Clara Bow Biography

Clara Bow was perhaps one of the first silver screen sex sirens, flaunting her sexuality in an age when such behaviour was still shocking. She was a pioneer of sexual freedom long before the likes Marilyn Monroe.

Born and raised in a Brooklyn tenement, Bow's childhood was largely unhappy. Her mother was mentally ill and had never even registered Bow’s birth, in the belief that they both might die during the heat wave of that year.

In an effort to escape her daily life, Bow focused all her attention on the new world of the movies. Always on the lookout for film contests, Bow entered and won a feature in Motion Picture Magazine. Bow’s prize was to be a part in a motion picture, ‘Beyond the Rainbow’

Despite her performance later being cut, Bow picked up favourable early reviews and went on appear in a low-budget whaling movie, ‘Down to the Sea in Ships’.

Bow made 25 film features within two years, and became famous as the "It" girl of the roaring 1920s, a flapper par excellence. She became a symbol of the flapper age and her bobbed hair look was soon imitated by women all across America.

While living the life of a movie star, however, she became the victim of numerous scandals. As her gambling debts and unpaid taxes mounted, she quickly fell from grace with the public. With the advent of sound, her career ground to a halt.

In 1931, she eloped with cowboy star Rex Bell, and retired fully from the screen in 1933. Her latter years were plagued by weight problems and mental instability.

Bow died in 1965.