Vast Selection of Royalty Free Images and Historical Information

Title: Clara Bow

Description: Clara Bow (Clara Gordon Bow; AKA: The "It Girl" 1905-1965), American actress, who was born in a New York slum and where her unstable mother reportedly attempted to cut her throat as a child; she won a beauty contest in 1922 and was signed to a movie contract, becoming the reigning silent film sex symbol by 1926; Bow was known for her off-screen affairs with numerous Hollywood stars (Gary Cooper, Gilbert Roland, John Wayne) and her eccentric behavior - she often played poker all night with her maid, chauffeur and butler, or went roller skating down the middle of Beverly Hills streets at midnight, or gave beer parties for Beverly Hills cops on or off duty next to her pool; her career crashed with the advent of talking films and she later retired, marrying cowboy movie star Rex Bell (George Francis Beldham; 1903-1962), who became lieutenant governor of the State of Nevada; before dying in a sanitarium, Bow told a reporter: "In my era, we had individuality. We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. We dressed the way we wanted. I'd whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel [painted red] with seven red chow dogs to match my hair. Today, they're all sensible and end up with better health - but we had more fun" almost all of the wild and unsubstantiated tales about Bow's private sexual exploits consisted of nothing more than blatant slander and libel, created by Frederic Girnau, the gossip-mongering publisher of a periodical entitled The Coast Reporter; Girnau fabricated wild stories about Bow and even tried to blackmail her into paying him $25,000 in 1931 to cease his tabloid falsehoods about her and for which he was arrested by federal agents and later sent to prison for eight years (Girnau's lies about Bow later found their way into subsequent and equally unreliable Hollywood scandal books); actors; film; flaming youth; flappers;

Keywords: Jazz Age, motion pictures, movies, sex symbols