’s all a mystery as of now, but we are working on writing theories, trivias and articles using the information gathered from various sources to write her stories, which is why we made this blog. We made it to post our articles and to reblog your articles on and about Claire Luce.

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Claire Luce Topic questions

Hello! We have came up with “Claire Luce Topic questions” that you guys can write about for fun or to post on your own blogs. If you post your article on your blog, please leave a link to your article in our submissions box. Thank you! - Miss Claire Luce Team

Topic questions: • Is Claire Luce important to Fred Astaire? • What happened to Claire Luce after the Table Top dance number? • How did Florenz Ziegfeld hire Claire Luce? • Was Billie Burke in good terms with Claire Luce? • Did Claire Luce meet Adele Astaire? • Who was Claire Luce’s husband’s lover? • What happened between Claire Luce and Randolph Churchill? • Was Claire Luce one of Fred Astaire’s favorite Broadway dance partners? • Did William Shakespeare’s female characters influenced Claire Luce’s lifestyle? • Who are Claire Luce’s 60 lovers? • Why did Claire Luce runaway from home at the age of 13? • Was Ginger Rogers friends with Claire Luce? • Did Fred Astaire worked with Paulette Goddard in the Second Chorus because of Claire Luce?

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SOCIETY GIRL: THE CLAIRE LUCE STORY

• Theories • Trivias • Facts • Set Stories • Year of Reckoning: 1945 • Book of Secrets: 1937 - 1945

Important People: • Maud Luce • Frederick Luce • Leroy Luce • Florenz Ziegfeld • Billie Burke • Adele Astaire • Fred Astaire • Fanny Brice • Paulette Goddard • Ginger Rogers • Dorothy Stone • Randolph Churchill • Winston Churchill • George S Kaufman • William Walton • Gillian - Patrick • Clifford Warren-Smith • Pamela Digby

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"Ziegfeld has been portrayed as a man who pursued women. I have even come across a word which, in regard to him, is not only vulgar but incredibly inaccurate. The word is “Chaser.” By all the pink-toed prophets, Flo Ziegfeld was never that! Flo never pursed any woman. He was cool and aloof and difficult. But there were times, more times than I prefer to recall, when he made a woman eager for his approval by a mere look, or a small expression, or by a slight grasp of her elbow, a low mumbling request to dance. That was all the effort he ever had to make. The story of one noted dancing girl about how Flo Ziegfeld used to batter down her door is a confection of sheer poppycock. I tell you: I know better."

-Billie Burke on Florenz Ziegfeld.

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Claire Luce in an ostrich feather costume for The Ziegfeld Follies, c 1920s.

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Claire Luce

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Claire Luce

(Sources: www.rottentomatoes.com/ www.listal.com/ www.broadwayworld.com)

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Claire Luce during the wartime.

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Claire Luce as Cleopatra in Antony And Cleopatra, 1945.

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Astaire trivia: When RKO got the rights to adapt Cole Porter’s Gay Divorce, a reluctant Fred Astaire wanted and made several attempts to get Claire Luce on broad the film but RKO’s executives dismissed his attempts and went for their contract player, Ginger Rogers. Also, Claire refused RKO’s offer because of an accident that happened in London – another possible theory why RKO went for their contract player.

At first, Fred didn’t like the idea of working with Ginger again because he didn’t want to get involved in team again but he did, however, faked it until it was done.

On screen, the Night And Day scene might have been danced with Ginger Rogers, but it was originally performed by Fred and Claire on Broadway; unfortunately, it wasn’t as similar as Fred hoped it would be. When RKO refused Fred’s suggestion to use Claire in the film adaptation, Fred made sure that there is a bit of Claire left in the film adaptation of their musical together so he decided to try some of her style of dancing and incorporate it into Night And Day.

A Facebook page comment: “Regarding the table top sequence: I always watch Ginger’s face as Fred supports her as they go from the table to the floor (she doesn’t step on the chair at all). She giggles and laughs both times on the way down…it’s so cute" As cute as it may seem to Astogers fans, Ginger didn’t know about the difficulty level of performing the Table Top dance sequence because of where she was when Claire fell off the table. Fred blamed himself for Claire’s fall because he thought that she wouldn’t forgive him and that she would blame him for ending her dancing career; but she didn’t, she had respect for Fred and would later say that Fred worried about all things concerning and to do with show business. And Claire’s safety as well as his later dance partners (Vera-Ellen, Lucille Bremer, Leslie Caron, etc.), he obviously did care about Claire Luce.

[Source/Expanded from: Claire Luce, Facebook and Astaire-Rogers, Facebook]

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Fred Astaire, Erik Rhodes & Claire Luce in Cole Porter’s Gay Divorce.