CLIVE, CATHERINE ( 1711-85). A noted Eng lish actress, familiarly called 'Kitty Clive.' She was a daughter of William Rafto•, an Irish gen tleman of reduced circumstances, living in Lou don. There is a doubtful story about her having been overheard singing while scrubbing a door step where there were some members of the Beef sleak Club, and so securing a chance to begin her career. At any rate, during Colley Cibber's management of Drury Lane, she made her ap pearance there as a page, with a song, in Lee's tragedy of Mithridatcs, probably in 1728. She made a great hit, which she repeated in 1729 as Phillida in Cibber's Lore in a Riddle. About 1732 she was married to George Clive, second cousin of the famous Lord Clive. In 1742 she sang the part of Delilah in Handel's Samson, then first produced. She left Drury Lane in 1743• during Fleetwood's management, but re sumed her connection with that theatre when Garrick took its direction, three years later. Her
last appearance was in 1769, as Violante in the comedy of The Wonder, Garrick himself, out of compliment to her, taking the part of Don Felix. Mrs. Olive's talents were seen to best advantage in comic parts, to which, however, she was not always satisfied to restrict herself. Iler vigorous wit and sound sense made her the welcome com panion of some of the notable people of her time. In her later life she was an intimate friend of Horace Walpole, who gave her a house at Straw berry Hill. She died December 6, 1785, and was buried at Twickenham. Consult: Fitzgerald, Life of Mrs. Catherine Clive (London, 1888) : Austin Dobson, in Matthews and Button, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, vol. i. ( sew York, 18861 ; Doran, Annals of the English Stage (London, 1SSS).