Born 150 Years Ago: Clara Ward, Princesse de Caraman-Chimay

After Fannie Ward and Alice Ward and Clara Bow and Clara Kimball Young it was inevitable that I would get to Clara Ward (1873-1916). And thanks Eve Golden for pushing her into my consciousness during this 150th anniversary year!

Clara Ward was a social celebrity of fin de siècle Paris. She first arrived there in 1890 as the sixteen year old bride of Joseph, Prince de Caraman-Chimay of Belgium. This unlikely pairing came about because Clara was the eligible daughter of Michigan’s first millionaire, the railroad magnate, steamship owner, steel, lumber, and silver tycoon E.B. Ward. Her father died when she was two years old, else he might have disapproved of so decadent a match as a Belgian aristocrat. At any rate, she became popular in Paris Society long about 1896. In 1897, she left her husband and took up with a Hungarian violinist named Rigó Jancsi (“Blackbird Johnny”), a man of the Romany persuasion, or what used to be called Gypsies. She and the Prince divorced and she married this colorful musician, which of course transformed her into an even bigger celebrity.

At this juncture, while Ward could still draw on her family wealth, the Prince’s was no longer available. To help support their lavish lifestyle, she derived income from modelling and posing on stage in artistic tableaux, sometimes in scandalous pink tights that made her appear naked, a relatively common thing back then. She appeared at Paris venues like the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergere, toured the continent with her husband, and was a popular proto-pin-up in cartes de visite. Toulouse-Lautrec sketched her, and she is considered to be one of the many models for the main character in the musical Can-Can (1953).

By 1904, Ward had grown tired of Fiddlin’ Johnny, his philandering, his temper, and his unceasing appetite for expensive gifts. She cut him off and spent her last years in Italy, where she enjoyed the company of two additional husbands, both from modest backgrounds (one seems to have been a waiter, the other a railway station master). Though socially ostracized by that point, she still had her jewels and over a million dollars in assets. She was only 43 when she died of pneumonia in 1916.

2023 also marks another Clara Ward anniversary…tied to another Clara Ward. Gospel singer Clara Ward (1924-1973) of The Famous Ward Singers passed away 50 years ago.

For more on show business history,please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.