Arthur St. Claire

Not to be confused with the American soldier and politician Arthur St. Clair.
Arthur St. Claire

Arthur St. Claire, early 1920s
Born Arthur Frederic Evens
20 July 1899
New York City
Died 18 October 1950
Los Angeles, California
Occupation screenwriter
Spouse(s) Helen Daniels, 1927
Iris Ashton Badger, 1928-

Arthur Frederic St. Claire Evens (born July 20, 1899, New York, died October 18, 1950, Los Angeles, age 51) was a screenwriter who wrote the script for the Frank Buck adventure thriller Tiger Fangs.

Early years

Arthur Frederic St. Claire Evens was the only child of Edward and Louise Evens. On the 1920 US census Edward Evens listed his occupation as investigator for the US Government. Arthur Evens served in the US Army overseas during World War I, Jan 1918 - March 1919.

Wife's Suicide

Arthur Evens was in the headlines, June 1927, when his wife of 3 months, Helen St. Claire, an actress, age 22, died in her bathroom, 2235 N. Cahuenga Boulevard, after a marital spat by swallowing a bottle of antiseptic lotion.[1] Arthur told the police of a lovers’ quarrel and declared that their lives had been unhappy due to parental enmity (in particular, on the part of the wife’s father, Albert T. Daniels). Helen was buried in New York.[2] In February 1928, Helen's parents supplied new information to police about Helen's death, but in April, a coroner's jury ruled that Helen ended her own life. Arthur thereupon married Iris Ashton Badger, a 29-year-old actress with whom he had been living for months. At the same time, he was convicted of vagrancy and sentenced to 60 days in jail.[3][4][5]

Screenplays

Lobby card for Tiger Fangs

Arthur Evens, who used the name Arthur St. Claire, wrote scenarios in Hollywood from the 1920s until the late 1940s. He recycled some of the events of his wife's suicide in fictional form in his screenplay, Delinquent Daughters (1944), the story of how a town is shocked when a high school girl commits suicide.

Many of St. Claire’s screenplays were B-movies for Producers Releasing Corporation. He is best remembered today for writing Tiger Fangs, a candidate for the national film registry.[6][7]

References

  1. ↑ HOLLYWOOD FILM BRIDE KILLS SELF. Wife of Scenario Writer Said to Have Taken Drug After Family Quarrel. LA Times. Jun 7, 1927 A9
  2. ↑ ACTRESS' DEATH CALLED SUICIDE. Scenario Writer-Husband Chief Witness Tells of Love Quarrel Over Going to Show, Declared Life Unhappy Due to Parental Enmity. LA Times. Jun 10, 1927 A5
  3. ↑ Evans (sic) Married and Arraigned. LA Times. April 20, 1928
  4. ↑ Tardy wedding holds husband. LA Times. April 26, 1928
  5. ↑ EVANS (sic) GETS SIXTY DAYS AS VAGRANT. LA Times. April 28, 1928
  6. ↑ Brian Taves. Candidates for the National Film Registry: Fang and Claw & Tiger Fangs
  7. ↑ Lehrer, Steven (2006). Bring 'Em Back Alive: The Best of Frank Buck. Texas Tech University press. pp. xi–xii. ISBN 0-89672-582-0.

External links

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