A song from new album Taylor Swift, “The Tortured Poets Department”pays tribute to a long-celebrated and often misunderstood heroine of American feminism: actress Clara Bow.
The actress Clara Bow (1905-1965) was the original “It girl.” And he had a lot in common with Swift. TOgolden and villainous throughout her career, her love life was constantly under scrutiny.
The phrase ‘It girl’ It has been used to name young women who are attractive and influential in their time. And the concept gained popularity with It, the movie starring Bow.
Bow was a woman far ahead of her time, a star who owned her success and her sexuality. There is a popular perception that Bow was a victim of his own demons. But her story is anything but a warning.
It is a victorious march.
The life of Clara Bow, daughter of Jazz in the 1920s
The bow race It began in her native New York, where in 1921, at the age of 16, she won a beauty contest and was rewarded with a small role in a film.
Bow took every opportunity to be on set and learn the ropes. He arrived early, stayed late and studied how to work with the cameras and lights. In a fledgling film industry, Bow’s professionalism and kindness defined her success.
After moving to Hollywood in 1923, Bow’s scene-stealing ability earned her a series of roles as a cheerful sidekick in films such as “Dancing Mothers” (1926). The star turn of the actress occurred in Item from 1927in which she played a department store employee trying to woo her boss.
Variety He went on to dub Bow, who had become known for her trademark pout, flirtatious eyes and fiery red hair, the “sexiest jazz babe” in Hollywood.
How did Clara Bow inspire Taylor Swift?
During the height of his career, Bow’s love life was constantly mocked in popular magazines of movie fans. Headlines that describe her as having an “empty heart” and asked “why can’t the It Girl stay with her men?” He tried to psychoanalyze his broken commitments. The press called Bow an “idiot” and wondered why “no man had ever taken her to the altar.”
Bow’s relationship with the press was warm and cold. But the stories were incessant. They ranged from studio-sponsored articles in major trade publications to poorly sourced stories about orgies and abortions published by small-time newspapers struggling in the cutthroat Los Angeles media environment.
According to the press, Bow suffered from “nervous breakdowns,” was unlucky in love, and was too brazen for her own good. Her legions of fans loved her anyway.
In 1929, he received 45 thousand fan letters a month. That same year, sales of reddish henna dye tripled as fans tried to imitate its look. On set, she played cards, told crude jokes, and handed out generous gifts, including an emerald-encrusted watch that she gave to one of his hairdressers.
A century before Swift’s “Eras Tour,” Bow’s style of American femininity – confident, adventurous, sexy – had real range.
In his 1981 memoir, producer Budd Schulberg wrote: “Millions of fans wore hair like Clara’s and pouted like Clara, danced, smoked, laughed and kissed like Clara.”
Clara Bow’s Hollywood career
As powerful as Bow was in the late 1920s, she was largely incapable of directing her own career.
Bow ended up making 58 films in just over a decade. Her studios owned her.
Then he made the final power move. He resigned.
In the early 1930s, Bow left Hollywood and moved to the Walking Box Ranch in rural Nevada, a 400,000-acre property owned by her husband, cowboy movie star Rex Bell. The press did not know her whereabouts. Some colleagues wondered if her Brooklyn accent had killed her with the advent of talkies or if she had experienced another nervous breakdown.
Together they raised two children. She remained in Nevada and pursued a career in politics. Although they never divorced, Bow eventually returned to California, where she spent her final years living quietly in Santa Monica with her black poodle, Angel. She read voraciously, a habit fueled by her lifelong insomnia. She loved to decorate for Christmas.
It turns out that Bow was not a victim of his time. She wasn’t kicked out of the movies because the talkies exposed her Brooklyn accent. Nor did Hollywood society reject her because of the increasingly scandalous stories that emerged.
Taylor Swift and Clara Bow, what unites them
Her legacy as a figurehead of American feminism is accurate, if incomplete.
Bow came to the forefront of American culture at a time when the nascent Hollywood studio system developed the formula for selling sex. In the late 1920s, the press realized that celebrity gossip sold newspapers and that the personal lives of the actors and actresses were an easy target. Realizing that any attention is good, studio executives embraced the sensational media coverage of Bow.
Taylor Swift and Clara Bow have a lot in common: a meteoric rise to fame based on talent and hard work; a series of loves followed closely; and legal drama with managers, former friends and the press. Both women redefined expectations of what an American woman could (and should) be.
In 2019, amid a dispute with his former label, Big Machine Records, Swift decided to re-record her previous albums and rename them “Taylor’s Version” to regain ownership of their music.
There was no “Taylor version” for Bow. But his decision to leave Hollywood ended up being a middle finger to the men he had made rich and powerful.
Now, Swift is bringing Bow back into the spotlight for an encore and for a new generation of fans to appreciate.
*With information from two studies from The Conversation. To read the first in its original language Click here. To read the second, Click here.
*The information was written by researchers Jennifer Voss, from De Montfort University; Deirdre Clemente, history teacher; t Annie Delgado, PhD student in History, both at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
*The Conversation is an independent, nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
