Born 1893 in Washington, D.C., American stage and film actress Ina Claire made her professional stage debut in 1907 in Elmira, New York. She performed on Broadway in the musicals Jumping Jupiter, The Quaker Girl (both 1911), and Lady Luxury (1914-1915). She later starred on Broadway in plays by some of the leading comic dramatists of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

Claire later became identified with the high comedies of S. N. Behrman, and created the female leads in three of his plays: Biography (1934), End of Summer (1936), and The Talley Method (1941). Critic J. Brooks Atkinson praised Claire for her, “refulgent comic intelligence”.

Claire made her film debut in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Wild Goose Chase (1915). She is best remembered today for her role as the Grand Duchess Swana in the romantic comedy Ninotchka (1939), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo.

Claire died in 1985, in San Francisco, California, following a heart attack. She was 91 years old. Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see portraits of young Ina Claire in the 1920s and 1930s.