Clara Bow

Early life

Bow was born in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn in New York City, at 697 Bergen Street, in a "bleak, sparsely furnished room above [a] dilapidated Baptist Church". Her birth year, according to the US Censuses of 1910 and 1920, was 1905. In US census records, enumerated April 15, 1910, and January 7, 1920, Bow's age is stated 4 and 14 years, respectively. The 1930 census stated an age of 23.

Bow was her parents' third child. Her two older sisters, born in 1903 and 1904, had died in infancy. Her mother, Sarah Frances Bow (née Gordon, 1880–1923), was told by a doctor not to become pregnant again for fear the next baby might die as well. Despite the warning, Sarah became pregnant with Clara in late 1904. In addition to the risky pregnancy, a heat wave besieged New York in July 1905, and temperatures peaked around 100 °F (38 °C). Years later, Clara wrote: "I don't suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life."

Bow's parents were descended from English and Scots-Irish immigrants who had come to America the generation before. Bow said that her father, Robert Walter Bow (1874–1959), "had a quick, keen mind... all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn't... everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling." By the time Clara was four and a half, her father was out of work. Between 1905 and 1923, the family lived at 14 different addresses, but seldom outside Prospect Heights, with Clara's father often absent. "I do not think my mother ever loved my father," she said. "He knew it. And it made him very unhappy, for he worshipped her always."

When Bow's mother was 16, she fell from a second-story window and suffered a severe head injury. She was later diagnosed with "psychosis due to epilepsy". From her earliest years, Bow had learned how to care for her mother during the seizures, as well as how to deal with her psychotic and hostile episodes. She said her mother could be "mean to me—and she often was," but "she didn't mean to be and that it was because she couldn't help it." Still, Bow felt deprived of her childhood; "As a kid I took care of my mother, she didn't take care of me".

Sarah worsened gradually, and when she realized her daughter was set for a movie career, Bow's mother told her she "would be much better off dead." One night in February 1922, Bow awoke to a butcher knife held against her throat by her mother. Clara was able to fend off the attack and locked her mother in her room. In the morning, Bow's mother had no recollection of the episode. Later, she was committed to a sanitarium by Robert Bow.

Career

1921–1922: Early years

In the early 1920s, roughly 50 million Americans—half the population at that time—attended the movies every week. As Bow grew into womanhood, her stature as a "boy" in her old gang became "impossible". She did not have any girlfriends, school was a "heartache," and her home was "miserable". On the silver screen, she found consolation; "For the first time in my life I knew there was beauty in the world. For the first time I saw distant lands, serene, lovely homes, romance, nobility, glamor." And further; "I always had a queer feeling about actors and actresses on the screen ... I knew I would have done it differently. I couldn't analyze it, but I could always feel it." "I'd go home and be a one girl circus, taking the parts of everyone I'd seen, living them before the glass." At 16, Bow says she "knew" she wanted to be a motion picture actress, even if she was a "square, awkward, funny-faced kid."

Against her mother's wishes but with her father's support, Bow competed in Brewster publications' magazine's annual nationwide acting contest, "Fame and Fortune", in fall 1921. In previous years, other contest winners had found work in the movies. In the contest's final screen test, Bow was up against an already scene-experienced woman who did "a beautiful piece of acting". A set member later stated that when Bow did the scene, she actually became her character and "lived it". In the January issues 1922 of Motion Picture Classic, the contest jury, Howard Chandler Christy, Neysa McMein, and Harrison Fisher, concluded:

She is very young, only 16. But she is full of confidence, determination and ambition. She is endowed with a mentality far beyond her years. She has a genuine spark of divine fire. The five different screen tests she had showed this very plainly; her emotional range of expression provoked a fine enthusiasm from every contest judge who saw the tests. She screens perfectly. Her personal appearance is almost enough to carry her to success without the aid of the brains she indubitably possesses.

Bow won an evening gown and a silver trophy, and the publisher committed to help her "gain a role in films", but nothing happened. Bow's father told her to "haunt" Brewster's office, located in Brooklyn, until they came up with something. "To get rid of me, or maybe they really meant to (give me) all the time and were just busy", Bow was introduced to director Christy Cabanne, who cast her in Beyond the Rainbow, produced late 1921 in New York City and released February 19, 1922. Bow did five scenes and impressed Cabanne with her ability to produce tears on cue, but was cut from the final print. "I was sick to my stomach," she recalled, and thought her mother was right about the movie business.

