LAistory: The It Girl

Already a star from such films as The Plastic Age and Man Trap, Bow's most notorious role was in It, based on the book of the same name by Elinor Glyn, who personally chose Bow for the part. At that time, "It" meant a woman of the times, newly liberated, it was intimated that the main character enjoyed sex, though she slaps her date after a kiss. According to the film, "it" is " "that strange magnetism which attracts both sexes...entirely unselfconscious...full of self-confidence...indifferent to the effect...she is producing and uninfluenced by others." Dorothy Parker famously snipped "It, hell, she had those." Clara herself was as freewheeling as her alter ego, but without Victorian hang-ups. She was romantically linked with Bela Lugosi, Gary Cooper, Gilbert Roland, director Victor Fleming and John Gilbert.

Despite her full dance card, real life Clara was shy and reclusive. She famously preferred playing cards with her driver, maid and cook to lavish parties.

Still, her racy reputation wasn't always a boon. Word spread and soon midwest moralists were calling Bow "a lowlife and a disgrace to the community." There was even a widespread rumor that she had slept with the entire USC football team (there was no truth to it).

Though she was a huge star, she gained a reputation as being difficult to work with. She was mentally unstable, did drugs and drank copiously. Still, she was worth putting up with -- she won an Oscar for her role in Wings in 1927 and between then and 1930, she was in Paramount's five biggest money makers.

But then the talkies came. Clara, with her strong Brooklyn accent, had a bad feeling about them. She experienced panic attacks on set, and was constantly distracted by the boom. In 1933, she gave up films to settle down with her husband, Rex Bell, former actor and politician. They had two sons. While he was running for House of Representatives in 1944, Clara tried to commit suicide. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and given shock therapy. After that, she lived out her days quietly (or at least without incident), dying of a heart attack in 1965.

Being the "It" girl was both a windfall and a curse for Clara Bow, in a time when the phrase was as controversial as it was complimentary, it certainly didn't do her any favors. She said, "Even now I can't trust life. It did too many awful things to me as a kid."

Photo via Wikipedia

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