Claire Drainie Taylor

Claire Drainie Taylor, née Wodlinger^[1] (September 11, 1917 – November 18, 2009) was a Canadian actor and writer, who wrote and acted in radio and television productions for CBC Radio from the 1930s through the 1960s.^[1]

Born and raised in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she was briefly married to Jack Murray as a teenager, moving with him to Vancouver Island before divorcing him at age 21.^[1] She subsequently met and married fellow actor John Drainie, with whom she had six children including journalist Bronwyn Drainie.^[1]

For the CBC, she acted in a number of radio and television productions, including Jake and the Kid, John and Judy and Barney Boomer; she also wrote radio plays, including Santa Had a Black, Black Beard and Flow Gently Sweet Limbo.^[1]

After John Drainie's death in 1966, she remarried in 1968 to theatre producer Nathan A. Taylor, who died in 2004.^[1]

She published an autobiography, The Surprise of My Life, in 1998.^[1] Also that year, she created the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, a literary award presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to the year's best biographical work by a Canadian writer.^[2]

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