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Clara Moores

American actress

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ113497577
Source-derived summary

Clara Moores Payson (July 27, 1896 – January 21, 1986), born Clara Munchhoff, was an American stage actress.

Early life

Clara Louise Munchhoff was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1898, the daughter of Joseph W. Munchhoff and Mate (or May Etta) Cannon Munchhoff. Her father owned a traveling carnival. Her mother was active in the suffrage movement and her (step) grandfather, Frank E. Moores, was a controversial Mayor of Omaha. She adopted the surname of her stepfather, railwayman Harry E. Moores, after her mother remarried in 1909. She was raised in Seattle, and graduated from Broadway High School and attended the University of Washington.

Career

Moores acted on the stage, beginning in college, and later mainly in Boston and on Broadway, with stage credits including roles in Madame X, Under Cover, A Cure for Curables (1918), His Majesty Bunker Bean, Dangerous Years, Lilies of the Field, Shavings (1920), Pot Luck (1921), Common Clay, Cobra (1924) and The Circle.

Moores was considered a stylish beauty in her time. The costumes she wore on stage were described in detail. As publicity for Shavings, she was photographed in hats made from wood shavings.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Clara Moores” as american actress. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1896, 1986, 1898, 1909—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1896-07-27. The account is most persuasive where Clara, Moores and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actress. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q113497577. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1896, 1986, 1898 and 1909.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Clara Moores”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Clara Moores primary sources, Clara Moores archive and Clara research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Clara Moores”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Clara Moores” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.