Clare Boothe Luce

Playwright, U.S. Congressperson

1903 – 1987

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Who was Clare Boothe Luce?

Clare Boothe Luce was the first American woman appointed to a major ambassadorial post abroad. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play The Women, which had an all-female cast. Her writings extended from drama and screen scenarios to fiction, journalism, and war reportage. She was the wife of Henry Luce, publisher of Time, Life and Fortune.

Politically, Luce was a Republican who became steadily more conservative in later life. In her youth however, she flirted briefly with the Democratic liberalism of Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a protege of Bernard Baruch. During her two terms as a Congresswoman from Connecticut in the early 1940s, her moderate views, especially toward blacks, immigrants, and women denied professional careers, contrasted with those of most of men in her party. Although she was a strong supporter of the Anglo-American alliance in World War II, she remained outspokenly critical of the British presence in India. A charismatic and forceful public speaker, especially after her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1946, she campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate from Wendell Willkie to Ronald Reagan.

Famous Quotes:

  • Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.
  • A man has only one escape from his old self: to see a different self in the mirror of some woman's eyes.
  • In politics women type the letters, lick the stamps, distribute the pamphlets and get out the vote. Men get elected.
  • Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forbearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that -- being what it is -- it falls so short of in fact and in deed.
  • Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals -- With no cure except as a guillotine might be called a cure for dandruff.
  • Male supremacy has kept woman down. It has not knocked her out.
  • You know, that's the only good thing about divorce; you get to sleep with your mother.
  • Always remember, Peggy, it's matrimonial suicide to be jealous when you have a really good reason.
  • No woman has ever so comforted the distressed or distressed the comfortable. -- On Eleanor Roosevelt
  • A man's home may seem to be his castle on the outside; inside, it is more often his nursery.

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Born
Mar 10, 1903
New York City
Also known as
  • Clare Boothe
  • Ann Clare Boothe
Parents
Siblings
Spouses
Children
Religion
  • Catholicism
Nationality
  • United States of America
Profession
Employment
  • United States Ambassador to Italy, United States Department of State
    (1953/05/04 - 1956/12/27)
  • Managing Editor, Condé Nast Publications
    (1929 - 1934)
Lived in
  • Ridgefield
  • New York City
Died
Oct 9, 1987
Washington, D.C.

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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