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Once a shining star . . .Miss Ethel Claytonquiet lifefor today, not looking hack into pastRv I \ \ Rl //IIIA successful stage and screen career of 20 yearsis but a speck in the long and quiet life of Miss EthelClayton, a popular veteran actress of the silentscreen.Miss Clayton, who is currently at Guardian Convalescent Hospital in Oxnard, left the screen in the '30’s. And when she left, she left the limelight forgood.Since her last big picture in 1933, a talkie with Mary Pickford and Leslie Howard, Miss Clayton has lived a quiet and serene life, mostly in Ventura County with her mother and brother, both of whom have passed away.Miss C layton started as a member of the T. D, Frawley Stock Company and made her mark on Broadway before starting in pictures around 1909.LIGHT COMEDYwas usually cast as the “Sweet, Young rhing.” However she did play a thief once and said she enjoyed the part but her agent felt the role was bad for her image. He channelled her back to light comedy which she was better known for.The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences’ file on Miss Clayton describes her as extremely beautiful with soft grey eyes and light red hair. But Miss Clayton admits that she would occasionally lighten her hair and today at 82 her hair is stillblonde with just a touch of grev.ss Clayton says her salary was tops at over $10,000 a year along with Mary Pickford and Marguerite Clark. “Mary Pickford became better known later when she founded her own film company.“ Miss Clayton said, “but no one remembers Marguerite, although she was as popular at the box office asMary.Daniel Blum, who had written a series of books on the movie industry rates Ethel Clayton along with such top stars are Pickford, Clark, and Gloria Swan*Miss Clayton thought of her career mainly as alivelihood.“Oh I enjoyed the glamor,” she emphasized, “but I quit because 1 had enough money to take careof myself.*’She turned down manv roles after she retired butVshe does sav that the demand for her was also be-^ ..coming less and less. Her roles were also changing towards the end of her career, as she drew olderpa rts.*‘U I \(,l“We still age even though the cameras keep running,’ she philosophized.No one remembers much about Ethel Clayton’s career. One of her oldest and closet friends, Mrs. Inmo Yagodka of Camarillo says she knows very little about Miss Clayton’s past life.“She is a woman who lives in today and not in the glories of the years that have already gone by.” Mrs. Yagodka said“I know she traveled a great deal and has always been a student,” she added. In the years J have known her, she frequently studied languages and was quite fluent in French. Until very recently, she was up on all the current events,” Mrs. Yagodkasaid.Miss Clayton married twice. First in 1915 to Joseph Kaufman, who was a director for Paramount Studios. “We were scheduled to plav in a movie together, however he passed away that year frompneumonia,” Miss Clayton said.Her second marriage to Ian Keith, also an actor, lasted five years and they separated.During the flamboyant years in the movie industry when scandals ran amuck in Hollywood, Miss Clayton’s life was still rather quiet,.LIFE NO DIFFERENT“I led a satisfying life,” she said matter of fact-ly. Making movies was work for her and she feels her life was much like that of the average person.She had a large wardrobe and a generous amount of jewelry but still considered it all just part of herjob. •Movie making was so different then, she comments. “Five weeks of steady work and a movie wasfinished. No hair dressers or wardrobe people, Clayton said. “I fixed my own hair, bought my own wardrobe and madeup my own face.”“I get more help here from the nurses than Idid as a star.“But all those things are so long ago and 1 canhardly remember one year from another. It all just melts together,” she said with a faint smile.\ROVE —• Ethel Claytonwas a beautiful grey-eyed blonde as evidenced by this picture taken in theearly 1900’s.V I LE FT - In the e.irlxf V ;;20’s Miss Clayton appeared in “Sham” with Theodore Roberts. This picture is taken from a scene in the movie.
Newspaper Details
Oxnard Press Courier
Oxnard, California, US
Fri, Mar 04, 1966
Page 14
Full Page
Clipped by
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USA 01 Nov 2021
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