“I don’t think anyone invented sex, but if you ask me, Clara Bow came the closest.” - Myrna Loy in a 1965 interview, on the occasion of Clara Bow’s death.
"It?! She had those!" - Dorothy Parker
"Clara Bow was more than a mere movie star. She marked an era.” - Adolph Zukor
Clara Bow (29th July 1905 – 27th September 1965)
Our previous entry for Miss Bow.
You really ought to have something on the woman who INVENTED the "It" girl-Elinor Glyn, the grandmother of the modern romance novel...surely you've heard the doggerel verse:
ReplyDeleteWould you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
to sin with her
On some other fur?
The first woman screenwriter in Hollywood, the creator of "It" (the title of one of her novels) and famous for her tiger skins, especially after she wrote a seriously scandalous novel "Three Weeks"...alleged to have been based on the shenanigans of one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters! She also mentored Gloria Swanson...it was said that the outfits Gloria wore as "Norma Desmond" were based on the exotic outfits favoured by Elinor.
All in good time, young lady, all in good time...
DeleteJx
Oh, and Clara Bow's movie career only lasted as long as the 'silent" era..her trashy Brooklyn accent (she was from the slums, originally), completely devoid of "it", completely SANK her career! She later regretted resisting all Elinor's efforts to "polish up" her diction!
ReplyDeleteSufiya H, this is absolute balderdash. Clara Bow was fantastic in talkies. Her last movie, "Call Her Savage," was arguably her best. She has It coming out of her ears! But she didn't enjoy Hollywood & wanted to get out. She quit Hollywood. Hollywood did not fire her!
DeleteI watched a fascinating documentary on the lady's life, and it was clear that Miss Bow was indeed a "talkie" success for a while, where others failed - it was her subsequent life choices and her rather fragile mental state that ended her superstar career, rather than the accent. Jx
DeletePS: Elinor Glyn was a good friend of Cecil Beaton, though he famously parodied her original fashion sense at a party by dressing up as her....
ReplyDelete