Clara Bow

Name	Clara Bow
Caption	in Rough House Rosie (1927)
Birth name	Clara Gordon Bow
Birth date	July 29, 1905
Birth place	Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Death date	September 27, 1965
Death place	West Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Spouse	(his death)
Children	Tony Beldam (1934-2011)George Beldam, Jr. (b. 1938)
Years active	1921–1933
Occupation	Actress

Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a quintessential flapper 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". In January 1929, at the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters. After marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow ended her career in 1933 with the film with Hoop-La, becoming a rancher in Nevada.

Early life

Clara Bow was born in 1905 in a slum tenement in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, New York, where she was also raised. Bow was the third child; the first two, also daughters, born in 1903 and 1904, died in infancy. Her mother, Sarah Bow (1880–1923), was told by a doctor not to become pregnant again for fear the next baby might die as well. Despite the her doctor's warning, Sarah Bow became pregnant with Clara in the fall of 1904. In addition to the risky pregnancy, a Heat Wave besieged New York In July 1905 and temperatures peaked around 100F; the infant mortality rate rose to 80%.

At sixteen, Sarah fell from a second-story window and suffered a severe head injury. She was later diagnosed with "psychosis due to epilepsy", a condition apart from the seizures that is known to cause disordered thinking, delusional ideation, paranoia, and aggressive behavior.

From her earliest years, Bow learned how to care for her mother during the seizures as well as how to deal with the psychotic and hostile episodes. She said her mother could be "mean" to her, but "didn't mean to ... she couldn't help it". 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. Bow was able to fend off the attack and locked her mother up. In the morning, Sarah had no recollection of the episode and was later committed to a charity hospital. Robert was often absent, leaving his family without means to survive. "I do not think my mother ever loved my father. He knew it. And it made him very unhappy, for he worshiped her, always".}}

Sarah Bow died on January 5, 1923. When relatives gathered for the funeral, Bow accused them of not being supportive in the past. Reportedly, her anger led her to attempt jumping into her mother's open grave.

Motion pictures

In the early 1920s, roughly 50 million Americans--half the population at that time--attended the movies every week. Bow discovered that as she grew into womanhood, her stature as a "boy" in her old gang would be "impossible". As well, she didn't have any girlfriends, school was a "heartache" and home "miserable". On the silver screen, however, 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". At sixteen Bow "knew" she wanted to be a motion pictures actress, even if she was a "square, awkward, funny-faced kid". 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 Classics the contest jury, Howard Chandler Christy, Neysa Mcmein, and Harrison Fisher, concluded:

Beyond the Rainbow (1922)

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, impressed Cabanne with true theatrical tears, However, movie ads and newspaper editorial comments from 1922–1923 suggest that Bow was not cut from Beyond the Rainbow. Her name is on the cast list among the other stars, usually tagged "Brewster magazine beauty contest winner" and sometimes even with a picture.

Down to the Sea in Ships (1923)

Encouraged by her father, Bow started to run around 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."

Down to the Sea in Ships was shot on location in New Bedford, Massachusetts, produced by Independent 'The Whaling Film Corporation', and documented the life, love and work in the whale-hunter community. The production relied on a few less known actors and local talents. It premiered at 'Olympia', New Bedford, on September 25, and went on general distribution on March 4, 1923.

Bow was billed 10th, but shined through and critics sang her praise: "Miss Bow will undoubtedly gain fame as a screen comedienne". "She scored a tremendous hit in Down to the Sea in Ships..(and)..has reached the front rank of motion picture principal players". "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 ... ".

]]

WAMPAS Baby Star (1924)

Bow found herself walking time after time by a Broadway movie theater, staring at her name in shimmering electric light above the entrance. "I can never tell you what happiness I felt, life had been so terrible hard and it seemed to me that now all my troubles were to be in the past".

Grit (1924)

Three months before Down to the Sea in Ships was released, Bow danced half nude, on a table, unaccredited in Enemies of Women (1923). In spring she got a part in The Daring Years (1923), were 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, which 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: Grit was released on January 7, 1924. Variety reviewed; "... Clara Bow lingers in the eye, long after the picture has gone."

