Clare Boothe Luce
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| Playwright, novelist, first U.S. Congresswoman from Connecticut; Ambassador to Italy.
Born in New York City to an ex-chorus girl and an itinerant musician who soon deserted his family, Clare and her younger brother knew poverty first-hand. Blessed with intelligence and an ambitious mother, Clare was sent to the best schools her mother could afford, where she excelled academically and was able to create professional networks .
Following her schooling, Clare met and married the wealthy George Brokaw, with whom she had her only child, Anne. The marriage ended in divorce. She then went to work as an editor of VANITY FAIR, traveling 72,000 miles as correspondent, and wrote the first of several plays, The Women. In 1935 she married Henry Luce, co-founder of TIME Magazine and later LIFE Magazine. In 1941 Clare Boothe Luce agreed to run for political office, filling the seat held by her late step-father, Dr. Austin. She won the election and in 1949 was re-elected. While in Congress she was named to the powerful Committee on Military Affairs. Throughout her term she attacked President Roosevelt's foreign policy and management of the war effort. As the war ended, Clare issued a warning about the threat of aggression from the Soviet Union . At the request of President Eisenhower, she was named Ambassador to Italy in 1946. She was a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan. She was devastated by the death of her daughter in an automobile accident and, following the death of Henry Luce, Clare lived in Hawaii much of the year, returning to Washington in the 1980's where she died in October 1987. | |||||||||||
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