1922–1924: Early silent films

Encouraged by her father, Bow continued to visit studio agencies asking for parts. "But there was always something. I was too young, or too little, or too fat. Usually, I was too fat." Eventually, director Elmer Clifton needed a tomboy for his movie Down to the Sea in Ships, saw Bow in Motion Picture Classic magazine, and sent for her. In an attempt to overcome her youthful looks, Bow put her hair up and arrived in a dress she "sneaked" from her mother. Clifton said she was too old, but broke into laughter as the stammering Bow made him believe she was the girl in the magazine. Clifton decided to take Bow with him and offered her $35 a week. Bow held out for $50 and Clifton agreed, but he could not say whether she would "fit the part". Bow later learned that one of Brewsters' subeditors had urged Clifton to give her a chance.

Down to the Sea in Ships, shot on location in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and produced by independent "The Whaling Film Corporation", documented life, love, and work in the whale-hunter community. The production relied on a few lesser-known actors and local talents. It premiered at the Olympia Theater in New Bedford, on September 25, 1922, and went on general distribution on March 4, 1923. Bow was billed 10th in the film, but shone through:

"Miss Bow will undoubtedly gain fame as a screen comedienne."

"Clara Bow who has reached the front rank of motion picture principal player ... [has] scored a tremendous hit in Down To The Sea In Ships."

"With her beauty, her brains, her personality and her genuine acting ability, it should not be many moons before she enjoys stardom in the fullest sense of the word. You must see Down to the Sea in Ships."

"In movie parlance, she 'stole' the picture ..."

By mid-December 1923, primarily due to her merits in Down to the Sea in Ships, Bow was chosen the most successful of the 1924 WAMPAS Baby Stars. Three months before Down to the Sea in Ships was released, Bow danced on a table uncredited in Enemies of Women (1923). During the year, she made a short film, The Pill Pounder (1923). In spring, Bow got a part in The Daring Years (1923), where she befriended actress Mary Carr, who taught her how to use make-up. In the summer, she got a "tomboy" part in Grit, a story that dealt with juvenile crime and was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bow met her first boyfriend, cameraman Arthur Jacobson, and she got to know director Frank Tuttle, with whom she worked in five later productions. Tuttle remembered:

1923–1925: Preferred Pictures

On July 22, 1923, Bow left New York, her father, and her boyfriend behind for Hollywood. As chaperone for the journey and her subsequent southern California stay, the studio appointed writer and agent Maxine Alton, whom Bow later branded a liar. In late July, Bow entered the office of studio chief B. P. Schulberg wearing a simple high-school uniform in which she "had won several gold medals on the cinder track". She was tested and a press release from early August says Bow had become a member of Preferred Pictures' "permanent stock".

Bow signed with Preferred Pictures, also working with other studios. Alton and Bow rented an apartment at The Hillview near Hollywood Boulevard. Preferred Pictures was run by Schulberg, who had started as a publicity manager at Famous Players–Lasky, but in the aftermath of the power struggle around the formation of United Artists, ended up on the losing side and lost his job. He founded Preferred in 1919 as a result, at the age of 27.

Maytime was Bow's first Hollywood picture, an adaptation of the operetta Maytime, in which she played Alice Tremaine. Before the film was finished, Schulberg announced that Bow was given the lead in the studio's upcoming film Poisoned Paradise. But first she was lent to First National Pictures to co-star in the adaptation of Gertrude Atherton's 1923 best seller Black Oxen, shot in October, and to co-star with Colleen Moore in Painted People, shot in November.

Black Oxen director Frank Lloyd was casting for the part of high-society flapper Janet Oglethorpe, and more than 50 women auditioned, most with previous screen experience. Bow reminisced: "but he had not found exactly what he wanted and finally somebody suggested me to him ... When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death." Lloyd told the press, "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental." It was released on January 4, 1924.

"The flapper, impersonated by a young actress, Clara Bow, ... had five speaking titles, and every one of them was so entirely in accord with the character and the mood of the scene that it drew a laugh from what, in film circles, is termed a 'hard-boiled' audience." The Los Angeles Times commented that "Clara Bow, the prize vulgarian of the lot... was amusing and spirited but she never belonged in the picture". Variety said that "the horrid little flapper is adorably played".

1925–1928: Paramount Pictures

Bow appeared in eight releases in 1926: five for Paramount, including the film version of the musical Kid Boots with Eddie Cantor, and three loan-outs that had been filmed in 1925. In late 1925, Bow returned to New York to co-star in the Ibsenesque drama Dancing Mothers, as the good/bad "flapperish" upper-class daughter Kittens. Alice Joyce starred as her dancing mother, with Conway Tearle as "bad-boy" Naughton. The picture was released on March 1, 1926. Local reviews were very positive; "Clara Bow, known as the screen's perfect flapper, does her stuff as the child, and does it well", and "her remarkable performance in Dancing Mothers ... ". Louise Brooks remembered her in Brownlow's book; "She was absolutely sensational in the United States ... in Dancing Mothers ... she just swept the country ... I know I saw her ... and I thought ... wonderful."

