Clara Bow was Hollywood's It Girl but her personal life was filled with heartbreak and tragedy
She was born Clara Gordon Bow on July 29, 1905, in Brooklyn, New York. Her mother Sarah suffered from psychosis due to epilepsy. Tragically Sarah was institutionalized after she tried to kill Clara with a butcher knife. With her mother out of the house her alcoholic father Robert Bow started sexually abusing her. When she was sixteen Clara entered a a contest in Motion Picture magazine and won a screen test. She made her film debut int he 1922 drama Beyond The Rainbow. The beautiful brunette signed a contract with Preferred Pictures and in 1924 she was chosen to be a Wampas Baby Star. During this time she also posed nude for photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston. In 1925 she appeared in fourteen films including The Plastic Age, Parisian Love, and The Primrose Path. Clara was cast as a carefree flapper in the 1927 comedy It. The film made her a superstar and from then on she was known as "The It Girl". Next she starred in the hit drama Wings which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. By 1929 she was the top female box-office star in the country and was getting forty-five thousand fan letters a month.
She was born Clara Gordon Bow on July 29, 1905, in Brooklyn, New York. Her mother Sarah suffered from psychosis due to epilepsy. Tragically Sarah was institutionalized after she tried to kill Clara with a butcher knife. With her mother out of the house her alcoholic father Robert Bow started sexually abusing her. When she was sixteen Clara entered a a contest in Motion Picture magazine and won a screen test. She made her film debut int he 1922 drama Beyond The Rainbow. The beautiful brunette signed a contract with Preferred Pictures and in 1924 she was chosen to be a Wampas Baby Star. During this time she also posed nude for photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston. In 1925 she appeared in fourteen films including The Plastic Age, Parisian Love, and The Primrose Path. Clara was cast as a carefree flapper in the 1927 comedy It. The film made her a superstar and from then on she was known as "The It Girl". Next she starred in the hit drama Wings which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. By 1929 she was the top female box-office star in the country and was getting forty-five thousand fan letters a month.