Catherine Clive was a well-known English actress and occasional singer on the stages of London. She created the role of Dalila in Handel's 1743 oratorio Samson. She also did some writing.
Discovery
Kitty Raftor was probably born in London, but her father, William Raftor, was an Irishman and a former officer in the French army under Louis XIV. According to her biographers, she worked as a girl as a servant in the homes of wealthy London families. At the age of 17, she was discovered by the theatre community, when she was overheard singing while cleaning the front steps of a home near a tavern that actors and playwrights regularly patronized. She was recommended to Colley Cibber, manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, who hired her.
Career
Her first role at Drury Lane was as the page boy Immenea in Nathaniel Lee's tragedy Mithridates, King of Pontus. Throughout the 1730s she played many further roles with much success, becoming Drury Lane's leading comedy actress. In 1747 she became one of the founding members of David Garrick's acting company. A soprano, she would occasionally sing on the stage, notably when portraying Emma and Venus in the world première of Thomas Arne's masqueAlfred in 1740. She also created the role of Dalila in Handel's 1743 oratorio Samson. Around 1732, Kitty Raftor married George Clive, a barrister brother of Baron Clive. The marriage was not a success and the two separated, though never officially divorced, and Kitty Clive remained economically independent. Because she never openly took on lovers, Clive was able to keep her marriage vows and preserve her public reputation. Her good standing with the public helped to strengthen the reputations of actresses in general, who were often looked down upon as morally lax. On 15 April 1740 she appeared as Mrs Riot, the Fine Lady in David Garrick's first successful play Lethe; or Aesop in the Shades. Her role at Drury Lane was recorded in a painting and a memorial porcelain figure. She chose this satirical this role for her benefit. Clive rose to become one of the highest paid actresses of her time and may have even earned more than many male performers, who were traditionally paid more their female counterparts. Her career on stage spanned over forty years, and according to K. A. Crouch, "er pay places her among the very best actresses of her generation." Kitty Clive became a household name along with other theatre greats of the time such as Lavinia Fenton and Susannah Cibber, and brought her earning power and fame to play as an open supporter of actors' rights. In particular, she published a pamphlet in 1744, The Case of Mrs. Clive, in which she publicly shamed the managers Christopher Rich and Charles Fleetwood for conspiring to pay actors less than their due. She also challenged the public's habit of associating actors with beggars and prostitutes. Clive tried her hand at writing farces, with some success. She wrote several satirical sketches with feminist undertones including The Rehearsal, or Boys in Petticoats ; Every Woman in her Humour ; and Sketches of a Fine Lady’s Return from a Rout. In these pieces she used humour to criticize the challenges that female performers and playwrights faced.
Memorials
In 1761 Kitty Clive lived in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. She retired in 1769 to a villa in Twickenham, which had been a gift from her friend Horace Walpole. She died there in 1785 and was buried at St Mary's, Twickenham, where there is a memorial to her in the north-east corner of the church, inscribed with a poem that praises her generosity. A pair of Bow figures of Clive and Henry Woodward as "the Fine Lady" and "the Fine Gentleman" in David Garrick's mythological burlesque Lethe, 1750–1752, may be "the earliest full-length portrait figures in English porcelain". The Foundling Museum in London explored her life and career in a temporary exhibition, Kitty Clive: The Creation Of A Female Celebrity between 21 September 2018 and 30 December 2018.
