TREVOR, CLAIRE

(1910–2000)

Born Claire Wemlinger in New York City, Claire Trevor began her career on the stage and made her film debut in 1933. With her blonde hair and small stature, Trevor was often cast as a hardened, experienced yet tempting case; she could seduce any male on the set with her smoky, come-on voice. Her real break came with Stagecoach (1939), where she played the prostitute Dallas. The upstanding ladies of the town escort Dallas to the last stagecoach out of town, where she accompanies a drunken physician and a whiskey drummer, a professional gambler, and a reputable banker (who has actually just embezzled from his own bank). One more passenger gets on—the officer’s wife, Lucy, very pregnant and going to meet her husband. Every passenger is desperate to get out of town, even if the Apaches are on the warpath. Outside of town, the stage meets the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), who has escaped from prison. Much of the film centers on the tension between the respectable passengers and the disrespectable ones. Dallas is immediately an outcast on the stagecoach, just as she was in town, but the Ringo Kid stands up for her. Eventually it is the prostitute and the drunken doctor who must deliver Lucy’s baby as matters deteriorate with the Apaches. Trevor’s character in one sense centers the plot between the competing interests of all the other characters. She followed Stagecoachwith another Western, Dark Command (1940), where once again she played John Wayne’s love interest. Then came Texas (1941), where Glenn Ford and William Holden fought over her. Later Westerns include Best of the Badmen(1951) and, opposite Randolph Scott, The Stranger Wore a Gun(1953). Through the years Trevor was nominated three times for best supporting actress and won the award once.