Claire McDowell

Acting

Claire McDowell

Born 1877-10-31 · New York City, New York, USA

Claire McDowell (2 November 1877 – 23 October 1966) was an American actress. She appeared in 360 films between 1908 and 1945. Still somewhat of a youthful beauty when she started in early silent films, McDowell appeared in numerous films, eventually graduating to playing character and mother types. She can be seen to good advantage in Douglas Fairbanks's 1920 The Mark of Zorro. McDowell appeared in two of the biggest films of the silent era, The Big Parade (1925) and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), both in which she played mothers. She was married to silent screen character actor Charles Hill Mailes from 1906 to his 1937 death. The couple appeared in numerous silent films together, including The Mark of Zorro. They had two sons, Robert Mailes and Eugene Mailes. Claire McDowell died, aged 88, in Hollywood, California. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Acting credits

It Happened One Night poster
7.8

A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.

It Happened One Night

1934

Dollar Down poster
7.0

Just before he propelled the crime melodrama to new, macabre heights in The Unholy Three, Browning directed this partially lost morality tale pertaining to a different kind of horror: that of a middle-class family living beyond their means and falling prey to moneylenders. Produced by and starring Ruth Roland for FBO Studios, a small operation that later became RKO Pictures, Dollar Down follows Roland as the spendthrift daughter of a manufacturing firm’s general manager (Henry Walthall), who pawns a ring purchased on credit to throw an extravagant party and sends the family’s livelihood into a tailspin. Because its last reel completely disintegrated before it could be copied, the film remains an ultra-rare curio that nonetheless captures an important chapter in Browning’s career before his successful string of films made for MGM.

Dollar Down

1925

A Woman Scorned poster
NR

Thieves follow a doctor as he takes home a large sum of money. Later, when they break into his house, the doctor's wife and daughter are trapped. One of the thieves has jilted his sweetheart, who tells the doctor of the robbery, and helps him save his family.

A Woman Scorned

1911

Boys Town poster
6.8

Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.

Boys Town

1938

Michael O'Halloran poster
10.0

Orphan newsboy Michael O'Halloran "adopts" Peaches, a little crippled girl, when her grandmother's death leaves her alone in the world. A chance acquaintance with lawyer Douglas Bruce draws Michael into contact with the Hardings, a farm couple, who bring Michael and Peaches to the country. Wholesome food and good fresh air give Peaches the strength to walk. Also friends of Douglas Bruce are the James Minturns, a wealthy young couple whose marriage breaks up over Nellie Minturn's neglect of their children for a society life. Nellie eventually realizes her error, devotes herself to hospital work, and is reunited with James while bird-calling in the woods.

Michael O'Halloran

1923

Blind Youth poster
7.0

Maurie Monnier, a poor young American sculptor in Paris, marries Clarice, a gold-digging model who later abandons him. When Maurie's wealthy father dies, Maurie returns to the U.S., but his mother and brother will have nothing to do with him because of his poverty. At the end of his rope, he's about to kill himself when he meets Hope, a beautiful young girl who inspires him. Just when things are looking up for Maurie and his new love Hope, who should show up but his gold-digging wife Clarice.

Blind Youth

1920

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ poster
7.3

Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

1925

Hangmen Also Die! poster
6.9

During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny and his daughter Mascha.

Hangmen Also Die!

1943

No artwork available
NR

The old inventors daughter is a mission worker. She makes a convert of a young crook and eventually becomes engaged to marry him. But her father does not approve of him, and shows him the door when he learns from a detective the record of his daughter's suitor. The inventor's plans are stolen by an unscrupulous manufacturer, and the crook volunteers to recover them.

Her Convert

1915

Idiot's Delight poster
6.1

A group of disparate travelers are thrown together in a posh Alpine hotel when the borders are closed at the start of WWII.

Idiot's Delight

1939

Presenting Lily Mars poster
6.5

Starstruck Indiana small-town girl Lily is pestering theatrical producer John Thornway for a role but he is reluctant.

Presenting Lily Mars

1943

Imitation of Life poster
7.0

A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.

Imitation of Life

1934

The Show Off poster
7.2

A blowhard who poses as a railroad executive (but is really just a $30-a-week clerk) catches a young bride and then drives her family's finances to the brink of ruin.

The Show Off

1926

The Big Parade poster
7.6

The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.

The Big Parade

1925

The Mark of Zorro poster
7.2

Don Diego Vega pretends to be an indolent fop as a cover for his true identity, the masked avenger Zorro. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

The Mark of Zorro

1920

Chasing Rainbows poster
NR

When Sadie, a waitress in a Kansas City railroad station, discovers that her lover Jim Lacy is married and has a child, she transfers to the small desert town of Bagdad, determined to hate all men, but the open spaces and friendliness of the people work to soften her attitude. She falls in love with Billy Thompson, the restaurant's manager, after they rescue an Indian girl from her furious lover.

Chasing Rainbows

1919

No artwork available
NR

Under police espionage, Crooked Joe is living with his wife and baby when Norris, his former pal, tries to interest him in a job. He refuses, and subsequently earns his old pal's animosity when Norris makes advances to his wife. Norris "frames" Joe, and he is sent to prison on a charge of robbing his employers.

Old Offenders

1915

Young Tom Edison poster
5.9

Inventor Thomas Edison's boyhood is chronicled and shows him as a lad whose early inventions and scientific experiments usually end up causing disastrous results. As a result, the towns folk all think Tom is crazy, and creating a strained relationship between Tom and his father. Tom's only solace is his understanding mother who believes he's headed to do great things.

Young Tom Edison

1940

Du Barry Was a Lady poster
6.5

Hat check man Louis Blore is in love with nightclub star May Daly. May, however, is in love with a poor dancer but wants to marry for money. When Louis wins the Irish Sweepstakes, he asks May to marry him and she accepts even though she doesn't love him. Soon after, Louis has an accident and gets knocked on the head, where he dreams that he's King Louis XV pursuing the infamous Madame Du Barry.

Du Barry Was a Lady

1943

Penrod poster
10.0

Young rapscallion Penrod Schofield causes a good deal of trouble in his community, all in the name of protecting kids from too-strict parents and nasty neighbors. He heads the ABPA (American Boys' Protective Association) and through it disrupts a number of local social events. The townspeople are pretty fed up with Penrod and his gang, but when a couple of outlaws come to town, Penrod shows his mettle.

Penrod

1922

A Successful Calamity poster
5.6

Henry Wilton is an elderly millionaire saddled with his selfish young second wife Emmy 'Sweetie' Wilton and a pair of spoiled grown children, Peggy and Eddie. To test his family's mettle, Henry pretends to have gone broke. Just as he suspected they would, his children rally to their father's side and change their ways: Peggy forsakes the fortune hunter George Struthers for the nice young man she's really in love with, the polo coach Larry Rivers, while Eddie applies for a demanding job and performs admirably. Only Sweetie seems to desert Henry.

A Successful Calamity

1932

No artwork available
NR

The girl's lessons from the young station agent on the manipulation of the telegraph code served her in good stead. By it, hemmed in on all sides at the lonely farmhouse, she was able to save both herself and her father's money from desperate tramps, an experience which is grippingly illustrated in this Biograph melodrama.

The Mirror

1913

Stand Up and Fight poster
6.0

A southern aristocrat clashes with a driver transporting stolen slaves to freedom.

Stand Up and Fight

1939

This Land Is Mine poster
7.1

Somewhere in Europe, in a city occupied by the Nazis, a gentle school teacher finds himself torn between collaboration and resistance, cowardice and courage.

This Land Is Mine

1943