OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS : MARK BAILY on CLARA BOW and MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

Paraphrased from this interesting book (and some of this information is also available through web site searches and other sources):

Clara Bow was the first celebrity to be called an "It Girl" ; the phrase was from her 1927 film "It Girl."  She captivated audiences in silent films with her natural performances which seemed as though she was natural, not acting. 

But Clara had a bad reputation in Hollywood, even among other actors who were hardly prudish. Perhaps her reputation was undeserved but they basically thought of her as a "tramp from the slums of Brooklyn."  "She did in fact grow up in poverty."  When she came to Hollywood in 1923 she was thought to be vulgar and talentless but her "sincere and uninhibited performances struck a chord with movie goers."  (Page 12)

"She was always incredibly sweet, professional, and beloved by the film crews she worked with."  But she was not to be invited to parties.  At least not the parties of anyone who wished to remain among the respectable Hollywood elite. (Page 15)

This saucy teenager was from (gasp!) Brooklyn, her mother was insane, and her father a lecherous hanger-on who was bleeding her dry through a series of failed business ventures. Bow herself was so licentious that she could shock even jaded old Hollywood types. As Budd Schulberg, son of Paramount president B.P. Schulberg and later a gifted screenwriter (On the Waterfront) recalled, "They all thought she was a low-life and disgrace to the community."  (Pages 12-13)

"But the truth about Bow was simpler. She was a scared 20 year old tomboy with little formal education. Her childhood friends were boys, and as a result, the things she enjoyed doing were almost exclusively reserved for men; drinking, gambling, swearing, and screwing.  She was also completely sincere.

A fun-loving innocent, at first Bow behaved no worse that a typical 20 year old. Sure she had parties with USC undergraduates, but they only ended in front yard wrestling matches, like an 11 year old on the streets of Brooklyn. Sure, she kept the back door open so cops could stop by and grab a beer. Who wouldn't?

But Clara Bow had so few friends that she usually played cards with her maid and cook. She ended her multiple affairs with powerful men before they got bored and told her what they really thought. One such powerful men was the elder B.P Schulberg himself - who - in addition to keeping Bow as a mistress had her under contract at Paramount.

(Note; According to the BBC documentary she met and signed with B.P at age 17.)


MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW : OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS

This book covers the Silent Era, the Studio Era, the Postwar era, the 1960's to the "new Hollywood" of the 1970's and includes places the stars went to drink and dine, like the Ambassador Hotel and the Coconut Grove, recipes for the fancy drinks featuring hard liquor (the authors had a bar tender consultant), and profiles of some of the legendary hard users of drink who were famous in Hollywood, mostly actors, names you know. A small and fun book, you may be tempted to spend some time sight-seeing and bar hoping even if you're a local.

CLARA BOW : ACTRESS, FIRST "IT GIRL" and ROARING TWENTIES MISTRESS OF OLD HOLLYWOOD FILM PRODUCER B.P. SCHULBERG

Image from Wikimedia Commons/ Google Images

(1905-1965) 

 

CLARA BOW  - THE FIRST "IT GIRL"

 

 

This month we celebrate CLARA BOW, the first woman to ever be called an "It Girl," which was after she appeared in a film called "It!" in 1927.  She was 22 years old.  Clara's ability to use facial expressions to transmit a myriad of emotions and thought processes was invaluable for a Silent Screen actress and some say she was the very best actress in that era. But in the end she mostly made other people rich. Nor did her fans know the truth of her hard life. 

   

Film and Hollywood historians consider Clara Bow to have been both overworked and underpaid since she made 58 films from 1922 to 1933, while living in a small 7 room house, in what is now the expensive and exclusive Beverly Hills, but which at the time was a new undeveloped suburb. (46 of these were Silent films and 11 were "talkies.")  As for talkies, her strong Brooklyn accent was at odds with her screen image. 

 

The man who she was mistress to, at least for a while prior to their marriages, B.P. Schulberg, got her work, lots of it, and made most of the money. That she was his mistress is told in the book below, ALL THOSE GIN JOINTS, which says that B.P. Schulberg's son, Budd, who also wrote a book about his father that said so, and other "first hand accounts" admitted as much. By 1931 Clara had left the studio. B.P. married Adeline Jaffe in 1933 and until then only "dated."

 

So we have questions:  Was Clara Bow so thrilled with being an actress and making films that she didn't mind the bad pay? Was this just the way it was for all or most women in Hollywood, or most actors, in the early days of film making?  (As we know right now there's a movement for equal pay for Hollywood actresses lead by Patricia Arquette.) How much did B.P. provide her? 

 

There are clues that he was generous when he had to be and that he was embarrassed by her but also solidly on her side for some time.

 

Raised in a working poor family with mental illness (her mother) and alcoholism (her father) taking its toll, and likely molested by her father, who continued to expect her financial support after her mother tried to kill her and was placed in a mental hospital, Clara was supporting a family she couldn't cut loose even as they tormented her.  And they made her socially unacceptable if her hard drinking, talking, and frank sexuality did not.

 

While associated with the party of the Roaring Twenties, Clara Bow was considered to be an uninhibited girl who grew up on the tough streets, a tomboy who frankly liked sex and was accused of breaking up marriages. Though Hollywood's morals were barely there, she was even shunned by the Hollywood community for her looseness.  Today we might say that she failed to have boundaries.  She thought nothing of French kissing a stranger she'd just been introduced to.  But then maybe she was drunk.

 

In 1931 she married Rex Bell, a cowboy film actor and retired from film making after 1934.  She had two sons and settled into motherhood.  If only the marriage normalized her life!  But Clara Bow had mental breakdowns herself and was often in financial trouble.

 

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 THE FILM CALLED "IT" STARING CLARA BOW

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 Research into Clara Bow included this book, with excerpts coming up, as well as Internet resources like Find A Grave.  In this book on page 13, it states that Schulberg enjoyed the pleasure of her company but needed her to appear less scandalous.  "In an effort to clean up her image, he made her hire a female secretary/chaperone... When she had a nervous breakdown, he sent her off to Reno, but she returned with $100,000 in gambling debts."

 

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HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME - see the links below!

WALK OF FAME B.P. SCHULBERG  (Benjamin Percival Schulberg, credited as being a Hollywood Pioneer film maker.)

 

WALK OF FAME CLARA BOW 

Now, if you're interested in Clara Bow, you may be interested in other Hollywood actresses who were also mistresses covered here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO. You might also like to read about FAITH DOMERGUE, my Mistress of the month for May 2014, LOUISE BROOKS, my Mistress of the Month for February 2014, MARION DAVIESD, my Mistress of the Month for July 2013, and GLORIA SWANSON, my Mistress of the Month in December 2009.

Please read on for more on CLARA BOW and B.P!

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