Marcia Davenport

Marcia Davenport was born Marcia Glick in New York City on June 9, 1903, the daughter of Bernard Glick and the opera singer Alma Gluck. She became the stepdaughter of violinist Efrem Zimbalist when her mother remarried.[1]

Growing up Davenport traveled extensively with her parents and was educated intermittently at the Friends School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr. She began studies at Wellesley College but eloped to Pittsburgh to marry her first husband, Frank Delmas Clarke. Eventually, she earned her B.A. at the University of Grenoble.[2]

After her divorce from Clarke in 1925, Davenport took an advertising copywriting job to support herself and her daughter. In 1928, she joined the editorial staff of The New Yorker, where she worked until 1931. In 1934, she became the music critic of Stage magazine. Through her mother and stepfather, Davenport had close ties to the classical music world, particularly the operatic world of Europe and America. Her first book, Mozart, the first American published biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was published in 1932. Widely praised, the book, which became Davenport's best known work, has remained continuously in print since its publication.[2][3]

Novels

Plaque in Prague-Hradčany

Davenport also wrote several popular novels, notably The Valley of Decision, a saga which traces the Scott family, prototypical owners of an iron works in Pittsburgh, from 1873 to the events of World War II. Davenport lived in Pittsburgh shortly after her first marriage, later using that background, along with further research on the steel industry, for the 788-page bestseller.[4] In 1947, East Side, West Side was published, also becoming a best-seller. It was one of the last works edited by Maxwell Perkins of the Charles Scribners' Sons publishing house.[2]

Two of Davenport's novels have been made into films, both released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: The Valley of Decision and East Side, West Side.[5] The Valley of Decision starred Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp, Lionel Barrymore, Preston Foster, Marsha Hunt, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, Dan Duryea and Jessica Tandy.[6] The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Greer Garson) and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. East Side, West Side starred James Mason, Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, and Ava Gardner.

My Brother's Keeper (1954), based on the Collyer brothers, was optioned for films to various individuals over decades, but no film was ever produced.

Davenport married Frank Delmas Clarke (1900–1969) in April of 1923. Her first child, Patricia Delmas Clarke, was born in 1924. In 1925, she and Clarke divorced.[2]

On May 13, 1929, she married Russell Davenport, who soon after became editor of Fortune. Davenport's second daughter, Cornelia Whipple Davenport, was born in 1934.[7] Her marriage to Russell Davenport ended in 1944.

Marcia Davenport, who in her latter years lived in Pebble Beach, California, died on January 16, 1996, at a hospital in Monterey, at the age of 92. She was survived by her younger daughter Cornelia Davenport Schwartz, six grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Her elder daughter Patricia Clarke Kapplow, who predeceased her, was the mother of four.[2]

• Davenport, Marcia (1993). Too Strong for Fantasy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-5909-7.

• Homer and Langley
• Jerry Yulsman