Clara Beyers

Biography

Silent-film siren Clara Beyers stepped before the camera just as the art form itself was learning to speak. Between 1916 and 1922 she slipped into three wildly different skins: the wily pickpocket of *Half a Rogue*, the street-tough title character of *L’apache*, and the schemer chasing the missing satchel in *The Black Bag*. Off-screen, her leading men weren’t make-believe—she walked down the aisle with fellow performer Carl Stockdale, then later with writer Joseph William Walsh, and finally with stage veteran Thomas McCarthy. The final curtain fell on 2 June 1935 in New York City, closing a life that had flickered brightly across the nickelodeon era.