Ethel Clayton

Ethel Clayton (November 8, 1882 – June 6, 1966) was an American actress who built a career across both the Broadway stage and the silent film era. Born in Champaign, Illinois, she attended St. Elizabeth's school in Chicago before beginning her professional life in the theater.

Clayton's stage career began when she joined the chorus for a production at the Chicago Opera House. She subsequently gained experience with stock theater companies in Milwaukee and Minneapolis before making her way to Broadway, where she performed from 1909 to 1918. Her Broadway credits included His Name on the Door (1909), The Brute (1912), The Red Canary (1914), Nobody Home (1915), You're in Love (1917), and Fancy Free (1918), among other productions. Her stage work leaned heavily toward musicals and musical revues, including an appearance in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1911.

Parallel to her stage work, Clayton pursued a film career that began with short dramas between 1909 and 1912. Her first film was When the Earth Trembled, and she made her feature-length debut in For the Love of a Girl (1912), directed by Barry O'Neil. She went on to work with directors including William DeMille, Robert G. Vignola, George Melford, and Donald Crisp. The transition to sound film diminished her career, as it did for many performers of the silent era, though she continued taking smaller roles until her retirement in 1948. Her contributions to motion pictures are recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6936 Hollywood Boulevard.

Clayton's first marriage was to actor-director Joseph Kaufman, who died in 1918 during the Spanish flu epidemic. She later married silent film actor Ian Keith in Minneapolis in 1928. The two divorced, remarried, and divorced a second time, with Clayton citing cruelty and excessive drinking in both proceedings. The first separation was recorded on January 13, 1931.

In 1931, Clayton obtained an order from a California Superior Court preventing her former business partner, W.L. Rucker, from disposing of 316 pearls valued at $20,000. The pearls had been entrusted to Rucker to raise funds toward a jointly planned cosmetics business. When the deal collapsed, Rucker declined to return the jewels, though he acknowledged possessing them and claimed they had been pledged as security for a $125 loan.

Clayton died on June 6, 1966, at Guardian Convalescent Hospital in Oxnard, California, at the age of 83. She was buried at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in Ventura, California.