Marcia Davenport was an American author and music critic. She is best known for her 1932 biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the first American published biography of Mozart. Davenport also is known for her novels The Valley of Decision and East Side, West Side, both of which were adapted to film in 1945 and 1949, respectively.
After her divorce from Clarke in 1925, Davenport took an advertising copywriting job to support herself and her daughter. In 1928, she joined the editorial staff of The New Yorker, where she worked until 1931. In 1934, she became the music critic of Stage magazine. Through her mother and stepfather, Davenport had close ties to the classical music world, particularly the operatic world of Europe and America. Her first book, Mozart, the first American published biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was published in 1932. Widely praised, the book, which became Davenport's best known work, has remained continuously in print since its publication.
Novels
Davenport also wrote several popular novels, notably The Valley of Decision, a which traces the Scott family, prototypical owners of an iron works in Pittsburgh, from 1873 to the events of World War II. Davenport lived in Pittsburgh shortly after her first marriage, later using that background, along with further research on the steel industry, for the 788-page bestseller. In 1947, East Side, West Side was published, also becoming a best-seller. It was one of the last works edited by Maxwell Perkins of the Charles Scribners' Sons publishing house.
Memoir
Her memoir Too Strong for Fantasy describes the people, the music, the places and the political forces which shaped her life. Of particular interest is her telling of the events leading up to the death of the Czech diplomat and foreign minister Jan Masaryk in the Czernin Palace in Prague in 1948 and of her close relationship with Masaryk over many years.
Radio
In the 1930s, Davenport was a regular commentator on the radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, though she appeared infrequently in subsequent decades, with her final Met broadcast being in 1966. During the 1940s, she was heard on various radio panel discussion shows. On January 23, 1943, she was serving as a panelist on The People's Platform with Alexander Woollcott and Rex Stout when Woollcott had a heart attack during the broadcast and subsequently died before his arrival at Roosevelt Hospital. In 1967, she appeared on the NBC radio program Toscanini: The Man Behind the Legend, paying tribute to the legendary Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini.
Davenport married Frank Delmas Clarke in April of 1923. Her first child, Patricia Delmas Clarke, was born in 1924. In 1925, she and Clarke divorced. On May 13, 1929, she married Russell Davenport, who soon after became editor of Fortune. Davenport's second daughter, Cornelia Whipple Davenport, was born in 1934. Her marriage to Russell Davenport ended in 1944.
Death
Marcia Davenport, who in her latter years lived in Pebble Beach, California, died on January 16, 1996, at a hospital in Monterey, at the age of 92. She was survived by her younger daughter Cornelia Davenport Schwartz, six grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Her elder daughter Patricia Clarke Kapplow, who predeceased her, was the mother of four.
Honors
There is a memorial plaque dedicated to Marcia Davenport at Loretánská Street 13 in Prague.
Works
Nonfiction
• Mozart • Garibaldi: Father of Modern Italy • Too Strong for Fantasy • Jan Masaryk: Posledni Portret
Fiction
• Of Lena Geyer • The Valley of Decision • East Side, West Side • My Brother's Keeper • The Constant Image
