In the mid-20s, Clara Pow surpassed Mary Pickford and Greta Garbo's fame. People even divide the film era into two periods: "pre-Bao era" and "post-Bao era".
In 1923, when 17-year-old Clara Bow stood in front of Ben Schulberg, the head of Paramount Pictures, he thought he had been fooled. In front of him was a thin and not very "serious" girl, wearing a faded cotton skirt, her hair tied into a brown ponytail, and her eyes looked worried and dark. She chewed gum and stared at her worn shoes.
Schulberg notices her in a low-budget New York movie, but how do you mold the girl into a star? "Spit out the gum!" The producer shouted, "I'll give you an audition now, and if you can't, you can go home right away." Have a laugh! Schulberg ordered.
The girl cocked her face and let out a cheerful and contagious laugh. Her eyes were still shining with guard and distrust, but now they were filled with joy and joy. "Cry!" The producer ordered. Clara immediately began to cry, tears streaming down her face. Schulberg looked at her curiously: "You are simply an emotion-making machine!" "
As a result, she was placed in a small role in the movie Mayday and paid $50 a week — not bad as it sounded, but it was really low for an actor at the time.
Clara thought that Schulberg made her, but in fact he made Shulberg: in five years, he made twenty-five of Bau's films, and she brought a huge profit that multiplied to Paramount Pictures.
However, the studio turned her into a slave of silence - no power, no voice. For the first three years, she had only one day off. This "silence" refers not only to the fact that the film is silent, but also to her lack of freedom of speech. Throughout her film career, Clara never left California.
Usually, she makes a movie in the theater in the morning, performs in another movie in the evening, and sometimes even a third at night. No one cared if the girl had time to rest and sleep well. Clara plays the role of an innocent country beauty who captivates men with her unique beauty temperament.
Her hair was dyed fiery red, her eyebrows were drawn in the shape of a small house, and her lips were in the shape of a purple-red heart. Then she suddenly became confused, and everyone understood that a dazzling star was born!
The actresses were jealous of her - Catherine MacDonald, Gloria Swanson, everyone who was squeezed out by Clara. But it's no wonder that this arrogant guy has only been in seventh grade in Brooklyn and is not ashamed to admit it! And Clara expressed her reluctance to change herself, stressing that she came from the street. This practice of insisting on oneself and not setting up people is very different from the current entertainment industry.
Even Francis Scott Fitzgerald called her the sexiest woman in the country after watching This Girl. But she never felt like a star. On the contrary, she was a little too humble, feeling that so many people liked her, as if she owed everyone a great favor.
One day at a restaurant, Clara was surrounded by a group of avid fans. It took her three hours just to sign autographs and hand out photos, and when she saw that people still didn't want to disperse, she took out her wallet and started handing out money to fans.
She is very good to everyone around her, and she does not have the kind of shelf of a little star now. If someone offered to feed his cat between films, Clara would immediately rush out to help.
When she made a fortune for starring in This Girl, everyone thought the little girl would make her home in a mansion with a swimming pool in Malibu: a place where the rich and famous gathered. Once again, however, her choice was unexpected: she bought a humble seven-bedroom cottage for just fifteen thousand dollars.
Her villa even became the laughing stock of Hollywood: the plush furniture complemented the oriental coffee table, and the mahogany dining cabinet paired with the simple wooden chest of drawers. She also sent everyone handwritten childish invitations, colored paper bought at cheap stationery stores.
Clara invited a hundred people to the party. The first embarrassment happened to Catherine McDonald, who bumped into her hairstylist while finishing her hair in the foyer. Later, on one occasion, she commented on Clara that she did not understand "hierarchical society." Clara never understood what Catherine was saying.
Ben Schulberg sat at a table next to his driver, and he found the first excuse and hurried home. Many did the same, and the macaroni served at dinner was made by Daddy Clara himself. This was the first and last time a colleague accepted Clara's invitation.
When the studio starts celebrating Christmas, the innocent and kind Clara always brings a big bag of gifts to everyone, including cleaners and electricians.
