Clara Bow Publicity Photo Eugene Robert Richee Photo number two 1926-2008
by David Lee Guss
Title
Clara Bow Publicity Photo Eugene Robert Richee Photo number two 1926-2008
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Clara Gordon Bow (1905 - 1965) "was an American actress who rose to stardom in silent film during the 1920s. It was her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film "It" that brought her global fame and the nickname 'The It Girl.'
Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.
She appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap (1926), It (1927) and Wings (1927). She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930. Her presence in a motion picture was said to have ensured investors, by odds of almost 2-to-1, a 'safe return'. At the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month (January 1929).
After marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, Hoop-La, was released in 1933. In September 1965, Bow died of a heart attack at the age of 60."
Clara had a wretched early life marked by poverty and having to take care of a mentally ill mother who held a knife to Clara's throat at one point in 1922.
"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 She became socially withdrawn, and although she refused to socialize with her husband, she also refused to let him leave the house alone.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 tried to commit suicide. A note was found in which Bow stated she preferred death to a public life.
In 1949 she checked in to 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, despite experiencing neither sound nor vision hallucinations.
The illness debut, or 'onset', as well as her insomnia, the analysts tied to the 'butcher knife episode' back in 1922, but Bow rejected psychological explanations and left the Institute. Bow did not return to her family.
After leaving the institution, Bow lived alone in a bungalow, which she rarely left, until her death."
Bow's morbid fear of the microphone with the arrival of talkies had only added to her mental instability.
"The quality of Bow's voice, her Brooklyn accent, was not an issue to Bow, her fans or Paramount. However, Bow, like Charlie Chaplin, Louise Brooks and most other silent film stars, didn't embrace the novelty: 'I hate talkies,' she said, '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,' Bow sighed. 'I have to do the best I can.'"
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.
MGM executive Paul Bern (who later married Jean Harlow) said Bow was 'the greatest emotional actress on the screen,' 'sentimental, simple, childish and sweet,' and considered her 'hard-boiled attitude' a 'defense mechanism.'"
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November 6th, 2016
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