Clara Morris

Clara Morris (1846–49 to November 20, 1925) was a Canadian-American stage actress born in Toronto, Ontario, who performed on Broadway from 1870 to 1904. The eldest child of a bigamous marriage, Morris moved with her mother to Cleveland at approximately age three after her father, whose name was La Montagne, was exposed as a bigamist. In Cleveland, mother and daughter adopted the name Morrison, derived from Clara's grandmother's surname, which Morris later shortened to Morris. Her formal schooling was limited, and around 1860 she joined the resident company of the Cleveland Academy of Music as a ballet girl, working under the management of John A. Ellsler.

After nine years of training with that company, Morris advanced to leading lady roles at Wood's Theatre in Cincinnati in 1869. She subsequently appeared in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and performed with Joseph Jefferson in Louisville before arriving in New York City in 1870. Her New York debut came in September of that year in Man and Wife, directed by Augustin Daly at his Fifth Avenue Theatre on West Twenty-fourth Street. The role of Anne Silvester had come to her by chance when the actress originally cast declined the part. On opening night, September 13, Morris was recalled during an early scene before the act concluded, an unusual distinction at the time. Daly went on to star her in a succession of emotionally demanding roles over the following three years, including No Name, Delmonico's, L'Article 47, Alixe, Jezebel, and Madeline Morel. Her 1872 performance in L'Article 47 was particularly noted as a sensation.

Morris departed Daly's company in 1873 and in November of that year starred under A. M. Palmer's management in The Wicked World at the Union Square Theatre. The years that followed brought a string of prominent successes: Camille in 1874, The New Leah in 1875, Miss Multon in 1876, Jane Eyre in 1877, and The New Magdalen in 1882. Miss Multon, an American adaptation of a French version of East Lynne, became her most popular role. She also appeared in the Broadway productions of The Two Orphans, New Year's Eve, or, False Shame, the musical Saratoga, and A Man and His Wife, among other productions. Her Broadway career extended across roles that showcased her reputation for spontaneity and naturalism in portraying the impassioned heroines of French melodrama. She toured extensively, particularly during the 1880s, and her emotional power drew audiences throughout those years. The declining popularity of melodrama, combined with uncertain health, brought her performing career to a close in the 1890s.

Morris married Frederick C. Harriott on November 30, 1874, and supported him financially until he began acting alongside her in 1892. During her retirement in Riverdale, New York, she contributed articles on acting to various magazines and wrote a daily newspaper column for ten years. She also published a substantial body of literary work, beginning around 1885, including A Silent Singer (1899), Little Jim Crow, and Other Stories of Children (1900), Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections (1901), A Pasteboard Crown (1902), Stage Confidences (1902), The Trouble Woman (1904), The Life of a Star (1906), Left in Charge (1907), New East Lynne (1908), A Strange Surprise (1910), and Dressing Room Receptions (1911). In Life on the Stage she recounted her meeting with John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. In an article published in the March 1904 issue of Metropolitan magazine, Morris described an encounter with Mark Twain in which he offered to introduce her onstage after the scheduled introducer missed a train. The two walked to the stage arm in arm, and each mistook the audience's applause as intended for the other, neither acknowledging it until they exchanged a reproachful look and bowed together.

In 1910, Morris lost her sight and experienced poverty. The house she had occupied for thirty-seven years was sold in 1914, and she relocated to Whitestone, Long Island. She died of a heart attack in New Canaan, Connecticut, on November 20, 1925. A plaque on the grounds of the Cleveland Public Library marks the site of her childhood home, and a school in Cleveland, the Clara Morris School, located at 1900 St. Clair Avenue NE, bore her name until the building was demolished in 1968.