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Colin Campbell Clements was born on February 25, 1894, to William George and Ada von Swanback Clements. His father, who had emigrated from England around 1885, worked as a cattle driver at the Omaha stockyards.
In 1917, Clements earned an Artium Baccalaureatus (A.B.) degree from the University of Washington. The following year, he took courses at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Before enlisting in the US Army in 1918, he worked as a play reader, actor, and stage manager for Stuart Walker's Portmanteau Theater.
After the war, Clements spent two years assisting Armenian refugees in the British-occupied zone of Turkey with Near East Relief. Later, the British government awarded him the General Service Medal for his contributions.
Shortly after returning to the United States, Clements became the master of English at Lawrenceville School in Lawrence Township, New Jersey. Around this time, he also attended Professor George Pierce Baker's renowned 47 Workshop at Harvard.
In 1919, Clements published his first book, The Touchstone and Other Plays, followed by Seven Plays of Old Japan in 1920. Other works from this period include Jo—a Drama (1922), A Book of Prayers for Boys (1922), Plays for a Folding Theater (1923), Plays for Pagans (1924), and, in collaboration with Mary Heaton Vorse, Wreckage (1924).
In 1927, Clements met Florence Ryerson while directing a play at a small theater in Santa Barbara, California. The couple married the following year and quickly began collaborating. By 1945, they had produced eight novels, over 100 short stories (including six serialized in magazines), three books of monologues, and more than 50 plays and screenplays. Their most popular works likely include June Mad (1939), Glamour Preferred (1941), Harriet (1943), Notorious Gentleman (1945), and Strange Bedfellows (1948).
Children frequently appeared as subjects in Clements and Ryerson’s stories. Much of their material was inspired by observing Ryerson’s son, Hal, and the four children of their gardener.
Their plays were especially favored by amateur theater groups nationwide. Even during the depths of the Great Depression, royalties from these groups earned them about $4,000 annually.
In 1932, the Clements were victims of a burglary by a thief with refined tastes, who stole expensive Oriental rugs and towels, a set of books by Maurice Maeterlinck, sixteen volumes on the history of Greece, four volumes of works by Giovanni Boccaccio, and a copy of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis.
The couple donated the original manuscript of Harriet, their play about Harriet Beecher Stowe, to the Archives of American Letters at Princeton University, along with letters of appreciation from former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, author Sinclair Lewis, and actress Mary Pickford.
Colin Campbell Clements passed away on January 29, 1948, after a three-week stay at Jewish Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His wife and creative partner of nearly 21 years was by his side.
