Clare Boothe Luce was an American playwright, congresswoman, and diplomat — one of the most accomplished, glamorous, and combative public women of the twentieth century. Born in New York City and raised in genteel poverty, she rose through intelligence, wit, ambition, and beauty to the heights of American public life.
She first made her name in journalism, becoming managing editor of Vanity Fair, and then as a playwright. Her acid 1936 comedy The Women, with its all-female cast, was a Broadway smash and a hit Hollywood film. That same period she married the publishing magnate Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life, forming one of the most powerful couples in America.
Luce then entered politics as a Republican, winning election to Congress from Connecticut and serving two terms in the 1940s, where she became a sharp critic of the Roosevelt administration and a noted speaker on foreign affairs.
In 1953 President Eisenhower appointed her United States ambassador to Italy — the first American woman to hold a major ambassadorial post — and she served capably through a tense Cold War period, helping resolve the Trieste dispute. A convert to Roman Catholicism and a fierce anti-communist, she remained an influential conservative voice and adviser to Republican presidents for the rest of her life. She died in Washington in 1987.