Deathwatch: Claire Trevor, Actress, 90

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/08/obit.trevor.ap/index.html

Academy Award-winning actress Claire Trevor dies
April 8, 2000
Web posted at: 6:33 p.m. EDT (2233 GMT)

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Claire Trevor, the sultry-voiced actress who
appeared in more than 60 films and won an Academy Award for her 1948
performance as a boozy, broken-down torch singer in "Key Largo," died
Saturday.

Trevor died at a hospital near her home here, said Richard Elbaum, a
spokesman for the family. He did not know the cause of death.

He gave her age as 90, based on a birthdate of March 8, 1910. Some movie Web
sites and biographies list a 1909 year of birth.

Trevor earned Oscar nominations for "Dead End," a 1937 melodrama in which
she played a good girl who grows up to be a prostitute, and for "The High
and the Mighty," a 1954 airplane-in-trouble epic.

She was also in John Ford's 1939 classic "Stagecoach," playing a frontier
prostitute redeemed by a gallant John Wayne.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 1987, Trevor was reluctant to
name a personal favorite among her films but singled out two she said "were
the most fun to make."

"'Stagecoach,' because John Ford was marvelous. And 'Key Largo' because
everyone in the cast was interesting or exciting or different," she
recalled. "I could have stayed on that picture for the rest of my life. I
adored it."

Trevor became a close friend of Wayne's and a neighbor in Newport Beach, a
wealthy enclave about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

"He was bigger than life, and he was as warm as the earth and as generous as
Croesus," she said.

In "Key Largo," Trevor played ex-singer Gaye Dawn, mistress of sadistic
gangster Edward G. Robinson. In one scene, he forces her to sing "Moanin'
Low" to get a badly craved drink. Trevor gamely makes it through the song
only to be refused the drink by Robinson "because you were rotten."

In the 1950s, she appeared in a number of television dramas and won a 1956
Emmy Award for her performance in "Dodsworth" on NBC's Producers Showcase.

Her last feature film was "Kiss Me Goodbye" in 1982. She played Sally
Field's poker-playing mother.

In 1987, she appeared in the television movie "Breaking Home Ties" as a
teacher who helps a high school boy in the 1950s.

She was born Claire Wemlinger in New York. When her father, a Fifth Avenue
clothier, lost his business during the Depression, she went to work to help
out the family.

She had been in school plays and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic
Arts.

"The only thing I knew how to do was act," she recalled. "And at that point,
I didn't even know much about that."

But the stage-struck beauty made her Broadway debut in 1932 and shot some
film shorts in Brooklyn at the Vitagraph studio. The following year she made
her feature film debut in "Life in the Raw," and soon was a contract player
in B movies.

Typically, such films were shot in 18 days.

"You'd work until 2 or 3 in the morning," she recalled.

She became known as "The Queen of the B's." In 1936 alone, she appeared in
eight films.

In a 1995 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Trevor remained supportive
of the old studio system.

"You had to do a lot of work that you didn't want to do; that's true -- a
lot of crummy pictures," she said. "But they knew how to build a star, and
they knew what to do with you. They also taught you everything."

Trevor was critical of the new Hollywood, saying it had "lost an enormous
amount of quality.

"I mean, everyone wants violence. If you don't have something violent in the
picture, it's considered no good."

Trevor married producer Clark Andrews in 1938 and they divorced four years
later. A second marriage to Cylos William Dunsmoore produced a son, Charles.

They divorced in 1947 and she married producer Milton Bren in 1948. His two
sons from a previous marriage, Peter and Donald Bren, and her son, Charles,
lived with the newlyweds.

"We were an instant family," Trevor told the Times. "I raised both of his
boys. They're like my own."

Charles died in an airliner crash in 1978. Milton died of a brain tumor in
1979. Stepson Donald became a billionaire real estate developer.

"Claire was a special woman whose lifelong passion was to bring joy to
others," Donald Bren said in a statement. "Her legacy will be the many ways
she touched people.

"We will all miss her. She was a great lady."

Funeral services will be private, and a memorial service was being planned.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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