Claiborne Foster

Claiborne Foster, born Claiborne Foster Comegys on April 15, 1896, in Shreveport, Louisiana, was an American stage actress and book writer whose Broadway career spanned from 1910 to 1955. She was the daughter of Thomas McLoyd Comegys, a dentist, and Mary Elinor "Nell" Foster Comegys. Her aunt was suffragist Lucille Foster McMillin, and her uncle was diplomat Benton McMillin. Her older sister, Kathleen Foster Comegys (1893–1984), also pursued a career as an actress.

Foster's stage career began in 1910 with a role in The Blue Bird and continued through productions including Romance (1913), Miss Daisy (1914), A Full House (1914), Cousin Lucy (1915), and Abe and Mawruss (1915–1916). She appeared in The Girl in the Limousine (1919–1920), Ladies' Night (1920–1921), Two Fellows and a Girl (1923), Applesauce (1924), The Lady Killer (1924), Cheaper to Marry (1924), and The Patsy (1925). Her later credits included Sinner (1927), Trigger (1927), Eva the Fifth (1928), Gypsy (1929), Other Men's Wives (1929), Blind Mice (1930), A Widow in Green (1931), And Shadows Fall (1945), Dearly Beloved, Mr. Sycamore, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1956). In addition to performing, Foster wrote the book for two Broadway productions, On the Wing and Pretty Little Parlor (1944).

Foster's personal life included three marriages. In 1915, she married naval lieutenant James McDowell Cresap, who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic. Her second husband was Maxwell Jay Rice, an airline executive; they married in 1932 and relocated to Rio de Janeiro, where Rice died in 1943. Her third husband, Ned F. Foulds, died in 1978. In 1936, Foster survived a fatal plane crash in Trinidad. Following her retirement from the stage, she produced a program at WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Florida, where she died on February 21, 1981, at the age of 84.