Claire Trevor née Wemlinger March 8 1910 April 8 2000 was an American actress She appeared in 65 feature films from 1933 to 1982 winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Key Largo 1948 and received nominations for her roles in The High and the Mighty 1954 and Dead End 1937 Trevor received top billing ahead of John Wayne for Stagecoach 1939 Trevors acting career spanned more than seven decades and included successes in stage radio television and film She often played the hardboiled blonde and every conceivable type of bad girl role She made her stage debut in the summer of 1929 with a repertory company in Ann Arbor Michigan She subsequently returned to New York where she appeared in a number of Brooklynfilmed Vitaphone short films and performed in summer stock theatre In 1932 she starred on Broadway as the female lead in Whistling in the Dark Trevor made her film debut in Jimmy and Sally 1933 From 1933 to 1938 Trevor starred in 29 films often having either the lead role or the role of heroine In 1937 she was the second lead actress after topbilled Sylvia Sidney in Dead End with Humphrey Bogart which led to her nomination for Best Supporting Actress From 1937 to 1940 she appeared with Edward G Robinson in the popular radio series Big Town while continuing to make movies In the early 1940s she also was a regular on The Old Gold Don Ameche Show on the NBC Red Radio Network starring with Ameche in presentations of plays by Mark Hellinger In 1939 she was well established as a solid leading lady One of her more memorable performances during this period includes the Western Stagecoach 1939 Two of Trevors most memorable roles were opposite Dick Powell in Murder My Sweet 1944 and with Lawrence Tierney in Born to Kill 1947 In Key Largo 1948 Trevor played Gaye Dawn a washedup alcoholic nightclub singer and gangsters moll For that role she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Her third and final Oscar nomination was for her performance in The High and the Mighty 1954 In 1957 she won an Emmy for her role in the Producers Showcase episode entitled Dodsworth Trevor moved into supporting roles in the 1950s with her appearances becoming very rare after the mid1960s She played Charlotte the mother of Kay Sally Field in Kiss Me Goodbye 1982 Her final television role was for the 1987 television film Norman Rockwells Breaking Home Ties Trevor made a guest appearance at the 70th Academy Awards in 1998 For her contribution to the motion picture industry she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard biography excerpted from Wikipedia
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