All about Clare

Take a close look at one of the world's most famous women

STORY SUMMARY »

Knowledge of all but the most monumental public figures dissipates over time, such that even with such a high profile as Clare Boothe Luce, those born after her heyday of the 1940s through '60s would have to wonder what she was all about.

A polite biography would describe her as an editor, playwright, social activist, politician, journalist and diplomat.

"Clare: The Honolulu Years" By David W. Eyre (Mutual Publishing) 254 pages, hardcover, $35

Meanwhile, "A Brief History of the Courtesan," attached to Luce's Wikipedia biography, describes her as an opportunist and femme fatale. It reads, in part, "She married millionaire George Brokaw at the age of 19, but her husband died only seven years later, and with his passing she inherited his Fifth Avenue New York mansion, his fortune and her freedom. ...

..."Later she was introduced to Time magazine publisher Henry Luce ... in what was widely seen as a contrived move."

I've always suspected that Clare Boothe Luce owed part of her renown, like faux celebrities today, to money and marriage to one of the most powerful and famous men in the nation. A new book by journalist and raconteur David W. Eyre, "Clare: The Honolulu Years," does nothing to dispel such thoughts.

As the writer makes clear, the book is not intended to be a biography of her public life and accomplishments. It is, instead, an intimate work well suited to these tell-all, blog-filled times; its tone is breezy, casual and gossipy.

While showing readers what Luce's life was like here, Eyre reveals her to have been, without her husband, a woman quite lost, who didn't know herself at all. And though the book's tone is casual, it manages to be both critical and sympathetic. In Hawaii, Luce demanded the respect she had commanded on the world stage, while failing to earn it on a human level.

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David W. Eyre started writing "Clare: The Honolulu Years," after Clare Boothe Luce's death in 1987, while the memories of friends, including himself, were still fresh. It doesn't seem coincidence that it is being published only now, when public figures can no longer expect reverential treatment, and most of the individuals who surrounded her are dead and therefore cannot challenge Eyre's observations.

Chatty and descriptive, the book is a delightful time capsule, painting a vivid picture of a certain segment of Hawaii society in the 1970s, when the widowed Luce made her home here. Her husband, Time and Life magazine founder Henry R. Luce, had wanted to retire to Hawaii, but when he died before that time arrived, Clare Boothe Luce took it upon herself to carry out his dream at any cost. Once here, people wondered why she came. She was a misfit from the start, because local culture is hard on the pretentious.

After reading the book, I came away with the feeling that Hawaii was a good place to "disappear" while remaining in a position -- due to Hawaii's stature as the crossroads of the Pacific -- to entertain world leaders from East and West. While outwardly brittle and condescending, Luce perhaps understood somewhere in her psyche that her presence and opinions were tolerated while her husband was alive and that as a senior widow, she was now dispensable.

To compensate, she attempted to make herself important, supporting proper organizations and hosting lunch and dinner parties filled with the cream of society, though her efforts seem to have had the opposite effect. Far from being the belle of the ball, she was viewed as a naive, flawed curiosity.

A few of her friends' insights are telling in the way she cared about appearances above all:

» She was a great public supporter of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, but she was not a patron of highly regarded local artists of the time, such as David Howard Hitchcock, John Young, Jean Charlot or Ken Bushnell. One of Luce's artist friends, Ed Stasack, explained, "She was not interested in regional art. She was interested only in world class."

» She kept exotic birds, but friend George G. Frelinghuysen said, "She professed to like birds but she did so only superficially." According to Eyre, the birds made great props for magazine photos.

» She brought with her all manner of French furniture, fine china, jade and bronze sculptures to give the illusion of wealth and refinement, but another of her friends, Ouida Hill, said, "I don't think Clare gave a damn about furnishings. Her French chairs certainly weren't anything special. She wasn't a connoisseur. ... She was a woman without taste whatsoever in her home."

» "Doris Duke, the tobacco heiress who was an on-and-off neighbor, never made it to (Luce's) Dolphin House nor did Clare go to Shangri La, Duke's sumptuous Persian-Indian-Moroccan pavilion, where Clare had worked on her MacArthur interview years before. It was an acquaintanceship that seemed to have waned," Eyre also writes.

This makes sense. Duke, as I understand, was both a connoisseur and party girl without peer. Luce was a dinner party boor whose aim was to create an intellectual salon in Honolulu. Alas, Eyre writes, "But a salon demands give and take in conversation, a duel of wit and wisdom, clever rejoinders and jewels of repartee. Such stimulating give and take simply did not occur with regularity at Clare's house, as Island folk would soon find out. La Luce, as she had for much of her life, spoke with prolongation and an authority that approached the absolute. ... More accurately, people were coming to pay court to this monological mistress.

"Clare could be condescending, and addressing a person as 'dear boy' or 'dear girl' was a term she frequently used. It was as if she were patting you on the head and saying, 'There, there, listen to Mother and she will tell you what makes the world go 'round.'"

According to Eyre, Luce never understood why her invitations were not reciprocated. In 14 years in Honolulu, for instance, she was never invited to the governors' home, Washington Place, by the Burnses or Ariyoshis. She was particularly upset by being excluded from a dinner the Ariyoshis hosted for Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

"The snubs infuriated her, and she decided the governors were just a couple of diehard liberal Democrats who wouldn't be comfortable with a diehard conservative Republican. ... Furthermore, she reasoned, the governors had weak-in-the-protocol staffs who didn't understand that the title 'Honorable' means Madame Ambassador deserves a little respect around here."

While she frowned upon what she saw as a lack of social graces, she didn't quite measure up to the demands of polite society. Maybe the governors had heard about Luce's behavior as a guest. One hostess recalled, "Soon after we were seated, Clare raised her service plate high enough to see the make of the china. She then said, 'I do like Minton but I haven't been seated properly.'"

At another dinner, checking the china led to her spilling a bowl of soup on her lap.

The book is enlightening and entertaining while cutting its monumental subject down to size, which surely would have happened much sooner if Luce lived in these TMZ times.