Profile of Clara Blandick on Famous Like Me

Clara Blandick (born June 4, 1881 in Hong Kong; died April 15, 1962 in Hollywood, California) was a twentieth century American actress best known for her portrayal of Auntie Em in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Early life

She was born Clara Dickey aboard an American ship docked in the Hong Kong harbor and spent some of her early years living with her family in Hong Kong. The remainder of her youth was spent growing up in Boston. There, she met famed Shakespearean actor, E. H. Sothern, whom she appeared onstage with in a production of the play Richard Lovelace.

Acting

She moved from Boston to New York City and began pursuing acting as a career. Her first professional appearance came in 1901, when she was cast as Jehanneton in the play If I Were King, which ran for 56 performances at Garden Theatre (an early component of Madison Square Garden). She achieved acclaim for her role in The Christian and was described by newspaper critics as a "dainty, petite, and graceful" heroine. In 1911 she made her first movie, appearing in the short, silent film The Maid's Double. Blandick finally broke onto Broadway in 1912, when she was cast as Dolores Pennington in Widow By Proxy which ran for 88 performances through early 1913 at George M. Cohan's Theatre on Broadway.

She would continue to achieve success on the stage, playing a number of starring roles, including the lead in Madame Butterfly. By 1914 she was reappearing on the silver screen, this time as Emily Mason in the film Mrs. Black is Back.

During World War I, Blandick performed some overseas volunteer work for the American Expeditionary Force in France. She also continued to act on stage and occassionally in silent pictures.

In 1924, she earned rave reviews for her supporting role in the Pulitzer Prize winning play Hell-Bent Fer Heaven, which ran for 122 performances at the Klaw Theatre in New York (later renamed CBS Radio Playhouse No. 2).

In 1929, Blandick moved to Hollywood. By the 1930s, she was well-known in theatrical and film circles as an established supporting actress. Though she landed roles like Aunt Polly in the 1930 film Tom Sawyer (a role she reprised in the 1931 film Huckleberry Finn), she spent much of the decade as a character actor, often going uncredited. At a time when many actors were permanently attached to a single studio, Blandick played a wide number of bit parts for almost every major Hollywood studio (though she would later be under contract with Twentieth Century Fox). In 1930, she acted in nine different films. In 1931 she was in thirteen different films.

The Wizard of Oz

In 1939, Blandick landed her most memorable minor role yet – Auntie Em in MGM's The Wizard of Oz. Though it was a small part (Blandick filmed all her scenes in a single week), the character was an important symbol of protagonist Dorothy's quest to return home throughout the film. (Auntie Em and Uncle Henry are the only characters from the beginning of the movie not to have alter ego characters in the latter half). Blandick beat out May Robson, Janet Beecher, and Sarah Padden for the role, and earned $750 per week.

Though the Auntie Em character proved memorable to audiences, few fans knew Blandick's name. She was not billed in the opening credits and is listed last in the movie's closing credits. During the years CBS owned the exclusive rights to broadcast Wizard of Oz on television, the network never aired the closing cast list – Blandick's only credit in her most famous film.

After Wizard of Oz, Blandick returned to her staple of character acting in supporting and bit roles. She would continue to act in a wide variety of roles in dozens of films. She played the spiteful Mrs. Pringle in 1940's Anne of Windy Poplars, a surprised customer in the 1941 Marx Brothers film The Big Store, a fashionable socialite in the 1944 musical Can't Help Singing, and a cold-blooded murderer in the 1947 mystery Philo Vance Returns. Her final two roles both came in 1950 – playing a housekeeper and a landlady in Key to the City and Love That Brute respectively.

She retired from acting at the age of 69 and went into seclusion at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Death

Throughout the 1950s, Blandick's health steadily began to fail. She started going blind and began suffering from severe arthritis. On April 15, 1962, she returned home from Palm Sunday services at her church and began rearranging her room, placing her favorite photos and memorabilia in prominent places. She laid out her resume and a collection of press clippings from her lengthy career. Then, immaculately dressed with her hair properly styled, she took an overdose of sleeping pills, lay down on a couch, covered herself with a gold blanket, and tied a plastic bag over her head. She left the following note: “I am now about to make the great adventure. I cannot endure this agonizing pain any longer. It is all over my body. Neither can I face the impending blindness. I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”

She was interred at the Great Mausoleum, Columbarium of Security (Niche 17230) at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale.

Trivia

Clara Blandick appears as a character in the play The Suicide Manual by Marki Shalloe. It tells the story of a troubled woman contemplating suicide, who is visited by the spirits of various celebrities who killed themselves. The play opened March 3, 2005 at Whole World Theatre in Atlanta. Clara Blandik's role was performed by Frankie Earle.

External Links

• Internet Broadway Database Entry
• Clara Blandick at the Internet Movie Database

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