So you might not remember the name Caitlin Clarke, but if you ever saw the movie Dragonslayer, you've seen Caitlin Clarke and the odds are you remember her.
Dragonslayer was a very underrated fantasy movie of the early '80s, about Galen, a wizard's apprentice. A traveler from a nearby country, Valerien, visited the wizards and begged them to fight a dragon that was holding the country hostage. The older wizard was murdered, but the young wizard agreed to go help fight the dragon.
It turned out that the traveler, Valarien, was female, disguised as a male by her family. The tradition of the other country demanded a female virgin be annually sacrificed to the dragon and her family sought to protect her. Catlin Clarke played Valarien very well, and I was surprised that her career in Hollywood never took off after that.
Dragonslayer wasn't a fun fantasy movie (though the reveal of Valerian's gender and how she later avoided being a dragon's lunch were both amusing), but it had wonderful effects, good performances and thoughtful reflection on what happens as magic disappears from a culture.
Clarke was born in Pittsburgh. She split her time in the '80s between Hollywood (appearing in shows like Moonlighting) and New York (appearing in Broadway's Titanic). Later, returned to Pittsburgh to teach. Sadly, she died in 2004, at 52, of ovarian cancer.
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