Clara Blandick

Clara Blandick (born Clara Blanchard Dickey; June 4, 1876 – April 15, 1962) was an American character, film, stage and theater actress who portrayed Aunt Em in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's The Wizard of Oz (1939). As a character actress, she often played eccentric elderly matriarchs. Early life She was born Clara Blanchard Dickey, the daughter of Isaac B. Dickey and Harriet “Hattie” Dickey (née Mudgett), aboard the Willard Mudgett – an American ship captained by her father (named after one of her maternal relatives), and docked in Victoria Harbour, British Hong Kong. She was delivered by Captain William H. Blanchard, whose ship, Wealthy Pendleton, was anchored nearby. His wife, Clara Pendleton Blanchard, was also present. To thank the Blanchards, Captain and Mrs. Dickey named their daughter Clara Blanchard Dickey. When she became successful as an actress, she took the first syllable of "Blanchard" and the first syllable of "Dickey" to create her stage name, "Clara Blandick". While she often used 1880 as her year of birth for professional purposes, she was actually born in 1876. According to the newspaper Daily Alta California, both the Willard Mudgett and the Wealthy Pendleton were in Hong Kong Harbor in June 1876. By 1880, Captain Dickey was in command of a different ship (the William Hales), and the rest of the family was in Quincy, Massachusetts. Her parents had settled in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1879 or 1880. Sources vary on when the Dickeys settled there, and Clara may have been two or three years old when they made the move. In nearby Boston she met the Shakespearean actor E. H. Sothern, with whom she appeared in a production of Richard Lovelace. She moved from Boston to New York City by 1900, and began pursuing acting as a career. Acting In 1897, Blandick was an understudy with The Walking Delegate company in Boston and her stage debut came in that production at the Tremont Theatre. In 1901, she portrayed Jehanneton in the play If I Were King, which ran for 56 performances at Garden Theatre (an early component of Madison Square Garden). She achieved acclaim for her role in The Christian.