Yes, she's a complete outlier.
Although Clara is a bit funny in the eyes of many, her personal life is extraordinarily rich. She didn't even feel the need to hide from her colleagues who was pursuing her and who she was dating now. After all, there are some things that cannot be hidden.
Because of her romance with Gary Cooper, almost all Paramount Pictures actresses hate her in their hearts. Cooper was from Montana, and his graceful gesture in the saddle was simply mesmerizing that no woman could resist.
Cooper was handsome and tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. And when she was only 21 years old, when Cooper confessed to her after filming, she immediately agreed. However, despite their many celebrity romances, Clara is not happy.
If Gary was away for a few days, she would fidget, afraid that he would abandon her. At one point, Gary was gone for more than two weeks, and Clara was already engaged to director Victor Fleming, who was twice her age.
When Gary returned, he asked for an explanation. Clara said: "This is just in case! And assures Gary that she is willing to marry him. Clara confesses to her only friend, journalist Adele Roger Stein, that she can't say "no" to people at all, and that she is afraid of hurting others. This scene reminds me of the Roy man in the domestic film "The Hunting Ground", she said that she was like a sheep, and whoever took it would go with whomever ...
Her love letters to all her lovers are always signed "Your future faithful wife"; Expensive gifts are often sent with love letters – necklaces, cufflinks, bracelets on watches.
In 1929, all Hollywood film studios began producing "sound" films. This is a huge challenge for actors who can only act in "silent" movies. Everyone is worried...
So did Clara Powell, nervous like a budding actress: she was sure she would be shut out because of that inevitable Brooklyn accent. The audition was conducted one-on-one in a small enclosed room with sound director Mike Tupperer, who seemed to be a kind fat man.
Tupperer said that after Clara Bao finished recording her voice, he played the tape and asked her to hear herself. Tupperer had never seen such a reaction: she froze in amazement, then trembled and rushed out of the studio as if she had been burned, as if the voice was chasing her.
Tupperer staggered after her who fled, shouting, "Your voice is good! Great potential! Although her voice was considered "very potential," Clara left the film industry.
A few months later, Clara makes the historic decision to announce her departure, and she meets her true destiny.
Rex Bell is a casual presence in Hollywood. He was born in Chicago. When his father needed a dry, warm climate for health reasons, the family moved to Beverly Hills.
The boy started out as a postman, including delivering letters to the Fox Film Studios. After seeing this tanned dude and charming white-toothed smile in the studio, he was asked what he would be. He said, "I can only ride a horse!" He was accepted into the studio, changed his name to Rex Bell, and began acting in Westerns.
Suddenly, Rex was invited to star in the movie Loyal to the Fleet, but with one condition: he had to convince the diehard Paramount Pictures star Clara Bow to participate.
One sunny day, Rex decides to go to Clara's cottage on Dreff Street to meet her and persuade her. In the garden, a fat redhead woman is sitting at a table under a dense tree, eating macaroni with relish. She glanced at Rex indifferently.
Rex politely asked how to meet Miss Bau. Clara swallowed the food and replied, "That's me!" "He was very surprised: Clara was famous, she was said to live a luxurious life, and she kept changing men like a glove...
But he didn't find anything related to luxury and men. At this point, her former suitors are gone, and Clara lives with her father. The father was polite to his daughter, but did not mind asking her for money, and even opened a snack bar called "Clara Bao Sandwich" on the corner.
After a short time together, Rex found that the Paramount star turned out to be an ordinary girl, not at all like other arrogant actresses. So they started a romance. Clara, 25, is like a helpless child, gentle and sensitive.
Clara agreed to star in a "sound" film, but only for Rex because she wanted to support him. She understands that without her, Rex would have been abandoned after the first failed play. During the filming of the movie, Clara successfully lost weight and returned to her appearance on the screen - naughty and sexy. She begged the director to minimize the dialogue, claiming she didn't like her voice. Rex saw that Clara could not recite even a small piece of dialogue, and he felt guilty, and he understood that Clara was doing something she didn't like to do for herself.
