User:Mclaughlinfamily/Clare mendonca

New article name ...  Clare Mendonca  (February 26, 1906 - March 11, 1953) was an Indian Film Critic and Journalist.

Mendonca was perhaps best known for being a film critic for the Times of India and Evening News of India (Bombay). The Flimfare Awards were initially known as the "Clare Awards", named after Clare Mendonca.

Early Life and Education
Clare Mendonca was born in (Goa/Bombay). She was the eldest daughter of Domenic Mendonca and Espiciosa Lopes Mendonca. She was the sister of Joseph Mendonca, Angela Mendonca Correa, Dr. Bertha Mendonca and Margaret Mendonca. Mendonca was the cousin of Monsignour Phillip Mendonca, Father Peter Mendonca (S.J.) Father William Mendonca, Professor Frederick Mendonca.

Mendonca was a graduate of St. Xavier's College and University (Bombay) and was an Educator, Justice of the Peace, Honorary Magistrate and was a member of the Examining of Bombay University.

Journalism Career
Mendonca joined the Times of India in 1933. She became the Indian Film Critic of the The Times of India and the Evening News of India since 1930 and the Screen Editor of both journals since 1935

"She had a craze for meeting people and doing things. She live in a perpetual hurry as one jealous of time, afraid to let one single second escape her without squeezing it dry of opportunity.  What a list of personalities comes crowding down those gay dead years, those fat and happy days which, alas, will never again:  Melba, Clara Butt looming on the Excelsior stage like some tower in glorious song, flute-throated Galli-Curci, Jan Kubelik, Heifetz Borissov and Mirovitch, the Gonsalez Brothers and their mercurial soprano Nunu Sanchioni whose trills and roulades were like dripping gold, Pavlova the Immortal and Shankar's Ballet, Salisbury's Quaints, Ruth Draper, the Marcus Follies the Roman Singers, the Don Cossacks and the Carl Ross Company with Ethely Beard their beautiful brilliant Carmen, John Gielgud and Jack Hawkina, Eilleen Herlie and Hazel Terry, Dennis Castle, London's Panto king, George and Beryl Formby, Gracie Gields and her husband the late and execrable Monty Banks, George ("News of the World") Munro, Harold Dickson of the Kemsley Group, Robin Russell, Eric Dunstan and B.B.C.'s first "Golden Voice," Bill Tilden and a host of others too numerous to mention."

Clare also met and interviewed such notable celebrities as: Errol Flynn, Sir John Gielgud, John Barrymore

The "Clare Awards"
"Since the Filmfare Award Trophy has been founded in the tradition of the America's Academy Awards, it has a nickname to correspond with the American "Oscar." At the suggestion of journalists, the Trophy is names "Clare" in memory of the late Miss Clare Mendonca, film critic of the "The Times of India," who died on March 11 last year. Eminently graceful, the "Clare" was modeled by N.G. Pansare, the well-known Bombay sculptor, with Professor Walter Langhammer, Head of the Art Department of "Times of India," to direct and assist him.  With its exquisite flowing line and flame-like contour, the statuette appropriately symbolises Art with its figure of a dances sunk, as it were, in a ocean of rhythm. The "Clare" is at once utterly modern and truly Indian.  Standing on its pedestal of an opening lotus, it has an Indian hair style and the suggestion of a sari wrapped around the legs." ''