Clara Clemens

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Clara Clemens
Picture of woman in her thirties with short dark hair in a light dress with a necklace of dark beads sitting in an ornate wooden chair and holding a fan in her right hand and with her left hand clasping her cheek and chin.
Clemens c. 1907
Background information
Birth nameClara Langhorne Clemens
Born(1874-06-08)June 8, 1874
Elmira, New York, U.S.
DiedNovember 19, 1962(1962-11-19) (aged 88)
San Diego, California, U.S.
GenresConcert singer
Instrument(s)Piano
Years active1906–1908
Spouse(s)
  • (m. 1909; died 1936)
  • (m. 1944)

Clara Langhorne Clemens Samossoud

Christian Scientist
.

Childhood

Clara was the second of three daughters born to Samuel Clemens and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens in Elmira, New York.[3][4] Her older sister Susy died when Clara was 22. Her brother Langdon died as an infant before she was born. Her younger sister was Jean. Clara had a serious accident as a child while riding a toboggan; she was hurled into a tree, resulting in a severe leg injury that almost led to amputation.[5]

Early career

Photograph of Mark Twain playing piano, with his daughter Clara and her friend behind him
Twain with his daughter Clara and her friend

Clara lived in

Cambridge Universities.[2][17]

Marriage and inheritance

Photograph taken by Frank J. Sprague at the wedding of Clemens and Ossip Gabrilowitsch. From left: Mark Twain, Jervis Langdon Jr., Clara Clemens , Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Jean Clemens, Joseph Twichell.

Clemens went for a sleigh ride on December 20, 1908, with Russian concert pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch who was staying with her father at his residence "Innocents at Home" in Redding, Connecticut.[18][19] The horse was frightened by a flapping newspaper and it bolted, causing Gabrilowitsch to lose control. The sleigh overturned at the top of a hill near a 50-foot (15 m) drop, throwing Clemens out. Gabrilowitsch saved both her and the horse from plunging over the edge, spraining an ankle in his exertions. He returned Clemens home unharmed except for the shock of the accident.[18] Twain biographer Michael Shelden doubts the truth of this heroic tale and suggests that the story was planted in the press to quiet rumors that Clara was having an affair with Charles Wark, her former accompanist and a married man.[20]

Theodor Leschetizky was training Gabrilowitsch in Vienna in 1899, and he introduced him to Clemens.[9] They were married on October 6, 1909, in the drawing room at Stormfield, the Clemens home, with her father's friend Rev. Joseph Twichell presiding.[21][22][5]) Her father said that the engagement was not new, having been "made and dissolved twice six years ago".[22] He also said that the marriage was sudden because Gabrilowitsch had just recovered from a surgical operation which he had undergone in the summer and they were about to head off to their new house in Berlin where he would begin his European season.[22]

Samuel Clemens died on April 21, 1910, leaving his estate to be equally divided between his surviving daughters in a will dated August 17, 1909. His daughter Jean Clemens died in the bathtub on December 24, 1909, after having an epileptic seizure.[23] Clara inherited the entire estate, which provided quarterly payments of interest to keep it "free from any control or interference from any husband she may have."[24] On July 9, Clara announced that she was donating her father's library of nearly 2,500 books to the Mark Twain Free Library.[25]

On August 19, 1910, Clara's only child Nina was born at Stormfield.[26] Nina Gabrilowitsch (1910–1966) was Twain's last descendant, and she died January 16, 1966, in a Los Angeles hotel. She had been a heavy drinker, and bottles of pills and alcohol were found in her room.[27]

Later life

Ossip and Clara (in her forties) at a piano showing the upper half of their bodies. Ossip sits at the piano looks to the right with one hand resting on the keyboard. Clara is standing and leans her elbow on the top of the piano and looks at Ossip. Her hair is dark short and styled in waves.
Clara Clemens with her husband Ossip Gabrilowitsch

On April 23, 1926, Clara played the title role in a dramatization of Twain's 1896 novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc at Walter Hampden's Broadway theater.[28] This adaptation and her performance were not very well received by critics.[28]

It was again produced in 1927, opening on April 12 for a series of special morning and afternoon performances at the Edyth Totten Theatre.[29][30]

Gabrilowitsch was conductor of the

Jacques Samossoud on May 11, 1944, a Russian-born symphony conductor 20 years her junior. They were married in her Hollywood home.[32]

Clara explored eastern religions for several years before embracing Christian Science, but there are questions as to her seriousness and commitment to it. She wrote Awake to a Perfect Day on the subject, published in 1956.[33][34] She also published biographies of her father (My Father, Mark Twain in 1931) and of her first husband (My Husband: Gabrilowitsch in 1938).[35]

She objected in 1939 to the release of her father's Letters from the Earth, but she changed her stance and allowed them to be published shortly before her death on November 20, 1962.[36] She prevented Charles Neider from including certain of her father's dictations from June 1906 (the 19th, 20th, 22nd, 23rd, and 25th) in the version of The Autobiography of Mark Twain that was in preparation into 1958.[37]

Published works

Notes

  1. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    , retrieved April 23, 2008
  2. ^ , retrieved April 21, 2008
  3. .
  4. ^ a b Clemens, Clara (1931), "The Father of Three Little Girls", My Father Mark Twain, New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, pp. 5, 14
  5. ISSN 0362-4331
  6. , retrieved April 23, 2008
  7. ^ , retrieved April 22, 2008
  8. , retrieved April 21, 2008
  9. ^ , retrieved April 21, 2008
  10. , retrieved April 21, 2008
  11. , retrieved April 21, 2008
  12. , retrieved April 21, 2008
  13. , retrieved September 20, 2009
  14. , retrieved April 21, 2008
  15. , retrieved April 21, 2008
  16. ^ , retrieved April 21, 2008
  17. ^ The house was later renamed Stormfield. "Mark Twain on 'Innocence at Home,' Grover Cleveland, and God," Shapell Manuscript Foundation, n.d. Retrieved June 12, 2018.
  18. ^ Shelden, M.: Mark Twain: Man in White. Random House, 2010
  19. ISSN 0362-4331
    , retrieved April 21, 2008
  20. ^ , retrieved April 23, 2008
  21. , retrieved April 21, 2008
  22. , retrieved April 22, 2008
  23. , retrieved April 22, 2008
  24. , retrieved April 22, 2008
  25. ^ Mark Twain Online
  26. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    , retrieved April 23, 2008
  27. , retrieved April 23, 2008
  28. , retrieved April 23, 2008
  29. , retrieved April 22, 2008
  30. , retrieved April 22, 2008
  31. ^ The New York Times, November 21, 1962, transcribed on TwainQuotes. Retrieved November 27, 2020.
  32. ^ The New York Times, November 21, 1962, from TwainQuotes, op. cit.
  33. ^ Charles Neider, The Autobiography of Mark Twain, introduction (noted from Blackstone Audio version).

References

  • Trombley, Laura Skandera (2010), Mark Twain's Other Women: The Hidden Story of His Final Years This book includes new details regarding a romantic connection between Clara Clemens and her piano accompanist, Charles E. "Will" Wark (a married man), also the impact this illicit romantic relationship had on her father, Samuel Clemens and how it eventually fostered Clara Clemen's relationship with Ossip Gabrilowitz.

External links