Claire Dodd

Claire Dodd (born Dorothy Arlene Dodd, December 29 1911) was a prolific American film actress whose career spanned the early sound era of Hollywood. Raised in a itinerant farming family that moved from Iowa to Colorado, Kansas, Arizona, Missouri and Montana, she eventually settled in California around 1927 where she worked as a model in Los Angeles. Her striking looks caught the attention of Florenz Ziegfeld, who cast her in a tiny part in Eddie Cantor’s musical film Who‑Who! and then offered her a role in his Broadway production Smiles. After the Broadway run she secured a five‑year contract with Paramount Pictures, but it was a Warner Brothers deal with Darryl F. Zanuck that truly launched her screen career. Between 1930 and 1942 Dodd appeared in more than sixty films, often type‑cast as the glamorous “other woman” – a femme fatale, seductress or blackmailer – roles that showcased her poise and striking dark‑hair beauty. Notable performances include playing secretary Della Street opposite Warren William’s Perry Mason in The Case of the Curious Bride (1935) and its sequel The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936), where Della Street uniquely weds Mason on screen. She also contributed memorable turns in Footlight Parade (1933), The Glass Key (1935), and Abbott and Costello’s comedy In the Navy (1941).

Off‑screen Dodd guarded her privacy fiercely, earning the nickname “Hollywood’s mystery girl.” In 1931 she married investment banker Jack Milton Strauss; the couple’s first child, Jon Michael Strauss, was born in 1936, a fact that surprised many Hollywood society circles. The marriage ended in divorce in 1938. She retired from acting in the early 1940s and, in 1942, married Harry Brand Cooper of the prominent Glendale Brand family, with whom she raised five children. Claire Dodd died of cancer on November 23 1973 in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 61, and is interred in the Brand Family Cemetery in Glendale.