Clara Bow
Jennifer Murdoch:
Jennifer Murdoch:
Clara Bow Inspired by LilBluPenguinC
Jennifer Murdoch:
Clara Bow doesn’t look like a relic. She doesn’t look like she belongs in the ‘20s, or even in black and white. She looks nothing like the other stars of the silent era, who either seemed frozen in puberty (Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish), outrageously "exotic" (Theda Bara, Pola Negri), or untouchably glamorous (Gloria Swanson). This girl’s got something like whoa.
Look at her. She looks so ... MODERN. Like she could be a star today, right? When I show footage of Bow to my undergraduates, who generally consider the viewing of silent film as the sixth level of hell (trumped only by the viewing of Soviet silent film) they can’t take their eyes off her. It’s her movement, her eyes, the way she flirts with the camera.
But it’s something else, too — something Billy Wilder once referred to as “flesh impact," a rare quality shared only with the likes of Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, and Marilyn Monroe. Flesh impact meant having “flesh which photographs like flesh,” flesh you felt you could reach out and touch.
In other words: flesh with which you would very much like to have sex. That desire made Clara Bow a star, but would also make it easy to tell outrageous stories about her, and for people to believe those outrageous stories. In 1927, she was the No. 1 star in America. When she retired in 1931 amid a tangle of scandals, she was all of 28 years old.
Like so many stars from the silent era, Bow started from nothing. After living a childhood sort of like Francie's in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, she won a “starmaking” contest in a fan magazine in the early ‘20s. But American Idol this was not: Winning meant a feature in the magazine, a walk-on role, and little more. (Bow’s walk-on role was later cut, but she didn’t find out until she was in the theater watching with friends — for a teenage girl, this ranks up there with the dreaded getting-your-period-while-wearing-white-pants.)
But Bow had a tenacious (and total creep-fest) father who encouraged her to keep pestering for roles. Small roles snowballed into bigger ones, and she eventually found herself under contract to Paramount, which refined her image as the quintessential woman of the era: the flapper.
Now, my knowledge of flapper mostly stems from the very serious research I did to assemble a costume for a college frat party. (OK, OK, I also watched “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” in 11th grade American Lit. And took several graduate courses.) But the flapper was more of an idea than an actual person — F. Scott Fitzgerald vaguely referred to them as “lovely, expensive, and about nineteen.”
Most women were less of the subset of “flappers” and more of the larger designation of “New Women,” i.e. women who left their (usually) rural homes, came to the city, lived with (other female) roommates, found jobs in department stores, and became consumers, buying clothes, hair-dye, makeup, movie tickets, and fan magazines.
The dresses we now think of as “flapper dresses” were shorter and looser, and allowed their wearers to move: to dance, to play sports, even just to walk in a way that didn’t imply a constant state of constipation. And the appearance of knees, shoulders, and necks — along with a certain kinetic animation of those parts — suggested something that Elinor Glyn, the best-selling author who single-handedly paved the way for the likes of Danielle Steele, coyly referred to as “It.”
Jennifer Murdoch:
According to Glyn, “It” was ...
that strange magnetism which attracts both sexes ... a purely virile quality ... belonging to a strong character ... entirely unselfconscious ... full of self-confidence ... indifferent to the effect ... producing and uninfluenced by others.
But Photoplay, the leading fan magazine of the time, was still baffled:
“What is this quivering – pulsating – throbbing – beating – palpitating IT? Undeniably IT is a product of this decade. Indeed, you might say IT is a product of this hour. But what is IT?”
So in 1927, Paramount offered a definitive answer, placing Bow in a film very subtly titled ... It.
Bow had been a star before, but her appearance in this film (please, I beg you, watch the segment below, you’ll be sold — and make sure you get to the part where she takes the scissors to her dress) seemed such an embodiment of a sentiment, a type of woman, and a type of joyful consumerism, that she, and the film, were an immediate smash.
Jennifer Murdoch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5vgMWGe444
Girls wanted to be her, boys wanted to date her, and old people thought she was a sign of the apocalypse, which obviously meant she was star material. When the fan magazines revealed that her hair was red — isn’t that weird, that they wouldn’t know? Black and white, you so crazy! — sales of henna exploded. (Take that, Jennifer Aniston and your Rachel shag.) The only contemporary analog would be Julia Roberts circa Pretty Woman, before you were like, “oh Julia Roberts, put your teeth and postfeminism away.” Think of how you felt the first time you saw her in the bubble bath? Or in the red off-the-shoulder dress! Julia Roberts in 1990: That's how people felt about Clara Bow.
Over the next three years, Bow appeared in several films, most notably Wings (1927), which won Best Picture, and The Wild Party (1929). She managed to weather the transition to sound, despite her dislike of the “talkies” (she thought they were stiff, which the early ones totally were) and her very, very strong Brooklyn accent.
But Bow flamed out fast, embroiled in several scandals that would earn her the nickname “Crisis-a-Day-Clara.” The causes were straightforward:
Clara liked boys.
And, like many female stars of the time, she treated the boyfriends that she (most likely) slept with as “engagements.” This led to a series of quickly formed and broken “engagements” to the likes of Gary Cooper (so, so hot when young, trust), the director Victor Fleming, and “Latin Lover” Gilbert Roland. When she had a “case of nerves” in the late ‘20s, she was treated by a Hollywood doctor. She developed a crush on the doctor, but who knows if they just played MASH or made out or what. But when the doctor’s wife sued for divorce, she named Bow as cause for “alienation of affection.” No good.
Clara liked boys who were football players.
In the 1920s, Los Angeles was still a bit of a cowtown, and USC football was the best and biggest thing going. Bow made friends with the football team, went on a double date with a player, and regularly hosted post-game parties at her house with food, energetic dancing, and (supposedly) no drink. This known association would make it particularly difficult to counter later rumors about her involvement with the team.
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