On April 12, 1926, Bow signed her first contract with Paramount: "to retain your services as an actress for the period of six months from June 6, 1926 to December 6, 1926, at a salary of $750.00 per week". Bow negotiated her Paramount contract to not have a morals clause. In Victor Fleming's comedy-triangle Mantrap Bow, as Alverna the manicurist, cures lonely hearts Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence) of the great northern, as well as pill-popping New York divorce attorney runaway Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont). Bow commented: "[Alverna] ... was bad in the book, but—darn it!—of course, they couldn't make her that way in the picture. So I played her as a flirt."

The film was released on July 24, 1926, to rave reviews. Variety said that "Clara Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she walks into camera range", while Photoplay told readers that "When she is on the screen nothing else matters. When she is off, the same is true." Carl Sandburg wrote that it was "The smartest and swiftest work as yet seen from Miss Clara Bow." and Sam Carver of the Newman Theater was quoted in The Reel Journal as saying that "Clara Bow is taking the place of Gloria Swanson...(and)...filling a long need for a popular taste movie actress."

On August 16, 1926, Bow's agreement with Paramount was renewed into a five-year deal: "Her salary will start at $1700 a week and advance yearly to $4000 a week for the last year." Bow added that she intended to leave the motion picture business at the expiration of the contract, i.e., in 1931. In 1927 Bow appeared in six Paramount releases: It, Children of Divorce, Rough House Rosie, Wings, Hula and Get Your Man. In the Cinderella based story It, the poor shop-girl Betty Lou Spence (Bow) conquers the heart of her employer Cyrus Waltham (Antonio Moreno). The personal quality—"It"— provides the magic to make it happen. The film gave Bow her nickname, "The 'It' Girl". Reviews were nothing less than outstanding: The New York Times said that "(Bow)...is vivacious and, as Betty Lou, saucy, which perhaps is one of the ingredients of It."

1929–1933: Sound films

With "talkies" The Wild Party, Dangerous Curves, and The Saturday Night Kid, all released in 1929, Bow kept her position as the top box-office draw and queen of Hollywood. Neither the quality of Bow's voice nor her Brooklyn accent was an issue to Bow, her fans, or Paramount. However, Bow, like Charlie Chaplin, Louise Brooks, and most other silent film stars, did not embrace the novelty: "I hate talkies ... they're stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness, because there's no chance for action, and action is the most important thing to me."

A visibly nervous Bow had to do a number of retakes in The Wild Party because her eyes kept wandering up to the microphone overhead. "I can't buck progress ... I have to do the best I can," she said. In October 1929 Bow described her nerves as "all shot", saying that she had reached "the breaking point", and Photoplay cited reports of "rows of bottles of sedatives" by her bed. "Now they're having me sing. I sort of half-sing, half-talk, with hips-and-eye stuff. You know what I mean—like Maurice Chevalier. I used to sing at home and people would say, 'Pipe down! You're terrible!' But the studio thinks my voice is great."

With Paramount on Parade, True to the Navy, Love Among the Millionaires, and Her Wedding Night, Bow was second at the box-office only to Joan Crawford in 1930. With No Limit and Kick In, Bow held the position as fifth at box-office in 1931, but the pressures of fame, public scandals, and overwork, took their toll on Bow's fragile emotional health.

A damaging court trial charged her secretary Daisy DeVoe with financial mismanagement, by Paramount-friendly officials: Los Angeles District Attorney Buron Fitts, Assistant District Attorney David Clark, and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Doran.

According to the 1930 census, Bow lived at 512 Bedford Drive, together with her secretary and hairdresser, Daisy DeBoe (later DeVoe), in a house valued $25,000 with neighbors titled "Horse-keeper", "Physician", "Builder". Bow stated she was 23 years old, i.e., born 1906, contradicting the censuses of 1910 and 1920.

As she slipped closer to a major breakdown her manager, B.P. Schulberg, began referring to her as "Crisis-a-day-Clara". In April, Bow was taken to a sanatorium and, at her request, Paramount released her from her final undertaking: City Streets (1931). At 25 her career was essentially over. B. P. Schulberg tried to replace Bow with his girlfriend Sylvia Sidney, but Paramount went into receivership, lost its position as the biggest studio (to MGM), and fired Schulberg. David Selznick explained:

Retirement and later years

Bow and actor Rex Bell (later a lieutenant governor of Nevada) had two sons, Tony Beldam (born 1934, changed name to Rex Anthony Bell Jr., died 2011) and George Beldam Jr. (born 1938, died in 2024). Bow retired from acting in 1933. In September 1937, Bow and Bell opened The 'It' Cafe in the Hollywood Plaza Hotel at 1637 N Vine Street, near Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. They sold the cafe in 1943. Her last appearance, albeit via a taped recording, came in 1947 on the radio show Truth or Consequences, when Bow was the mystery voice in the show's "Mrs. Hush" contest.