While shooting Grit at Pyramid Studios, in Astoria, New York, Bow was approached by Jack Bachman of independent Hollywood studio Preferred Pictures. He wanted to contract her for a three months trial, fare paid and $50 a week. "It can't do any harm",

On July 21, 1923 she befriended Louella Parsons, who interviewed her for The New York Morning Telegraph. In 1931 when Bow came under tabloid scrutiny, Parsons defended her and stuck to her first opinion on Bow:

The interview also revealed that Bow already was cast in Maytime and in great favor of Chinese cuisine.

Hollywood (1923-1933)

) copy of Maytime. Bow comforting Ethel Shannon]]

Preferred Pictures (1923-1925)

July 22, 1923, Bow left New York, her father and her boyfriend behind. As chaperon for the journey and stay in Hollywood, the studio appointed writer/agent Maxine Alton, who Bow later branded a liar. She was tested and a press-release from early August says Bow had become a member of Preferred Picture's "permanent stock". She and Alton rented an apartment at The Hillview near Hollywood Boulevard.

Maytime (1923)

Bow's first Hollywood picture was an adaptation of the popular operetta Maytime, in which she essayed "Alice Tremaine". Before Maytime was finished, Schulberg announced that Bow was given the lead in the studio's biggest seasonal assessment, Poisoned Paradise,

Black Oxen (1923)

(1923), holding Flaming Youth to her chest; with Kate Lester and Tom Ricketts]] Director Frank Lloyd was casting for the part of high society flapper Janet Oglethorpe, and more than fifty women, most with previous screen experience, auditioned. It was released on January 4, 1924.

New York Times: "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"

Los Angeles Times: "Clara Bow, the prize vulgarian of the lot...was amusing and spirited...but didn't belong in the picture".

Variety: "...the horrid little flapper is adorably played...".

Painted People controversy

Colleen Moore made her flapper debut in a successful adaptation of the daring novel Flaming Youth, released November 12, 1923, six weeks before Black Oxen. Both films were produced by First National Pictures, and while Black Oxen was still being edited and Flaming Youth not yet released, Bow was requested to co-star Moore as her kid sister in Painted People (AKA The Swamp Angel).

Moore essayed the baseball-playing tomboy and Bow, according to Moore, said "I don't like my part, I wanna play yours". Moore, a well-established star earning $1200 a week — Bow got $200 — took offense and blocked the director from doing a close-up on Bow. Moore was married to a studio executive and Bow's protests fell short. "I'll get that bitch", she told her boyfriend Jacobson, who had arrived from New York. Bow had sinus problems and decided to have them attended to immediately. A bandaged Bow left the studio with no options but to recast her part. & Jean Harlow in Bow's ex-fiancee Victor Fleming's screwball comedy Bombshell (1933)]]

1924

The Perfect Flapper

During 1924 Bow's "horrid" flapper raced against Moore's "whimsical". In May Moore renewed her efforts in The Perfect Flapper, produced by her husband, but despite good reviews she suddenly withdrew. "No more flappers ... they have served their purpose ... people are tired of soda-pop love affairs", she told the Los Angeles Times, In November 1933, Bow described the Hollywood years as a French Revolution picture, where "women are hollering and waving pitchforks twice as violently as any of the guys ... the only ladies in sight are the ones getting their heads cut off".

"If that's what my baby wants, that's what my baby does"

By New Year 1924, Bow defied the possessive Maxine Alton and brought her father to Hollywood. Bow remembered their reunion; "I didn't care a rap, for (Maxine Alton), or B. P. Schulberg, or my motion picture career, or Clara Bow, I just threw myself into his arms and kissed and kissed him, and we both cried like a couple of fool kids. Oh, it was wonderful". On September 7, 1924, The Los Angeles Times, in a significant article "A dangerous little devil is Clara, impish, appealing, but oh, how she can act!", her father is titled "business manager" and Jacobson referred to as her brother.

