Mary Claire Kendall

Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington-based writer and columnist. She is the author of “Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends,” new edition published February 2024; “Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon,” published summer 2024; and “Hemingway’s Faith,” being published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She has also written the never-before-told story of Betty Hutton’s life and has various film & TV projects in development. In between her own writing, she edited “A Holy Hour with Mother Angelica” (2021), “A Crisis in Culture” by Fr. George W. Rutler (2020), and transformed “William ‘Bill’ Walton: A Charmed Life” (2013) about a Kennedy confidante who changed the face of Washington. Mary Claire is a seasoned commentary and feature writer, television and radio personality and public speaker. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems. A graduate of Wellesley College, she served as a political appointee in the Administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, at the Departments of Education (1987-’88) and Health and Human Services (1989-’93) respectively, as a speechwriter, policy analyst, and representative spearheading various initiatives.