Guthrie McClintic born 6 August 1893 (d. 1961)For forty years, actress Katharine Cornell (1893-1974) and her husband, director Guthrie McClintic, sustained one of the most celebrated and successful partnerships in the American theatre.
McClintic first directed Cornell in 1925 when she starred in Michael Arlen's The Green Hat. They went on to collaborate on a total of twenty-eight productions, most of which they presented under their own management. They achieved their greatest success in 1931 when, under McClintic's direction, Cornell portrayed Elizabeth Barrett in The Barretts of Wimpole Street.
Even in theatrical circles, little was known about Cornell's and McClintic's sexual lives beyond the general impression that both were gay. However, it seems clear that their relationship was a non-sexual one, at least after the first few years, and that both partners consistently pursued same-sex attachments. Nevertheless, McClintic and Cornell remained a devoted couple from their marriage in 1921 until McClintic's death in 1961.
Guthrie McClintic was born in Seattle, Washington. As a young boy, he ran away from home to join a repertory company. Stranded, he was rescued by his parents, who promised to support him in his theatrical ambitions. After attending local Seattle schools and the University of Washington, McClintic studied at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1910 to 1912.
He began his career as an actor, but soon became a stage manager and casting director for a leading Broadway producer, Winthrop Ames. Ames offered to finance a production for Guthrie to direct as soon as a suitable project could be found.
The turning point in McClintic's and Cornell's lives and careers took place in 1921 when, still working as a casting director, Guthrie saw Cornell during auditions for a play. McClintic (whose first brief marriage to actress Estelle Winwood ended in divorce) and Cornell were wed on September 8, 1921.
On December 23, 1921, McClintic, having found his project, made a successful Broadway directorial debut with a production of A A Milne's The Dover Road. The same year Cornell became a star playing Sydney Fairfield, the daughter of a shell shocked World War I veteran, in Clemence Dane's A Bill of Divorcement.
Cornell and McClintic reached the height of their renown during the 1930s and early 1940s. With McClintic's encouragement, Cornell turned from the melodramas in which she first gained popularity to play a range of classical and challenging contemporary roles.
Cornell worked almost exclusively with McClintic after their initial success together. Throughout his career, however, McClintic continued to direct plays in which Cornell did not appear.
Cornell and McClintic were markedly dissimilar in personality and style of living, and they designed their living arrangements to accommodate these disparities. Offstage, Cornell was, like Greta Garbo (to whom she was often compared), reserved, self-effacing, and somewhat aloof. Over the years, she carried on a handful of long-term romances with women. In contrast, McClintic was nervous, hot-tempered, sociable, gossipy, and sexually promiscuous.
Early in their marriage, the couple rented (and later purchased) a large house at 23 Beekman Place in Manhattan, which they furnished with pieces used in their productions. By mutual agreement, the third floor of the residence was her exclusive domain, the fourth floor was his, while the floors below were open to both.
Their careers faltered after World War II, though McClintic and Cornell continued to enjoy some notable successes, as in their productions of Antony and Cleopatra (1947), which attained a long-run record for that play, and The Constant Wife (1951).Cornell, who had long suffered from stage fright, retired shortly after McClintic's death in 1961