She had her nursery and primary school in Lagos and later pursued her secondary education at the Queen of the Rosary College, Onitsha then proceeded to study Acting and Speech at the Department of Dramatic Arts of Obafemi Awolowo University.
She was recognized as a United Nations Peace Ambassador for her charity work across Africa.
She began her career in acting in the year 1980 but became popular when she featured in a soap opera titled “Mirror in the Sun”. She was the first Nigerian to win the Best Actress category at the 1982 FESPACO film festival in Burkina Faso.
Chukwura was born as the only daughter in a family of four on 24 July 1964. She is the mother of music video director Clarence Peters. She is from Anambra State.
Born in Lagos, the actress moved to Ibadan to pursue a career in acting at fourteen. Clarion who discovered her passion for acting at an early age, was supported by her father in her interests. She however lost her dad when she was about eleven years of age.
“I was born in Lagos and remained there till when I was 11 years old. From the age of 11 to 14, I stayed in Aba and Onitsha. I came to Ibadan when I was 14 and lived there till the age of 19. However, I lost my father at the age of 11.
This incident completely shattered me. My father was the centre of my life and when he died, everything just fell apart. That was the beginning of a different chapter of my life.” Clarion said in an interview.
Clarion was casted in Money Power, a movie by veteran filmmaker Ola Balogun. Young Clarion only got cast in the role of ‘Yemi’ in Money Power, after her performance as ‘Moji’ in Camwood on the Leaves, a play written by her professor, Wole Soyinka. Unknown to Clarion, Ola Balogun was in the audience and was taken by the young actor’s showmanship.
The role of Yemi had earlier been cast to a different actress, but by a stroke of fate, Ola Balogun shuffled the cards and Clarion ended up with the role that changed her life forever.
In 1982, Clarion was an impressionable aspiring actress of 18, just crossing the corridors of adulthood.
On the set of Money Power, the movie, the paths of Clara Nneka Chukwura and Oluwashina Akanbi Peters, then 25, crossed.
Sir Shina Peters was casted alongside Clara in the movie and this was the beginning of a whirlwind romance between the two.
This relationship led to the birth of their son, Clarence Abiodun Peters. Clarence was born in 1983, to his 19-year-old actress mother and his 26-year-old afro juju father. The co-stars were unmarried then and continued to remain so. The relationship between Peters and Clarion ended just as quickly as it began.
In the year 2016, Chukwura married for the third time Anthony Boyd, and converted to her new husband’s Jehovah’s Witnesses faith.