Bow appeared in eight releases in 1924. In Poisoned Paradise, released on February 29, 1924, Bow got her first lead. "... the clever little newcomer whose work wins fresh recommendations with every new picture in which she appears". In a scene, described as "original", Bow adds "devices", to "the modern flapper"; she fights a villain, using her fists, and significantly, does not "shrink back in fear". In Daughters of Pleasure, also released on February 29, 1924, Bow and Marie Prevost, "flapped unhampered as flappers De luxe ... I wish somebody could star Clara Bow. I'm sure her 'infinite variety' would keep her from wearying us no matter how many scenes she was in".

Wine (1924)

(1924)]] As an out-loan to Universal-Jewel, Bow top-starred, for the first time, in the prohibition, bootleg drama/comedy Wine, released on August 20, 1924. The picture exposes the widespread liquor traffic in the upper-classes, and Bow portrays an innocent girl who develops into a wild "redhot mama". "If not taken as information, it is cracking good entertainment", Carl Sandburg reviewed September 29. "Don't miss Wine. It's a thoroughly refreshing draught ... there are only about five actresses who give me a real thrill on the screen — and Clara is nearly five of them".

Alma Whitaker of The Los Angeles Times observed on September 7, 1924: Bow remembered: "All this time I was "running wild", I guess, in the sense of trying to have a good time ... maybe this was a good thing, because I suppose a lot of that excitement, that joy of life, got onto the screen". Preferred Pictures rented Bow to producers "for sums ranging from $1500 to $2000 a week". The studio like any other independent studio or theater at that time, was under attack from "The Big Three", MPAA, who had formed a trust to block out Independents and enforce the monopolistic studio system. On October 21, 1925, Schulberg filled Preferred Pictures for bankruptcy, with debts at $820,774 and assets $1,420. Three days later, it was announced that Schulberg would join with Adolph Zukor and became associate producer of Paramount Pictures, bringing his organization, including Bow. (1925)]] Adolph Zukor, Paramount Picture CEO in his memoirs: "All the skill of directors and all the booming of press-agent drums will not make a star. Only the audiences can do it. We study audience reactions with great care". Adela Rogers St. Johns had a different take, in 1950 she wrote: "If ever a star was made by public demand, it was Clara Bow". And Louise Brooks from 1980: "(Bow) became a star without nobody's help ... ".

The Plastic Age (1925)

The Plastic Age was Bow's final effort for Preferred Pictures and her biggest hit so far. Bow starred as the good-bad college-girl, Cynthia Day against Donald Keith. It was shot on location, at Pomona College, in the summer of 1925, and released on December 15, but due to block booking, not shown in New York until July 21, 1926. Photoplay was displeased: "The college atmosphere is implausible and Clara Bow is not our idea of a college girl". Theater owners however, were happy: "The picture is the biggest sensation we ever had in our theater ... It is 100 per cent at the box-office". Some critics felt Bow conquered new territory: "(Bow) presents a whimsical touch to her work that adds greater laurels to her fast ascending star of screen popularity". Time singled out Bow: "Only the amusing and facile acting of Clara Bow rescues the picture from the limbo of the impossible". Bow began to date her co-star Gilbert Roland, who became her first fiancee. In June 1925, Bow was credited for being the first to wear hand-painted legs in public and was reported to have many followers at the Californian beaches.

Paramount Pictures (1925-1931)

The free-wheeling actress

"Rehearsals sap my pep", Bow explained in November, 1929 and from the beginning of her career she relied on immediate direction: "Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it". Bow was keen on poetry and music but according to Rogers St. Johns, her attention-span didn't allow her to appreciate novels. Bow's focal point was the scene and her creativity made directors call in extra cameras to cover her spontaneous actions, rather than holding her down. Director William Wellman was less poetic: "Movie stardom isn't acting ability — it's personality and temperament ... I once directed Clara Bow ("Wings"). She was mad and crazy but WHAT a personality!". In 1981 Budd Schulberg described Bow as "a easy winner of the dumbbell award" who "couldn't act" and compared her to a puppy who his father B.P. Schulberg, "trained to become Lassie".

1926

In 1926 Bow appeared in eight releases: five for Paramount, and three as an "out-loan", shot in 1925.

Dancing Mothers (1926)

In late 1925, Bow returns 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. "Clara Bow known as the screen's perfect flapper, does her stuff as the child, and does it well". "... her remarkable performance in Dancing Mothers ... ". Louise Brooks remembered: "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".

