She was born Gladys Evans Clare on September 13, 1904 (some sources say 1900) in Patten, Maine. Her parents, Arthur and Alice Clare, were Shakespearean actors from England. At the age of three she began performing with them in vaudeville. In 1918 she made her Broadway debut in The Betrothal. The following year she starred opposite Charles Ray in the film Red Hot Dollars. Gladys also appeared in the silent films Below The Surface, Homespun Folks, and The Easy Road. On March 31, 1922 she married actor Ben Erway. Soon after she was severely burned in a grease fire. She had to stop acting for five months while she recovered from her injuries. Gladys toured with Pauline Frederick’s stock company and would spend the rest of the 1920s working on the stage. After divorcing Ben she married millionaire Edward H. Fowler in 1933. The beautiful blonde was signed by MGM and given a role in the 1934 drama Straight Is The Way. Then she starred in the hit Broadway play Personal Appearance. She began having an affair with her costar Leonard Penn. Her husband divorced her and she and Leonard were married in 1935.
Unfortunately she began partying too much and developed a serious drinking problem. In 1936 she played a prostitute in the drama Valiant Is The Word For Carrie. Her performance got rave reviews and she nominated for an Academy Award for her performance. Gladys costarred with Spencer Tracy in They Gave Him A Gun and with Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette. During the 1940s she appeared on Broadway in The Distant City and Lady In Waiting. She also had supporting roles in The Maltese Falcon, Christmas Holiday, and The Best Years Of Our Lives. Her alcoholism had affected her looks and she often played characters much older than she was. Gladys and Leonard divorced in 1944. Her fourth husband, Kenneth Carson Bradley, was a bellboy twenty years younger than her. Their marriage lasted five years. By the early 1950s she was suffering from throat cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. She continued to act and appeared on the television shows Hopalong Cassidy and Chevron Theater. Tragically on December 8, 1954 she died from a cerebral hemorrhage. Gladys was only fifty years old. She was buried at
Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.