David Nezelek
Cibbuano
TyronneJean Harlow
January 29th 2008 02:06
Jean Harlow
She was the laughing vamp.
Jean Harlow and Chico Marx
She was 26 years old when she passed away, so very early.
Jean Harlow
Contrary to what a viewer might think from her movie roles, she was not born or raised in an impoverished environment.
Jean Harlow
Harlean's childhood home was the second home owned by her grandfather. She was an adored only child called “Baby”. Her mother Jean filed for an unconstested divorce in 1922 (!) and moved the family to Hollywood. But Jean Harlow's mother did not succeed as an actress and returned to Kansas City after about two years.
Jean Harlow and Clark Gable
Jean (still Harlean) was 15 years old when a friend introduced her to Charles McGrew, heir to a fortune, in 1926. They fell in love and married in 1927.
When “Chuck” was 21 the newlyweds moved to L.A. There Jean befriended a young woman who wanted to be a star. Jean gave her new friend a ride to Fox Studio and was hired on contract right then. As her film career succeeded, the marriage failed.
Howard Hughes met her and signed her to a five year contract, beginning with the movie Hell's Angels.
MGM executive Paul Bern talked Irving Thalberg into buying her contract from Hughes. She was only 21 years old.
A cute video of Harlow at youtube is here
While filming the movie Red Dust, Paul Bern, now Harlow's husband, was found dead. Whether it was suicide, or of other causes, is still unknown. MGM put out the story that Mr. Bern committed suicide because of sexual inadaquacy. Jean didn't comment. Later stories have said that he was murdered by a former lover.
Harlow began a torrid affair with Max Baer, who was still married.
MGM's strategy to diffuse the situation was to marry Harlow to Harold Rosson, a film cinemetographer.
(Yes, the studios had that kind of power....)
Jean and Harold were friends when they married, and friends still, seven months later when they divorced.
Then Ms. Harlow fell in love with actor William Powell. Though their relationship lasted several years, reported differences concerning wanting children (she wanted, he did not) ended the affair.
She gave a fine performance in Dinner At Eight, and unfortunately, turned down the Fay Wray part in King Kong. That would have been fun to watch.
She was Godmother to Bugsy Siegal's daughter. And she once said, “Men like me because I don't wear a brassiere. Women like me because I don't look like a girl who would steal a husband. At least not for long.”
One can only imagine what she might have done if she had lived longer.
In 1937 she began to suffer more frequent illness', including kidney disease. She had survived scarlet fever when a teenager, and this may have predisposed her to a weaker immune system. But, in 1937 there was no cure or treament for kidney disease.
Jean Harlow wrote a book, entitled Today is Tonight. The rights to the book were sold to MGM, but they never made the book into a film. Jean Harlow's mother left novel publication rights to a family friend, and the book was publixhed in 1965, nearly 30 years after her death.
Is she still an icon of the brassy, excuse me, Platinum Blond created by Hollywood? You could ask Madonna or Gwen Stephani.
Or, you could read Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, p. 279,
“Ma tells us this house used to be a shop, that Laman Griffin's mother sold groceries throught the little window and that's how she was able to send Laman away to Rockwell College so that he could wind up as an officer in the Royal Navy. Oh, he was, indeed. An officer in the Royal Navy, and here's a picture of him with other officers all having dinner with a famous American film star Jean Harlow. He was never the same after he met Jean Harlow. He fell madly in love with her but what was the use? She was Jean Harlow and he was nothing but an officer in the Royal Navy and it drove him to drink and they threw him out of the Navy. Now look at him, a common laborer ...”
Ah, the glare that blights a life, just from sharing a dinner table with a Platinum Blonde....
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