Mantrap (1926)

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 divorcee 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.

Variety: "Clara Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she walks into camera range". Photoplay: "When she is on the screen nothing else matters. When she is off, the same is true". Carl Sandburg: "The smartest and swiftest work as yet seen from Miss Clara Bow". The Reel Journal: "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".

Notably Bow added that she intended to leave the motion picture business at the expiration of the contract, i.e. 1931.

(1927)]]

1927

It (1927)

In the Cinderella 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." It was first shown in New York on February 5, 1927. New York Times: "(Bow)...is vivacious and, as Betty Lou, saucy, which perhaps is one of the ingredients of 'It'". The Film Daily: "Clara Bow gets a real chance and carries it off with honors...(and)...she is really the whole show". Carl Sandburg: "'It' is smart, funny and real. It makes a full-sized star of Clara Bow". Variety: "You can't get away from this Clara Bow girl. She certainly has that certain 'It'...and she just runs away with the film". Dorothy Parker: "It, hell: She had Those".

Wings (1927)

(1927)]] In 1927, Bow starred in Wings, a war picture largely rewritten to accommodate her, as she was Paramount's biggest star. The film went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Picture.

I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!

A famous scenario writer, who had done a number of pictures with Bow said:

Bow's bohemian lifestyle and "dreadful" manners were considered reminders of the Hollywood Elite's uneasy position in high society.

Bow fumed: "They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples of me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs ... I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!"

MGM executive Paul Bern said Bow was "the greatest emotional actress on the screen", "sentimental, simple, childish and sweet", and considered her "hard-boiled attitude" a "defense mechanism".

1929

Talkies

With "talkies" The Wild Party, Dangerous Curves, and The Saturday Night Kid, Bow kept her position as the top box-office draw and queen of Hollywood.

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". The inventor of the motion picture camera, Thomas Edison himself, was so annoyed by the stiffness of the early "talkies" that he refused to see them and returned to his favorite "silents" with Bow and Mary Pickford. 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 resigned, "I have to do the best I can".

1930

According to census 1930, Bow lives at Bedford Drive 512, together with her secretary and hair-dresser, Daisy DeBoe, in a house valued $25,000 with neighbors titled "Horse-keeper", "Physician", "Builder". Bow states she is 23 years old, i.e. born 1906, contradicting Census of 1910 and 1920.

"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". In April Bow was brought to a sanatorium, and at her request, Paramount released her from her final undertaking: City Streets. She left Hollywood in June and got married to Rex Bell in December.

In 1932 Bow signed a two-picture deal with Fox Film Corporation; Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933). Both successful, Variety favored the latter: "A more mature performance...she looks and photographs extremely well". Bow commented on her revealing costume in Hoop-La: "Rex accused me of enjoying showing myself off. Then I got a little sore. He knew darn well I was doing it because we could use a little money these days. Who can't?". Bow concluded her career:

Later life

Bow and cowboy actor Rex Bell, later a Lieutenant governor of Nevada, had two sons, Tony Beldam (born 1934, changed name to Rex Anthony Bell, Jr., died July 2011) and George Beldam, Jr. (born 1938). Bow retired from acting in 1933. In September 1937, she and Bell opened The 'It' Cafe on Vine Street near Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles. It was closed shortly thereafter. Her last public exposure, albeit fleeting, was a guest appearance on the radio show Truth or Consequences in March 1948; Bow provided the voice of "Mrs. Hush".

Health issues

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 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" (pp. 111–119), 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 or psychosis. 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.

In the permanent exhibition, "Myths, Minds and Medicine", the Institute addresses malpractice issues of the past, including lobotomy, which peaked in 1949, and "crude electroconvulsive therapy".

Later years

Bow spent her last years in Culver City, Los Angeles under the constant care of a nurse, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. Bow's heart bore scars from an earlier undiagnosed heart attack. She was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her pallbearers were Harry Richman, Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Dempsey and Buddy Rogers.

Honors

For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Bow was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1994, she was honored with an image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

Urban myths

The book Hollywood Babylon spread the contemporary legend that Bow's friendship with members of the 1927 University of Southern California football team included group sex with the entire team. In the 1980s Morley Drury commented that his team was "too damn innocent" to be anything else.

