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Clara Bow Hollywood's First Sex Symbol
By Lynda Kohn
This week is sexy week on Qondio so I decided to write on the first female sex symbol in Hollywood. Clara Bow.
The saucy original flapper girl was born in Brooklyn July 29 1905. She passed away September 27, 1965. She lived a little over sixty years. During the late twenties until the early thirties she was an actress in the movies. Her last pictures were talking. Her early life was nightmarish with a mother with schizophrenia. Her mother made threats to slit her daughter's throat with a kitchen knife. Because of this horrific incident Clara Bow became a life long insomniac. Please note I'm in no way implying everybody whose mentally ill is dangerous. With the proper treatment most people with psychiatric diagnosis are not violent.Her father sexually abused her too. Plus they were dirt poor subsisting in a tenement in Brooklyn. ClaraBow thought the only way out was to go to Hollywood. Unlike like a multitude of young female hopefuls she did come the land of motion pictures. She came via winning the "Fame and Fortune" contest sponsored by Motion Picture Mgazine, Motion Picture Classic Magazine and Shadowland Magazine. She was a triple winner at sixteen. This was the grand era of movie magazines. This ended with the onslaught of People magazine and related periodicals. The latter replaced the movie magazines as resources for the latest gossip as the old TV show used to say, the rich and famous. The mostly silent movie actress would later become a major victim of gossip. More on that below.
At the time in the late twenties being a movie star was a dream of many and a reality of a very few. Clara Bow was fortunate in that way. Unfortunately it was practically the only way she was lucky. She was exploited both sexually and being vastly underpaid for her talents and box office. The producer B.P. Shulberg was the man who mostly did the exploiting. He was the father of Bud Shulberg who wrote On the Waterfront and What Makes Sammy Run. Bud Shulberg wrote his autobiography in the mid sixties. On the front page of the book is an autograph to him by Clara Bow. He told how mentally unstable she was.Part of her psychiatric illness was probably genetic since her mother was mentally ill too. Plus it may well be her familial environment with a horrible upbringing by two extremely dysfunctional parents. I'm far from certain how good an actress she was. Her first film was "Beyond the Rainbow 1922. She was in the original
"Down to the Sea in Ships" released the same year. She win one of the earliest Oscars for best actress for her role as Mary Preston in Wings 1927. However her biggest moving picture in terms of financial success was "It" She portrayed flaming youth rebelling against the strict mores of the post world war one period in the US. Her character's name was Betty Lou Spence. This is where she became the first sex goddess. The film was based on a novel by then popular romance novelist Elinor Glyn. Glyn was the Daniele Steel of her day. It was a pretty obvious euphemism for sex appeal. Ms. Bow had that in spades and then some. She was a bubbly sexy, vivacious young woman in the picture. I'm Judging from watching the movie. One thing about 1927 was it was the year of a certain cinema release The Jazz Singer." This was as most people know, the first talking picture. Talkies put an end to quite a few actors and actresses such as Pola Negri, Karl Dane, John Gilbert, Emil Jannings due to how they sounded. The case of John Gilbert was I think very unfair but that's a different matter. There's been much talk about how in Clara Bow's voice there was a rather strong Brooklyn accent and how it was so nasal, loud that it could break glass. Okay I'm exaggerating. The point is the legend is her voice was very unappealing. This simply isn't true. Her speaking was, while not the most sophisticated was at least decent sounding. You can judge for yourself on Youtube.com videos of her. There was the issue of Ms Bow being extremely anxious about making the transition to sound. There was a major love affairs withe Gary Cooper, Bela Legosi, Gilbert Roland. Some of these affairs were with married men and were because of that fact, scandelous. She was an adulterer with other women's husbands. It got so terrible for the movie star that a reporter from the Coast newspaper suggested Bow commit suicide. This is not an exageration. Her former secretary and close friend Daisy Devoe tried to blackmail her. Bow defended herself by suing Devoe for embezzlement. Devoe then went public in minute detail virtually every negative news she could tell of her former boss. There were brushes wth the law regarding unpaid taxes and being the other woman involving married men. Bow went to concentrate on her movie work to keep from thinking of her many personal, legal troubles. Sadly she was typecast so her films were few and far between. Her last pics were "Wild Party", "Call her Savage", Hoopla. She married Rex Bell in 1931. A few years later she retired from acting. Gave birth to Rex Jr 34 ,George 38.
She pretty much retired once she became the wife of Rex Bell. She was plagued by mental illness and spent many years intermittently in either mental hospitals or psych wards. Her treatment included electric convulsive therapy, better known as shock treatment. When her husband was elected Luietenant Governor of Nevada she retreated in near complete isolation. She was so isolated she didn't even go to her husband's funeral in 1962. She was that much opposed to be seen in public
She was twenty eight when she retired from the cinema.. Lastly in September she was watching a late night television showing of the old TV western series the Virginians when she passed from her one time glamerous, mostly horrific life. She succombed to heart disease. She is thought of as being America's first sex symbol. Her highest salary at the height of her career was $35,000.00 per year. |
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Another well researched and written intel, Lynda.
Thank you for sharing.
Keep up the fine work.
Frederick
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This intel was contributed by mugwort
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