Clara Langhorne Clemens Samossoud, formerly Clara Langhorne Clemens Gabrilowitsch, was a daughter of Samuel Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain.
23 Facts About Clara Clemens
2.
Clara Clemens was a contralto concert singer and she managed his estate and guarded his legacy after his death as his only surviving child.
3.
Clara Clemens was married first to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, then to Jacques Samossoud after Gabrilowitsch's death.
4.
Clara Clemens wrote biographies of Gabrilowitsch and of her father.
5.
Clara Clemens lived in Vienna with her parents from September 1897 to May 1899 where she cultivated her voice for the concert stage.
6.
Clara Clemens studied piano in 1899 under Theodor Leschetizky, who had been a pupil of Carl Czerny.
7.
Clara Clemens studied for several years under masters in Europe before making her professional debut in Florence.
8.
Clara Clemens made her American debut as a contralto concert singer on the evening of September 22,1906, at the Norfolk Gymnasium in Norfolk, Connecticut, assisted by violinist Marie Nichols.
9.
Clara Clemens rented Edgewood there in 1905, and she used the proceeds from the concert to purchase a memorial window for her mother in the Norfolk Church of the Transfiguration.
10.
Clara Clemens went for a sleigh ride on December 20,1908, with Russian concert pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch who was staying with her father at his residence "Innocence at Home" in Redding, Connecticut.
11.
Clara Clemens returned Clemens home unharmed except for the shock of the accident.
12.
Twain biographer Michael Shelden doubts the truth of this heroic tale and suggests that the story was planted in the press to quiet rumors that Clara Clemens was having an affair with Charles Wark, her former accompanist and a married man.
13.
Clara Clemens said that the marriage was sudden because Gabrilowitsch had just recovered from a surgical operation which he had undergone in the summer and they were about to head off to their new house in Berlin where he would begin his European season.
14.
Samuel Clara Clemens died on April 21,1910, leaving his estate to be equally divided between his surviving daughters in a will dated August 17,1909.
15.
Clara Clemens had been a heavy drinker, and bottles of pills and alcohol were found in her room.
16.
Clara Clemens entered the Henry Ford Hospital on March 25,1935, where he stayed until he was released to his home to convalesce on September 28.
17.
Clara Clemens died at home on September 14,1936, age 58.
18.
Clara Clemens married Jacques Samossoud on May 11,1944, a Russian-born symphony conductor 20 years her junior.
19.
Clara Clemens explored eastern religions for several years before embracing Christian Science, although there is some question as to her seriousness and commitment to it.
20.
Clara Clemens wrote Awake to a Perfect Day on the subject, published in 1956.
21.
Clara Clemens published biographies of her father and of her first husband.
22.
Clara Clemens objected in 1939 to the release of her father's Letters from the Earth, but she changed her stance and allowed them to be published shortly before her death on November 20,1962.
23.
Clara Clemens prevented Charles Neider from including certain of her father's dictations from June 1906 in the version of The Autobiography of Mark Twain that was in preparation into 1958.