Clara Blandick was an American stage and screen actress best known for her role as Aunt Em in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. She was born Clara Blanchard Dickey aboard the Willard Mudgett – an American ship captained by her father. She moved from Boston to New York City by 1900, and began pursuing acting as a career.
About Clara Blandick in brief
Clara Blandick was an American stage and screen actress best known for her role as Aunt Em in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. As a character actress, she often played eccentric elderly matriarchs. She was born Clara Blanchard Dickey aboard the Willard Mudgett – an American ship captained by her father, and docked in Victoria Harbour, British Hong Kong. Her parents had settled in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1879 or 1880. She moved from Boston to New York City by 1900, and began pursuing acting as a career. Blandick finally broke onto Broadway in 1912, when she was cast as Dolores Pennington in Widow By Proxy. By the 1930s, she was well known in theatrical and film circles as an established supporting actress. Though she landed roles like Aunt Polly in the 1930 film Tom Sawyer, she spent much of the decade as a character actor, often going uncredited.
In 1939, Blandick landed her most memorable minor role as an important symbol of the good witch of Oz, Glinda, who beat the bad witch from the Good Witch of the North. Some believed Aunt Em’s alter ego was to be Glinda herself, who was only eight years old at the time of the film’s release. The role earned her 750 USD per week, and she earned rave reviews for her supporting role in the Pulitzer Prize winning play Hell-Bent Fer Heaven, which ran for 122 performances at the Klaw Theatre in New York. She also continued to act on stage and occasionally in silent pictures, including in the film Mrs. Black is Back.
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