Clara Bow (Actor)

American screen star Clara Bow. (Photo: IMEugene Robert Richee/General Photographic Agency / Getty Images)

One of the loveliest and most talented actresses of the late 1920s, Bow was largely unappreciated by critics, though adored by her fans. Clara Bow endured a Dickensian childhood (abusive father, psychotic mother) in Brooklyn, which she tried to escape by becoming an actress. Winning a beauty contest, Bow was doing bit parts by 1923. That year she was signed by producer B.P. Schulberg of Preferred, and worked nearly to death for the next two years, appearing in more than 20 films (many on loan-out). She learned her craft and became a familiar face to screen audiences.

Bow was signed by Paramount in 1926 and her star immediately rose with good roles in good films: as Alice Joyce's selfish daughter in "Dancing Mothers", a brilliant turn as a Klondike bride in "Mantrap", as Eddie Cantor's leading lady in "Kid Boots" (all 1926). Bow achieved her greatest notoriety with the lead role in "It" (1927), which earned her the tag of the "It" girl--a quintessential Jazz Age term which suggested modernity, independence and sexual liberation. Several more hits followed, displaying Bow's increasingly impressive talent: "Children of Divorce" (1927), "Wings" (1927), "Ladies of the Mob" (1928).

Clara Bow's career ended with the talkies, for several reasons, her Brooklyn accent being the least of them. She hated the discipline of talkies; a number of vehicles at Paramount, with whom she had several conflicts, were unworthy of her; fan magazines harangued her about her active love life; and her own emotional state was becoming fragile. After making a total of 11 talkies (the best being the bizarre 1932 "Call Her Savage"), Bow retired with husband Rex Bell to Nevada.