Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#43604
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Mae Clarke represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Mae is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mae Clarke appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mae. Singin' in the Rain is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with George Roy Hill, Stanley Donen, George Sidney and others, Mae Clarke helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Singin' in the Rain (1952) as Hairdresser (uncredited) · Frankenstein (1931) as Elizabeth · The Public Enemy (1931) as Kitty (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #43604 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1931–1967
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Singin' in the Rain
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Singin' in the Rain
Most frequent director
Stanley Donen
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Stanley Donen
Most common genre
Romance
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.8
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1950s
7.0 average MV
The 1950s are where the work and the material meet. Singin' in the Rain, Royal Wedding, Annie Get Your Gun — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1950s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1950s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Public Enemy, Waterloo Bridge, The Front Page.
Most productive era
1930s
4 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.84 films | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Action | — | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.41 film | — | 7.03 films | 6.61 film |
| Crime | 6.72 films | — | — | — |
| Romance | 6.52 films | — | 7.03 films | 6.61 film |
| Horror | 7.31 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1931The Public Enemy
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kitty (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Secretary (uncredited).
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
9 of 9 films
as Hairdresser (uncredited)
Directed by Stanley Donen
as Elizabeth
Directed by James Whale
as Myra Deauville
Directed by James Whale
as Kitty (uncredited)
Directed by William A. Wellman
as Secretary (uncredited)
Directed by George Roy Hill
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Hairdresser (uncredited)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Hairdresser (uncredited) gives Mae Clarke a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Elizabeth
Frankenstein (1931)
Performance score7.6
Frankenstein asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Elizabeth is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Myra Deauville
Waterloo Bridge (1931)
Performance score7.2
Waterloo Bridge asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Myra Deauville is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kitty (uncredited)
The Public Enemy (1931)
Performance score6.8
The Public Enemy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kitty (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Hairdresser (uncredited)
Start here. Singin' in the Rain is the clearest statement of what Mae Clarke does — accessible, 103 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mae at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Frankenstein (1931)
A deliberate change of key after Singin' in the Rain — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Waterloo Bridge (1931)
Same director as Frankenstein, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Public Enemy (1931)
Keeps the drama register of Waterloo Bridge but asks for a colder reading of it.
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
A deliberate change of key after The Public Enemy — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
James Whale
Director
2 films together
Notably Frankenstein
Stanley Donen
Director
2 films together
Notably Singin' in the Rain
Lewis Milestone
Director
1 film together
Notably The Front Page
William A. Wellman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Public Enemy
David Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Flying Tigers
George Sidney
Director
1 film together
Notably Annie Get Your Gun
George Roy Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Thoroughly Modern Millie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stanley Donen
Director
2 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Singin' in the RainJames Whale
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
FrankensteinWilliam A. Wellman
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Public EnemyGeorge Roy Hill
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thoroughly Modern MillieGeorge Sidney
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Annie Get Your GunLewis Milestone
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Front PageDavid Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Flying TigersSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Singin' in the Rain
as Hairdresser (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Royal Wedding
as Telephone Operator #1 (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Singin' in the Rain
as Hairdresser (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Annie Get Your Gun
as Mrs. Adams (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Singin' in the Rain
as Hairdresser (uncredited)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Mae Clarke has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
36 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Romance Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in romance, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Singin' in the Rain
as Hairdresser (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Frankenstein
as Elizabeth
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Royal Wedding
as Telephone Operator #1 (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Public Enemy
as Kitty (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Singin' in the Rain
as Hairdresser (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Flying Tigers
as Verna Bales
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Front Page
as Molly
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Flying Tigers
as Verna Bales
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and action
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and action
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Mark Ruffalo
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Mae Clarke performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
