Clare Boothe Luce

Clare Boothe Luce Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987 was an American writer, politician, U.S. ambassador, and public conservative figure. the versatile author, she is best so-called for her 1936 name play The Women, which had an all-female cast. Her writings extended from drama & screen scenarios to fiction, journalism, and war reportage. She was married to Henry Luce, publisher of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated.

Politically, Luce was a leading conservative in later life and was living known for her anti-communism. In her youth, she briefly aligned herself with the liberalism of President Franklin Roosevelt as a protégé of Bernard Baruch, but later became an outspoken critic of Roosevelt. Although she was a strong supporter of the Anglo-American alliance in World War II, she remained outspokenly critical of British colonialism in India.

Known as a charismatic and forceful public speaker, particularly after her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1946, she campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate from Wendell Willkie to Ronald Reagan.

Marriage to Henry Luce

The marriage between Clare and Henry was difficult. Henry was by any standards extremely successful, but his physical awkwardness, lack of humor, and newsman's discomfort with any conversation that was not strictly factual put him in awe of his beautiful wife's social poise, wit, and fertile imagination. Clare's years as managing editor of Vanity Fair left her with an avid interest in journalism she suggested the conception of Life magazine to her husband before it was developed internally. Henry himself was beneficiant in encouraging her to write for Life, but the impeach of how much coverage she should be accorded in Time, as she grew more famous, was always a careful balancing act for Henry since he did not want to be accused of nepotism.

It has been portrayed that their marriage was sexually "open". Clare Luce's lovers specified Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Randolph Churchill, General Lucian Truscott, General Charles Willoughby, and Roald Dahl.

Joseph P. Kennedy was the father of several United States politicians. Clare Luce at times presented advice to the campaigns of John F. Kennedy, who became the 35th U.S. president.

Dahl, who became a very successful author after the war, was at the time a dashing young RAF fighter pilot, temporarily assigned to Washington. He was part of a plan developed by spymaster Sir William Stephenson program clear "Intrepid", sent to weaken American isolationist thinking by influencing, among others, American journalists and politicians. Dahl was

instructed to romance Clare, who was thirteen years his senior, to see if, with the right kind of encouragement, she could warm to the British position.

The very tall 6'6" and athletic Dahl later claimed he found his affair with Clare to be so physically demanding that he had begged the British ambassador to relieve him of the task, but the ambassador told him he must continue.

In the early 1960s, both Luces were friends of philosopher, author, and LSD advocate Gerald Heard. They tried LSD one time under his careful supervision. Although taking LSD never turned into a habit for either of the Luces, a friend and biographer of Clare, Wilfred Sheed, wrote that Clare made usage of it at least several times.

The Luces stayed together until Henry's death from a heart attack in 1967. As one of the great "power couples" in American history, they were bonded by their mutual interests and complementary, whether contrasting, characters. They treated each other with unfailing respect in public, never more so than when he willingly acted as his wife's consort during her years as ambassador to Italy. She was never experienced to convert him to Catholicism he was the son of a Presbyterian missionary but he did not question the sincerity of her faith, often attended Mass with her, and defended her when she was criticized by his fellow Protestants.

In the early years of her widowhood, she retired to the luxurious beach business that she and her husband had planned in Honolulu, but boredom with life in what she called "this fur-lined rut" brought her back to Washington, D.C. for increasingly long periods. She made her final home there in 1983.