ABSTRACT
This chapter traces Clare Boothe Luce’s early years, beginning with her unstable, itinerant, at times impoverished childhood. It portrays young Clare as a precocious child, a highly intelligent, superb student who was also arrogant and narcissistic. Her mother Ann, providing an increasingly comfortable life for her children by relying on wealthy men, similarly convinced her daughter to eschew the college education for which she was clearly suited in favor of marrying a wealthy man. After a very brief stint working for the feminist National Woman’s Party, Clare married millionaire lawyer George Brokaw when she was 20. Through this marriage, Clare gained entrée into New York City’s high society and had a child, also named Ann, in 1924. Clare soon tired of her alcoholic husband, however, and divorced him in 1929. Made financially secure by her divorce settlement, 26-year-old Clare was now free to pursue a career—or careers.