During her lifetime, Bow was the subject of wild rumors regarding her sex life; most 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 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.

In popular culture

Max Fleischer's cartoon character Betty Boop was modeled after Bow and 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.

Filmography

+ Film
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1922	Beyond the Rainbow	Virginia Gardener
1922	Down to the Sea in Ships	Dot Morgan	Extant
1923	Enemies of Women	Girl dancing on table	Extant(incomplete)
1923		Mary	Lost film
1923		Alice Tremaine	Extant
1923	Black Oxen	Janet Ogelthorpe	Extant
1924	Grit	Orchid McGonigle	Lost film
1924	Poisoned Paradise	Margot LeBlanc	Extant
1924	Daughters of Pleasure	Lila Millas	Extant
1924		Angela Warriner	Lost film
1924	Empty Hearts	Rosalie	Extant
1924		Alice Mayton	Extant
1924	This Woman	Aline Sturdevant	Lost film
1924	Black Lightning	Martha Larned	Extant
1925	Capital Punishment	Delia Tate	Extant
1925		The Girl	Lost film
1925	Eve's Lover	Rena D'Arcy	Lost film
1925		Molly Burns	Lost film
1925		Miriam	Lost film (trailer survives)
1925	My Lady's Lips	Lola Lombard	Extant
1925	Parisian Love	Marie	Extant
1925		Grizette	Lost film
1925		Lolly Cameron	Lost film (Trailer exists)
1925		Marilyn Merrill	Extant (incomplete)
1925	Free to Love	Marie Anthony	Extant
1925		Peggy Swain	Extant
1925		Cynthia Day	Extant
1925		Doris	Lost film
1925	My Lady of Whims	Prudence Severn	Extant
1926	Shadow of the Law	Mary Brophy	Lost film
1926	Two Can Play	Dorothy Hammis	Lost film
1926	Dancing Mothers	Kittens Westcourt	Extant
1926	Fascinating Youth	Clara Bow	Lost film
1926		Cynthia Meade	Lost film
1926		Alverna	Extant
1926	Kid Boots	Clara McCoy	Extant
1927		Betty Lou Spence	Extant
1927	Children of Divorce	Kitty Flanders	Extant
1927	Rough House Rosie	Rosie O'Reilly	Lost film (trailer exists)
1927		Mary Preston	Extant
1927		Hula Calhoun	Extant
1927	Get Your Man	Nancy Worthington	Extant but incomplete;(missing at least 2 reels)
1928		Bubbles McCoy	Lost film (Fragments exist, including the only known color footage of Bow)
1928	Ladies of the Mob	Yvonne	Lost film
1928		Trixie Deane	Lost film
1928	Three Weekends	Gladys O'Brien	Lost film(fragments survives)
1929		Stella Ames	Extant
1929		Pat Delaney	Extant
1929		Mayme	Alternative title: Love 'Em and Leave 'Em; Extant
1930	Paramount on Parade	herself	Extant
1930	True to the Navy	Ruby Nolan	Extant
1930	Love Among the Millionaires	Pepper Whipple	Extant
1930	Her Wedding Night	Norma Martin	Extant
1931		Helen "Bunny" O'Day	Extant
1931		Molly Hewes	Extant
1932	Call Her Savage	Nasa Springer	Extant
1933	Hoop-La	Lou	Extant
1949	Screen Snapshots 1860: Howdy, Podner	Clara Bow – Resort Guest	Short subject

References

Bibliography

"The 'It' girl" by Joe Morella and Edward Z Epstein, 1976, Dell pub, Co, Inc, ISBN 0-440-14068-4.

"Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild" by David Stenn, 1988, Doubleday, ISBN 0385241259.

TCM Film Guide, "Leading Ladies: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era", Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, 2006.

Vieira, Mark A. Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1999. ISBN 0-8109-8228-5

External links

Photographs and bibliography

Clara Bow My Life Story

Clara Bow attends a premiere with Mae Murray

Category:Actors from New York City Category:American film actors Category:American silent film actors Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in California Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:People from Brooklyn Category:1905 births Category:1965 deaths