As a result, the film was severely criticized by critics. Clara's performance has been called incompetent, deliberate and artificial, and her tone of voice is also considered hypocritical. "There is no doubt that this is the end of Clara Pow's film industry," the Sunday Times wrote.
Some gossip tabloids even published a series of articles about "dirty things in the life of Clara Bow", full of dirty rumors and speculation. Clara felt hopeless and even began to be depressed.
Rex immediately sued the newspapers on Clara's behalf and won. After that, Rex Bell also gave up his film career and left Hollywood with Clara, where he bought a ranch in the mountains of Nevada. On December 3, 1931, he married Clara, and the first year of their married life was dedicated to helping Clara escape depression.
Rex taught Clara to ride and shoot. Apart from Rex, the dog, the horse, and a maid, there was no one else on the ranch. In 1934, Clara and Rex welcomed their son, Tony, and in 1938, they welcomed their second son, George.
Clara felt so happy that she kept repeating that she would be a perfect mother. Sure enough, she herself got up at night to take care of the children, feeding them as guided by the latest healthy eating books, playing with them, and teaching them to swim.
She always needs Rex to be at home. Rex repeatedly offered to let her go out socially, to friends' houses, to the theater, but she didn't know why she was so scared.
One day, the kids saw a movie on TV called "Loyal Armada" featuring Rex and Clara performing. Children stand in front of screens, calling out to their mothers. Clara heard her monologue on TV from the kitchen, and she rushed into the room and scolded the children harshly. Then she went into the bedroom alone and took the tranquilizer.
The next morning, Clara began to become hysterical and babbling, so the family took her to a hospital. The psychiatrist examined her and told Rex, who had come to visit his wife, that she had a hereditary mental illness that her mother, grandmother, and two maternal aunts had. It turned out that Clara had been paying for her aunt's treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
Clara said that every time she hears a recording of herself or sees herself on a TV screen, it feels like hearing her mother's voice. Their voices were very similar, so she was very afraid to hear her own.
Over time, she began to think that her mother had entered her own body and occupied her voice. Rex tried to figure out what had happened to Clara, because he had never heard her mention his mother.
After a series of investigations, the truth finally came out. Clara's mother, Sarah, was the daughter of a florist and had her own flower and wood business, while Clara's father, Robert, was an ordinary man in Brooklyn. After marrying Sarah, he felt lucky and went to a rich Bai Fumei. But the good times did not last long, and soon Sarah's business was affected by the Great Depression, and the florist soon went bankrupt.
Sarah and Robert's two daughters died shortly after birth, and Clara was the third, who was born on July 29, 1905. Sarah desperately believes that Clara will face the same fate as her sisters. But luckily Clara survived.
However, by this time, Clara's family was already very poor, her mother was a heavy drinker, and she often brought different men home, and her father could not control his wife, so she could only let her continue to be ridiculous.
Clara usually wears tattered clothes and can't even eat. At school, her classmates laughed at her, so she resisted going to school. Sometimes her father would give her a few coins and she would go to the movies. She loves acting.
Then, one day, when her mother learned that 15-year-old Clara had participated in a theatrical performance competition and defeated 500 competitors, instead of praising her, she was cruelly punished: "Only shameless people go to act!" Don't lose our family's face! "Sarah ran after her daughter in the apartment, screaming loudly, then suddenly fainted and stopped breathing – she died suddenly from a stroke. Poor Clara, on the other hand, thinks she killed her mother.
When Sarah died, her father began encouraging Clara to go to Hollywood. This is the story before Clara became famous, and because of this, Clara has always been grateful for her father's support in critical moments.
After Clara was admitted to a mental hospital, Rex lived with his two sons. Clara never returned to her children, and Rex rented her a spacious Los Angeles apartment and found her a babysitter to take care of her daily life.
Rex was later elected lieutenant governor of Nevada and died on July 4, 1962. In fact, Clara's only public appearance later was at her husband's funeral. Clara, who lived for three years after Rex's death, died of a heart attack on September 27, 1965, at the age of 60.