Health issues

All the time the flapper is laughing and dancing, there's a feeling of tragedy underneath, she's unhappy and disillusioned, and that's what people sense.

Bow eventually began showing symptoms of psychiatric illness. She became socially withdrawn and, although she refused to socialize with her husband, she also refused to let him leave the house alone. In 1944, while Bell was running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Bow attempted suicide. A note was found in which Bow stated she preferred death to a public life.

In 1949, she checked into The Institute of Living to be treated for her chronic insomnia and diffuse abdominal pains. Shock treatment was tried and numerous psychological tests performed. Bow's IQ was measured "bright normal", while others claimed she was unable to reason, had poor judgment and displayed inappropriate or even bizarre behavior. Her pains were considered delusional and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia; however, she experienced neither auditory nor visual hallucinations. Analysts tied the onset of the illness, as well as her insomnia, to the "butcher knife episode" back in 1922, but Bow rejected psychological explanations and left the institute. She did not return to her family. After leaving the institution, Bow lived alone in a bungalow, which she rarely left, until her death.

Death

Bow spent her last years in Culver City, under the constant care of a nurse, Estalla Smith, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. In 1965, at age 60, she died of a heart attack, which her autopsy attributed to atherosclerosis. She was interred in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Heritage at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her pallbearers were Harry Richman, Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Dempsey, and Buddy Rogers.

Legacy

Film historian Leonard Maltin said in 1999: "You think of Greta Garbo, Lillian Gish, all these great names, great actresses. Clara Bow was more popular in terms of box-office dollars, in terms of consistently bringing audiences into the theaters. She was right on top." In 1999 the American Film Institute excluded Bow from its finalized "100 Years...100 Stars" list, although she was on the list of nominees.

Film historian Kevin Brownlow did not mention Bow in his 1968 book on silent films, The Parade's Gone By. Louise Brooks, who received an entire chapter in the book, wrote to Brownlow, "You brush off Clara Bow for some old nothing like Brooks. Clara made three pictures that will never be surpassed: Dancing Mothers, Mantrap, and It." In a conversation with filmmaker Thomas Hamilton, Brownlow explained that he had planned to include a chapter on Bow but was unable to secure an interview with the reclusive star before her death, and since all chapters were based on first-hand accounts, it would have been inconsistent to include a chapter based on second-hand anecdotes. Brownlow made up for this omission by including an entire segment about Bow in his television documentary Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980), for which he interviewed Brooks.

Awards and honors

For her contributions to the film industry, Bow was awarded a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Her star is located at 1500 Vine Street.

In 1994, she was honored with an image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

In popular culture

Max Fleischer's cartoon character Betty Boop was modelled after Bow's appearance and after the voice of entertainer Helen Kane (the "boop-boop-a-doop-girl").

Bow's mass of tangled red hair was one of her most famous features. When fans of the new star found out she put henna in her hair, sales of the dye tripled.

An autographed picture of Bow is offered as a consolation prize of a beauty contest in the 1931 George Gershwin musical Of Thee I Sing.

During her lifetime, Bow was the subject of wild rumors regarding her sex life; many of them were untrue. A tabloid called The Coast Reporter published lurid allegations about her in 1931, accusing her of exhibitionism, incest, lesbianism, bestiality, drug addiction, alcoholism, and having contracted a venereal disease. The publisher of the tabloid then tried to blackmail Bow, offering to cease printing the stories for $25,000, which led to his arrest by federal agents and, later, an eight-year prison sentence.

The lead character of Peppy Miller from the 2011 film The Artist was inspired principally by Clara Bow, and in playing the part, actress Bérénice Bejo invoked many of Bow's screen mannerisms.

Bow inspired the name of the player character Laura Bow in the video games The Colonel's Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra.

On July 5, 2016, Variety announced that Silver Bullet Entertainment and MJW Media were producing a film based on David Stenn's biography, Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild.

Bow is mentioned in the Prince song "Condition of the Heart" from his 1985 album Around the World in a Day and drawn on the cover of the album.

"Clara Bow" is also the title of a song on alternative rock-band 50 Foot Wave's debut album 50 Foot Wave.

Fictional portrayals

Bow was played by Jennifer Tilly in the motion picture Return to Babylon (2013).

Margot Robbie plays a fictionalized character based on Bow in the 2022 film Babylon.

Notes and references