Mae Clarke Movies and Career Information

Mae Clarke (August 16, 1910 – April 29, 1992) was an American actress. Clarke was born Violet Mary Klotz in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was a theatre organist. She studied dancing as a child and began on stage in Vaudeville and in night clubs. She started her professional career as a dancer sharing a room with Barbara Stanwyck, and subsequently starred in many films for Universal Studios, including the original screen version of The Front Page (1931) and the first sound version of Frankenstein (1931) with Boris Karloff. Clarke played the role of Henry Frankenstein's fiancee in Frankenstein, who was attacked by the Monster (Karloff) on her wedding day. The Public Enemy, released that same year, contained one of cinema's most famous (and frequently parodied) scenes, in which James Cagney pushed a half grapefruit into Clarke's face, then went out and picked up Jean Harlow. The film was so popular that it ran 24 hours a day at a theatre in Times Square upon its initial release, and Clarke's ex-husband had the grapefruit scene timed and would frequently buy a ticket, enter the theatre to enjoy that sequence, then leave the theatre. She appeared as Myra Deauville, in the 1931