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This whimsical view of Bernice Claire features the ingenue flapper starlet posed as a childlike nymphette with Steiff bunny. Elmer Fryer, portrait photographer for First National/Warner Brothers, hand printed this large format, double weight gallery still, and the artistry of his hand is apparent in the sophisticated shading and style.
Mini Biography of Bernice Claire As a singer of light opera, Bernice Claire could be called the trailblazer for Jeanette MacDonald. In the year 1930, Claire and Alexander Gray were "the" operetta duo of talking pictures. Born Bernice Janighen in Oakland, California, Bernice was favorably influenced by her distinguished Castlemont High Schoolteacher, Alice Eggers. Claire's publicist would later fabricate a teacher-student relationship between Claire and opera great Maria Jeritza. She possessed a remarkably clear and pure coloratura voice and had no difficulty singing demanding roles such as Victor Herbert's "Mlle Modiste," in which she starred a revival. Bernice met Alexander Gray while performing in an operetta. Around 1929 he asked her to accompany him to a screen test for First National-Vitaphone at the time the studios were hastily bolstering their music departments. The producers liked the team so much, they were both signed. Subsequently, Bernice Claire made the first screen versions of such hits and "Mlle Modiste" (released as Kiss Me Again (1930) and "Toast of the Legion"), Spring Is Here (1930) (in which she sings "With a Song in My Heart"), No, No, Nanette (1930), The Song of the Flame (1930) and an original film musical Top Speed (1930) starring Joe E. Brown. When the craze for musical films cooled down, Warners tried her in some dramatic parts, which were not in her oeuvre. Claire returned to radio and appeared with many prestigious orchestras, including Rudy Vallee, Erno Rapee and others. She made very few phonograph records. A few short subjects were made, and a British musical film Two Hearts in Harmony (1935) co-starring George Curzon. When her first husband died, she felt unable to continue her performing. She and her second husband, Douglas Morris, owned property in southern California, including convalescent homes. During the 1970s and '80s Bernice was honored by local film societies in the San Francisco Bay Area. IMDb Mini Biography By: pmintun@mac.com  |                 
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