“You look like Clara Bow in this light,” Taylor Swift sings on the final track of “The Tortured Poets Department,” titled after the 1920s sex symbol. She goes on to name-check two more immediately recognizable women — Stevie Nicks and one Taylor Swift — but what attracted Swift to reference a silent movie star on an album that also includes a throwaway Charlie Puth reference?
A movie star by the age of 20, Bow’s career was over at 28. Now Swift might have positioned her to win over a new generation of fans.
Known as the “It Girl” for both her starring role in the silent comedy “It” and her place as one of the pre-eminent sex symbols of ’20s Hollywood, Bow wasn’t washed up because her box office slipped. She was washed up because her scandal-plagued life made her a liability, both for the studios and for her own mental health.
A movie star by the age of 20, Bow’s career was over at 28. Now Swift might have positioned her to win over a new generation of fans.
Known as the “It Girl” for both her starring role in the silent comedy “It” and her place as one of the pre-eminent sex symbols of ’20s Hollywood, Bow wasn’t washed up because her box office slipped. She was washed up because her scandal-plagued life made her a liability, both for the studios and for her own mental health.
- 4/19/2024
- by Mark Peikert
- Indiewire
She’s the reason that rising female stars are often called “the It girl.” She starred in the first movie to win an Oscar for best picture. By 1930, she’d made in 45 movies in six years. By 1933, after struggles with men and mental illness, Clara Bow’s Hollywood career was over.
There’s been a surge of interest in the legendary actress who straddled the silent and sound eras this week after Taylor Swift revealed the tracklist for her upcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” The last song on Side D is titled “Clara Bow.”
A native of Brooklyn, Bow grew up in poverty and got her start in pictures after she won a contest sponsored by a magazine. Her prizes were “an evening gown, a trophy and a promise to help the aspiring young actress gain entrée into the film industry,” according to Bow’s biography from Turner Classic Movies.
There’s been a surge of interest in the legendary actress who straddled the silent and sound eras this week after Taylor Swift revealed the tracklist for her upcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” The last song on Side D is titled “Clara Bow.”
A native of Brooklyn, Bow grew up in poverty and got her start in pictures after she won a contest sponsored by a magazine. Her prizes were “an evening gown, a trophy and a promise to help the aspiring young actress gain entrée into the film industry,” according to Bow’s biography from Turner Classic Movies.
- 2/10/2024
- by Cynthia Littleton
- Variety Film + TV
The term “It Girl” first came widespread usage courtesy of Clara Bow, whose starring role in 1927’s “It” made the actress a worldwide star. Many have followed in her wake, and one way of determining Hollywood’s current It Girl will be seeing who’s tapped to play Bow in the just-announced biopic based on David Stenn’s biography “Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild.” As first reported by Variety, Silver Bullet Entertainment has acquired the rights to Stenn’s book and is developing a film based on it.
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“The Clara Bow story is one of the most intriguing stories in all of Hollywood,” said Silver Bullet’s David Silver. “She was an amazing actress and overcame countless obstacles in her rise to stardom. We have wanted to do this project for a long time.” Stenn...
Read More: Cannes 2016: Mary Pickford Biopic ‘The First’ Looking To Cast Hollywood Royalty – Exclusive
“The Clara Bow story is one of the most intriguing stories in all of Hollywood,” said Silver Bullet’s David Silver. “She was an amazing actress and overcame countless obstacles in her rise to stardom. We have wanted to do this project for a long time.” Stenn...
- 7/6/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Rex Bell Jr, son of silent-film superstar Clara Bow (right) and cowboy actor Rex Bell, died of cancer on Saturday, July 9. He was 76. A former Republican Lieutenant Governor and Clark County (Las Vegas and surrounding areas) district attorney who believed in long sentences and more and bigger prisons, Bell Jr didn't have much of a career in films. He appeared in only a couple of run-of-the-mill A. C. Lyles Westerns in the mid-'60s, Stage to Thunder Rock (1964) and Young Fury (1965). At that time, Paramount producer Lyles used faded stars — and children of faded stars — in his series of B Westerns: Stage to Thunder Rock features Barry Sullivan, Marilyn Maxwell, Lon Chaney Jr, Wanda Hendrix, and John Agar; in addition to Chaney and Agar, Young Fury has Virginia Mayo, Rory Calhoun, Richard Arlen, Merry Anders, and Jody McCrea, son of Joel McCrea and Frances Dee. Clara Bow died at the...
- 7/12/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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