CLEMENT, CLAY

(1863-1910)

   Born Clement Laird Geiger in Green Township, Illinois, the actor-playwright could always count on his own play The New Dominion (1897) to sustain him. As critic Austin Latchaw observed (Kansas City Star, 19 June 1935), when all else failed, Clement "went down into his trunk and brought out the old favorite, paid his debts and made enough margin again to produce something new. He was a genial, goodly man and a beloved actor." The earliest New York Times review of The New Dominion (30 March 1897) noted Clement's "originality and personal force" and that he was "a rather wide person." His starring character role was that of a learned German baron who "goes to Virginia to study the flora and fauna of the country, and remains to make love in broken English."