Violet Heming

Biography

Born to English thespians who never met a footlight they didn’t like, Violet Heming crossed the Atlantic young enough to lose her accent but not her timing. In 1908 she spun into public view under Charles Frohman’s banner, whisking audiences up to Neverland as Wendy in “Peter Pan,” then trading pixie dust for pigtails in “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” Four years later she shared the boards with George Arliss during his patented portrait of “Disraeli,” already seasoned from a silent stint at Thanhouser (1910-12) that she shrugged off to conquer Chicago and, in 1914, the Columbia stock troupe in Washington, D.C. Hollywood beckoned again—briefly. Between 1917 and 1922 she clocked eight celluloid appearances, but Broadway kept her real applause alive: she darted through “Trelawny of the Wells,” sparred in “The Jest,” and untangled Cupid’s knots in “This Thing Called Love.” In 1926 she pooled clout with Mary Pickford and Helen Hayes to launch the Institute of the Woman’s Theater, bankrolling tomorrow’s leading ladies. A 1932 screen return saw her hailed as Mildred Miller opposite Arliss in “The Man Who Played God,” yet “Almost Married,” a quickie thriller with Ralph Bellamy, landed with a thud. Stage boards, not backlots, reclaimed her for good. Love arrived late: in 1945 she wed Judge Bennett Champ Clark, ex-senator from Missouri and card-shark crony of Harry S. Truman, who stood beaming as best man while the curtain rang down on a life spent almost entirely in the spotlight.