{{Short description|American actress, author, and literary agent (1923–1997)}} {{Use American English|date=July 2020}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Connie Clausen | image = Connie_Clausen.jpg | image_size = 200px | birth_date = {{birth date|1923|6|11}} | birth_place = Menasha, Wisconsin, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1997|9|7|1923|6|11}} | death_place = New York City, U.S. | occupation = Actress, spokesperson, author }}
'''Connie Clausen''' (born '''Constance Clausen''' on June 11, 1923, in Menasha, Wisconsin,<ref name="Visit">{{cite news|title=Author Will Visit Menasha Hometown |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4142850/connie_clausen_19231997/|newspaper=Oshkosh Daily Northwestern|date=May 10, 1961|page=15|via = Newspapers.com|accessdate = January 27, 2016 }} {{Open access}}</ref> and died September 7, 1997, in New York City) was an American actress, author, and literary agent.<ref name="nyt1997">{{cite news | date = September 14, 1997 | title = Connie Clausen, Literary Agent And Actress, 74 | work = The New York Times | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE3DC1F39F937A2575AC0A961958260 }}</ref>
== Career == Connie Clausen's career began in 1942 at the age of 19 when she was approached by John Ringling North on Main Street in Sarasota, Florida (then the winter quarters for Ringling Brothers Circus), who told her that her long hair would make her a perfect Alice in the following season's "fairy tale"-themed grand finale. She joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and performed as an acrobat in an elephant act.<ref name="Taper">{{cite book | last = Taper | first = Bernard | year = 1996 | title = Balanchine: A Biography | publisher = University of California Press | isbn = 0-520-20639-8 |pages = 181–182 }}</ref> Her experiences in the circus later provided material for her memoir ''I Love You Honey, but the Season's Over'' (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961),<ref name="Visit" /> in which she discussed, among other issues, the "significant gap" between what women did within the circus ring and their treatment outside of it.<ref name="Tait">{{cite book | last = Tait | first = Peta | year = 2005 | title = Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance | publisher = Routledge | isbn = 0-415-32938-8 |page=104 }}</ref>
After leaving the circus, she worked as a magazine and television writer and started with MGM Studios in Hollywood as director of special promotions.<ref name="pw1997">{{cite magazine | year = 1997 | title = Obituaries |magazine= Publishers Weekly | volume = 244 | issue = 38 |page=17 }}</ref> Encouraged by an MGM studio photographer, she moved to New York City to begin a career as a Conover Model and as a successful Broadway and television actress. She appeared on Broadway in ''The Gambler'' with Alfred Drake and appeared in television shows and commercials in the 1950s and 1960s. She was a television spokeswoman for Beech-Nut and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
In 1971 Connie Clausen began a new career in publishing. As an assistant vice president of Macmillan, she helped launch two of the company's best sellers, ''Watership Down'' and ''Jonathan Livingston Seagull''.<ref name="pw1997" /> In 1978 she started her own literary agency, Connie Clausen & Associates, which had a series of best sellers, including the beauty books by the photographer Francesco Scavullo,<ref name="O'Boyle">{{cite book | last = O'Boyle | first = Jane | year = 2001 | title = Cool Dead People | publisher = Penguin USA | isbn = 0-452-28229-2 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/cooldeadpeopleob0000oboy }}</ref> the Pulitzer Prize-winning ''Jackson Pollock: An American Saga'' by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith,<ref name="nyt1997" /> "Eat to Win," "The Rules," and many others. She was also the long-time American agent for the British author Quentin Crisp.
Clausen was portrayed by Swoosie Kurtz in the ITV film production of ''An Englishman in New York'', a sequel to ''The Naked Civil Servant''.
== Filmography ==
=== Television === {| class="wikitable sortable" !Year !Title !Role !Notes |- |1952 |''Suspense'' |Martha |Episode: "The Debt" |- |1952 |''The Web'' |{{N/a}} |Episode: "The Best of Everything" |- |1953 |''Tales of Tomorrow'' |{{N/a}} |Episode: "The Lonesome Village" |- |1953 |''Man Against Crime'' |Joan |Episode: "Free Ride" |- |1954 |''Colonel Humphrey Flack'' |{{N/a}} |Episode: "Prince Fahz of Baklava" |- |1954 |''The Big Story'' |Dee Victor |Episode: "The Sioux City Story" |- |1970–1971 |''The Doctors'' |Mrs. Clark / Helen Fawcett |3 episodes |}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name|nm2720735}} *[https://www.flickr.com/photos/sangroncito/sets/72057594113536221 Photos of Connie Clausen] *[http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/300292 I Love You Honey, but the Season's Over] *[http://www.crisperanto.org/interviews/kettelhack02.html Connie Clausen on Quentin Crisp controversial remarks] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20080511224229/http://www.likesbooks.com/179.html I Love You Honey, but the Season's Over as an example of "Chick Lit"] *[http://www.crisperanto.org/news/AnEnglishmanInNYmovie.html Connie Clausen portrayed in "An Englishman in New York"] *[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2242/is_1615_277/ai_64752236 Connie Clausen on "Watership Down"] *[https://www.youtube.com/user/sangroncito video clips from Connie Clausen's television career] *{{YouTube|8zTDbpxT8ZI|Coke keeps you thin! (1961 Coke commercial)}} {{Commons category|Connie Clausen}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Clausen, Connie}} Category:1923 births Category:1997 deaths Category:Actresses from Wisconsin Category:Writers from Wisconsin Category:People from Menasha, Wisconsin Category:20th-century American actresses Category:American women memoirists