Wife Katharine Cornell

Queer Places:
American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 120 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016, Stati Uniti
23 Beekman Pl, New York, NY 10022, Stati Uniti
1270 6th Ave, New York, NY 10020
Peter Rock, Woods Rd, Palisades, NY 10964, Stati Uniti
Lincoln Center, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023

Guthrie McClintic (August 6, 1893 – October 29, 1961) was a successful theatre director, film director, and producer based in New York. Moss Hart's Light Up the Sky (1948) has an effeminate director, Carleton Fitzgerald, who is considered a parody of McClintic.

Guthrie McClintic was born in Seattle, and started his impressive career there in the teens, guided by his Lincoln High School teacher Rose Glass. His close friend Harold Harshman was an actor as well as a writer, and they collaborated on local productions. They befriended the Annie Moran Crow family of Seattle and Orcas Island, who became benefactors. The Crow sisters, Etta, Norah and Jean, were well-known local classical musicians in the early XX century. They formed a string trio at the turn of the century, and for a few years their piano accompanist was Nellie Cornish. Louise Crow beacme one of Seattle's most successful early artists and was an instructor at the Cornish School during the 1920s and early '30s. The family had open-minded attitudes towards homosexuality beacuse Jean Crow was a lesbian; later in life she ran the family's Rosario Resort, sporting a man's haircut and masculine attire.

McClintic attended Washington University and New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and became an actor, but soon became a stage manager and casting director for major Broadway producer Winthrop Ames. His Broadway directorial debut was on A. A. Milne's The Dover Road. McClintic's first major success was on The Barretts of Wimpole Street featuring his wife, the American actress Katharine Cornell, in 1931. He also directed Hamlet featuring John Gielgud in New York in 1936.

Katharine Cornell served on the Board of Directors of The Rehearsal Club, a place where young actresses could stay while looking for work in the theatre. McClintic sometimes found roles for the young women in his plays.


A photograph of Guthrie McClintic in drag at the Moran Estate on Orcas Island, circa 1915


American Academy of Dramatic Arts

external image I_McClintic%20and%20Cornell%20House,%20New%20York%20City,%20NY,%20USA_2%20(2).JPG
23 Beekman Place

In what may have been lavender marriages, gay McClintic was married: firstly to actress Estelle Winwood, and then, for forty years, to actress Katharine Cornell - herself a lesbian.[1] After they were married, they formed a production team M.C. & C Company, which produced all the plays for the rest of his life. He directed every play that Cornell starred in, including Romeo and Juliet, Candida, Antony and Cleopatra, No Time for Comedy, Antigone, St. Joan, The Doctor's Dilemma, Three Sisters, and There Shall Be No Night, and The Constant Wife. Their production company brought over many of the leading Shakespearean actors of the day, giving them their first prominent Broadway roles, including John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Maurice Evans, and Laurence Olivier.

McClintic died of cancer on October 29, 1961, in New York City. His widow retired from acting shortly after his death, her last role being in Jerome Kilty's dramatization of Dear Liar in 1961.


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