Claire Adams was born in Winnipeg, Canada (her brother was prolific screenwriter Gerald Drayson Adams), and after her education in that country was sent to a private school in England, where she studied drama. At the outbreak of World War I, however, she joined the nursing corps and spent the war years as a nurse. At war's end she returned to Canada, but soon left for California to break into films. She made quite a few pictures for producer Benjamin B. Hampton, whom she later married. She had a long career in silents, appearing with such major stars as John Gilbert, Tom Mix and Lon Chaney, but when sound came along she made one picture in 1934, What a Mother-in-Law! (1934), and then retired (she had divorced Hampton in 1932 and then retired. She died in Melbourne, Australia on September 25, 1978.

Trivia
Sister of screenwriter Gerald Drayson Adams