Although in Babylon Margot Robbie's character is called Nellie LaRoy, in Damien Chazelle's new film the Australian actress is recreating the life of
Clara Bow
.
What is Clara Bow known for?
The silent film actress symbol achieved several milestones for her work in Hollywood.
All women wanted to be like her, she was in the first Oscar-winning film and was the first silent movie sex icon
.
And you can follow.
Both in the plot of Chazelle's film and in that of his life,
the intrusion of talkies is fundamental
.
Bow retired at 28 because he did not survive the arrival of the sound.
His voice was not like the ones the producers asked for.
Robbie will play her in "Babylon."
Photo: AFP
It was the star of the twenties, the first "It girl"
.
She came to film up to fifteen movies in a year -she made 57 in total- and starred in countless scandals, almost all of a sexual nature and most... unprovable.
In misery
As a child, Bow had neither food nor clothing.
She was born on July 25, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, the result of a relationship between the violent and poor Robert and the schizophrenic Sarah.
The three of them lived on the street, where Clara was forced to go to school.
For example, at ten she watched her best friend die after another boy set him on fire.
Johnny -that was his name- had a favorite song of hers, “Rock A-Bye-Baby”, and she used to listen to Clara when the directors asked her to cry on camera.
The actress was the first "it girl".
Robert wasn't just physically and verbally assaulting Sarah.
When Clara became a teenager, he began to sexually abuse her.
In his youth, Bow discovered in a newspaper ad the possibility of escaping his ruin.
She noticed that “The Fame and Beauty Pageant” required contestants and she sent a photo to see if it would be accepted.
The prize was a small role in a movie.
Luckily it was taken and won the contest.
She was given the role in the film, but her footage did not make it into the final cut.
Ascent
Her talent nonetheless led her to Hollywood
.
When she was around 18, she moved with her mother to Los Angeles and began to try her luck until she found her for the first time in her life.
The producer
BP Schulberg
, of Paramount Pictures, made him a small contract to participate in some of his projects.
He paid her a pittance, but at least it gave her a place in the industry.
One of the first events that struck her in Hollywood happened indoors: one night she woke up to see her mother at the foot of her bed with a knife in her hand.
The woman wanted to kill her because she was against her appearing in movies.
Once again luck was on his side, this time simply because he woke up on time.
Sarah was captured and sent to a mental hospital, where she died days later.
Cover of one of his biggest hits, "Wings".
Clara participated in an endless number of silent hits, being
Wings
and
It
two of those that managed to survive the oblivion of films without sound.
Just as she starred in films, she also starred in controversies and generated all kinds of resentment among her female colleagues.
sex icon
"The more I know about men, the more I love my dog" is one of his best-known phrases. Probably several of us read it in the photos with quotes that used to appear on Facebook.
Bow was noted for being the first woman to live her sexual life in the same way that famous men lived it during the first decades of the 20th century.
Her conquests included
Gary Cooper
,
Bela Lugosi
and
Gilbert Roland
.
She did not mince words.
His way of being in the jealous world of stars and in the roaring twenties would eventually bring him trouble
.
After five truncated engagements Bow lost what little reputation he had left.
He was an easy target for the tabloid media.
They said about her that he loved to “drink, gamble, curse and fuck…”.
Her biggest sexual scandal was when she was denounced for adultery.
Her humiliation was total, so much so that she ended up paying the wife of her lover.
In turn, there is a diffuse anecdote that could have been the one that led to that complaint or another of the many stories that were created at the time about her.
What does it consist of?
Bow was said to have kissed a married judge in front of his wife at an elite party and then unbuttoned his pants on the dance floor.
Decline
As we said, the arrival of talkies in 1927 meant his farewell to Hollywood.
By then she had already been the victim of numerous media rackets that sometimes did not even have to do with her but caused her inconvenience with her colleagues.
The renowned actresses of her day never stopped seeing her as a poor woman.
One magazine quoted Bow as saying, "Most of my friends are friends I knew before I paid income tax."
His voice did not fit into the talkies.
Clara saw herself as "a curiosity in Hollywood" because she never stopped being herself.
Lina Basquette
, a contemporary of the actress, explained the star's situation: “She was not well liked among other women in the film colony.
Her social presence was taboo and pretty silly because God knows Marion Davies and Mary Pickford had a lot to hide.
It's that they hid it and Clara didn't”.
Mental problems similar to those of his mother finished giving him the blow he was missing.
Elaine Shepherd
, who produced a documentary about her life, said Bow "took loads of pills to get her out of bed in the morning and to sleep at night."
Clara's former friend,
Daisy DeVoe
, published a media account about the artist that led the movie scene to criticize her for drug use, lax morals and even accuse her of bestiality.
Overcome by her tumultuous media life, her personal problems and the arrival of dialogue that did not tolerate her accent, Bow retired from acting and moved with her husband
Rex Bell
to a ranch in Nevada.
She was with Bell for decades, they both had two daughters and for a long time nothing was known about their lives.
Clara Bow died in public oblivion, but perhaps, and just perhaps, having led a relatively quiet life.
look also
Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a spectacular car crash
The Tender Bar: What are George Clooney and Ben Affleck doing together?
A good movie
