Lydia Clarke

Lydia Marie Clarke was an American actress and photographer born on April 14, 1923, in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. She attended high school in Lexington, Kentucky, and went on to graduate from Northwestern University. Her original career ambitions centered on law, but a remark made by poet Carl Sandburg after watching her perform with the Asheville Little Theatre prompted her to redirect her focus toward acting.

Clarke's Broadway career brought her recognition early in her professional life. In 1949, she appeared on Broadway in Detective Story, portraying the role of Mary McLeod. Her work in that production earned her a Theatre World Award in 1950. She also appeared on the television program Studio One, and made her film debut in The Greatest Show on Earth in 1952.

Alongside her acting work, Clarke pursued photography with sustained dedication, documenting subjects across multiple continents. Her photographic subjects ranged from Afghan refugees in the Khyber Pass to farming communities along the Nile. Publications including Time and Fortune featured her work, and her photographs were exhibited in museums and galleries. She also published her photography in two books.

On March 17, 1944, Clarke married actor Charlton Heston at Grace Methodist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. The marriage lasted 64 years, until Heston's death on April 5, 2008. Together they had two children, Fraser Clarke Heston and Holly Heston Rochell. Clarke and her husband also served as co-directors and performers at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Theatre in Asheville, North Carolina.

Clarke was a breast cancer survivor who had undergone a mastectomy. She died on September 3, 2018, from complications due to pneumonia at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 95.