Clara Kimball Young
Clara Kimball Young was born Sept. 6, 1890, in Chicago,
IL. She spent the very early years of her life on stage. After
attending St. Francis Xavier Academy for most of her teen years,
she went back to the theater. She met her husband, actor-director
James Young, while on tour in Salt Lake City. In 1912, they both
signed with Vitagraph. After two years and twenty films with Vitagraph,
she moved to Selznick in 1914. In at least one fan poll, she was
voted the most popular actress in 1914. Her popularity continued
to grow so much that Selznick formed the Clara Kimball Young Film
Company in 1916. The fact that her popularity continued to grow
and her husband's didn't is attributed, at least in part, to their
divorce in 1919. She married producer-director Harry Garson who
took control of her career. They left Selznick, and Young did
have some successes with films such as "Eyes of Youth"
(1919) which co-starred Milton Sills and an unknown Rudolph Valentino,
"Mid-Channel" (1920) and "Straight From Paris"
(1922). However, he style was not fitting well into the 1920's
vogue, and, feeling that her husband was mismanaging her career,
they separated. She continued to make films, only with mild success,
and also toured vaudeville, both here and in England. She married
Dr. Arthur Fauman in 1928 to whom she remained married until his
death in 1937. In 1932, she was in a serious automobile accident,
and in 1933 declared bankruptcy. Young's comeback film was considered
to be Joel McCrea's "Kept Husbands" (1932) in which
she played a society matron. She continued in these types of extra
roles in another 16 films, many of them low-budget westerns, until
her final film, "The Round-Up" (1941). In 1956, she
signed as a correspondent with Johnny Carson's comedy variety
show, which preceded his Tonight Show run, She moved into the
Motion Picture Country Home in January, 1960, and died in October
of that year.
Selected films of this star available for viewing:
Trilby (1917)
The Eyes of Youth (1919)
Mid-Channel (1920)
The Worldly Madonna (1922)
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