Clara Bow… The Only IT Girl

My favorite eras in the 20th century have always been the 1960s, 1970, and the 1920s. I was looking through some books in the early 90s inside a long-forgotten bookstore, and a picture of an actress caught my eye. There was something about Clara Bow that grabbed my attention. I had read about her in a terrible slanderous trashy book called Hollywood Babylon by  Kenneth Anger.  I was compelled to get this new book just by her stare from the cover. This book was written by David Stennand is called Clara Bow”Runnin’ Wild... I finished it in one night when I went to sleep at 5am. The book impressed me so much that a few years later, I tracked down David’s phone number (again pre internet) and I called Mr. Stenn just to tell him how much I loved the book. He graciously sent me an autographed copy of the book to replace my worn-out (loaned out again and again) copy to my friends.

Unlike Anger’s book of sensational garbage, David Stenn had facts about Clara, which have been proven wrong. Reading this book introduced me to the world of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. From there, my interest in silent movies grew. I always thought all silent movies were grainy, unwatchable films where all the actors were on speed. I soon was educated that most of those movies were played on the wrong projector at different speeds, and that is the reason for the sped-up action. The quality of many of those movies from the 20s is better quality than movies made in the 60s-80s when mastered right. Stunts were not faked, and CGI didn’t exist. Everything is real.

Clara had a terrible childhood where her mother was mentally ill and tried to kill her. Her father sexually abused her on top of everything else. Clara could cry on cue when she was an actress. The reason she was able to do this is because of something that happened to her in her childhood. She lived in Brooklyn, and their apartment complex caught on fire. She had a childhood friend named Johnny. Clara was looking for Johnny when the fire was raging and found him. The little boy was on fire, and she tried to put out the fire from his clothes and hair. He ended up dying in her arms. That is what she thought of, and the tears would come. 

In her movies, she sold the tickets. Paramount built movies off of her name and didn’t always give the best scripts, but she was electric on film. Your eyes will automatically go to her. She could convey more in one look than actresses today can say in 10 minutes. She was never appreciated as she should have been, and that is sad. She was never accepted by her peers and never invited to Hollywood parties because she was straightforward and said what was on her mind. Other actresses thought that was crude and stayed away from her.  She was great with fans, but stardom took its toll on her. She ended up marrying a Western actor named Rex Bell and went into seclusion.

She did some “talkies,” and they are enjoyable, but nothing beats her silent movies like IT (no Pennywise) and Wings (the first film to win an Oscar). Call Her Savage was her best talkie film. Check her out when you can… She is worth it. I didn’t know a thing about silent movies until I read Stenn’s book. It’s worth a read if you are a fan or not. Some other stars would not hang out with her because she was a straight talker. If she felt something, she would say it. 

Actress Lina Basquette said, “She wasn’t well liked amongst other women in the film colony. Her social presence was taboo, and it was rather silly because God knows Marion Davies and Mary Pickford had plenty to hide. It’s just that they hid it, and Clara didn’t.” Bow knew the truth. “I’m a curiosity in Hollywood,” she said. “I’m a big freak because I’m myself!”

Stenn finally set the record straight with Clara. 

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

43 thoughts on “Clara Bow… The Only IT Girl”

    1. Yea…what brought this up was that article I read on your blog about…Mr Evil…Stenn did a lot of research on this. It is a great book.

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    1. That is so cool he got to meet Gish! She was fantastic.
      I’m a kind of person that falls into whatever I’m reading about…I get really obsessed. This book opened that Silent world up to me and I started to read and watch Chaplin, Keaton, Fairbanks, Pickford and more. What surprised me is the quality…they had great quality and wasn’t the jerky Keystone Kops look…they look as good or better than movies made way later on.

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  7. Yep, the older- ahem, more mature I’m getting the more I enjoy the past. The 20th century, at least to me, begins at the Great War. The societal and technological changes especially between the two wars is just flabbergasting. Old films especially are a real window to what made the world tick. They go beyond words, images say so much. So much happened at those times, and at breakneck speed. Cars, airplanes, movies- now if you were living in some place like Sagebrush Gulch or some such one-ass town you could literally see there was another world out there- if someone had a projector and put a sheet up on the wall- voila! You had the flicks and you were entertained and enlightened by a newsreel or two. Everyone’s mind was expanded- in the legal way.😉

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    1. “The legal way”… that is a good way of putting it.
      Oh just think of 1899 to 1999…it’s mind blowing obbverse. The 20th century…I’m not sure if the 21st can be as ground breaking because it started so low in the 20th Century. From the old west to modern cities and skyscrappers.
      Yea the thing about Silent movies that confuses people…I’ve seen most in better quality than movies made in the 80s. People remember the Keystone Kops and that fast motion…it didn’t play originally that way….it was because of the wrong spool holes of modern projectors. Anyway…Clara was awesome….one of the best actresses of her time….and a pistol.

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  10. Pingback: Clara Bow… The Only IT Girl – MobsterTiger

  11. Good post! She definitely had the looks to be a star in any era, sounds like she had a rough life & didn’t get to enjoy that stardom much though, which is a real shame after that childhood

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  12. Max, I knew Clara was your favorite silent picture star and that you posted on her before. Good to know someone took the time to write the truth instead slander. Love the video clips and thank you for sharing the whole movie. Another one to save to “watch later.” Happy Friday!

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  13. I’ve only seen Wings, which for the most part I felt was kind of a drag, except for every scene with Clara Bow. She brings so much life and charisma to the screen.

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  14. She certainly had a striking look. I don’t know much about her, just remember my mother mentioning her name if her picture happened to come up on TV. Interesting.

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    1. As with everything I fall into…I read everything about her and it got me into silent movies…for around a 5 year stretch…I hardly watched anything else. I had to special order them in the 90s. I’m what you call…obsessive when I find something.

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  15. I love this! Very interesting. I don’t know anything about Clara Bow except her name. But I do now. And I want to know more. I’m going to buy the David Stennand book.

    I’ve seen very few silent films. Wings is on my list of films I want to see.

    Thanks, Max, for this excellent writeup.

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    1. Thank you Pam! I do have anger issues at Kenneth Anger…but Stenn’s book is an easy read, exciting, and heartbreaking at the same time. This is what got me into all of the silent greats. She was no angel but who is? Anger said the worst things that were proven wrong.

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    1. LOL…hey the 20s were wild! I’m sure Keith was with some flapper girl…snorting something off of her.

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  18. I would recommend you read the biography of Charlie Chaplain to obtain a strong look at the silent movie era. The group Manhattan Transfer sometimes reminds me of that time period.

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    1. Oh I have… his autobiography and one by David Robinson and a few about Buster Keaton (my favorite) by Edward McPherson. I know what you mean about the Manhattan Transfer.
      When I fall into something…I’m obsessed.

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  20. I can’t say I’ve every known much about her, but she was so famous – even to my own generation. And to such an extent that she became a sort of logo or figurehead for a hippie magazine in the uk, called I.T. (International Times). I’ll send you a link to it sometime.

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      1. I think what a lot of people don’t realise is that a lot of the hippy fashions in the late sixties were based on previous eras: the 1920s and also the ‘romantic’ Victorian times with the pre-raphaelite artists and their output.

        I’ve got the magazine bookmarked, now it’s just down to my own memory, lol!

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      2. You are right… I’ve seen pics of a boutique you had over there called Granny Takes a Trip…and it had a lot of that twenties stuff combined with the hippie era…alot of adverstising from the 60s era had that as well.

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