Happy Birthday, Jean Harlow!

The original «Blonde Bombshell» was born Harlean Harlow Carpenter on March 3, 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri. Her parents were Mont Clair Carpenter, a successful dentist from a working-class background, and his wife, Jean Poe (née Harlow), the daughter of a wealthy real estate broker. Nicknamed «Baby,» Harlean was afflicted by poor health throughout her childhood; she contracted meningitis at age five and suffered from scarlet fever when she was 15.

 

In September 1922, Jean divorced her husband and moved with her 11-year-old daughter to Hollywood, with hopes of pursuing a career as an actress. While in Los Angeles, Harlean attended the Hollywood School for Girls and met future movie stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Joel McCrea, as well as Louis B. Mayer's daughter, Irene. In 1925, unable to find a single acting job, Jean returned in defeat to Kansas City with her daughter.

 

Jean Harlow at six months, five years old and ten years old, respectively.

In order to be close to her new boyfriend, Marino Bello, «a dashing Italian with the smooth charm of a gigolo and no visible means of support,» Jean moved to Chicago, Illinois, taking her daughter with her. In the fall of 1926, during her freshman year at Ferry Hall School in Lake Forest, Harlean met and fell in love with Charles Freemont McGrew II, a 20-year-old playboy and heir to a large fortune. The two soon began dating and married the following year, when she turned 16. Jean also married Bello soon afterwards, but Harlean was not present at the wedding. Early in 1928, Harlean and her husband decided to move back to California, where he bought a mansion in Beverly Hills. Her mother quickly followed with Bello.

 

Bored by the life of the idle rich, Harlean set out to look for something to do with her time. One day, she offered to drive her friend and aspiring actress Rosalie Roy to Fox Studios for a meeting. While waiting for Roy, Harlean was approached by Fox executives to do a screen test, but told them she was not interested. After Roy bet her $250 that she did not have the nerve to go for an audition, she went to Central Casting, a company that specialized in the casting of extras, body doubles and stand-ins, and registered under her mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow. Almost at once, she was offered extra work, but rejected every job. It was her mother, still dazzled by her own former dreams of stardom, that pushed her «Baby» into the movies.

 

LEFT: Jean Harlow c. 1926. RIGHT: Jean Harlow with her mother and her stepfather, Marino Bello, at the Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood (early 1930s).

 

Harlow's first screen appearance was as an unbilled extra in the silent drama Honor Bound (1928), which led to other small parts in feature films, including the comedy This Thing Called Love (1929) and the musical The Love Parade (1929), one of the Best Picture nominees at the 3rd Academy Awards. In December 1928, she signed a five-year contract with Hal Roach Studios, best known for producing Laurel and Hardy's popular film comedy series, and was almost immediately given a co-starring role in the duo's silent short Double Whoopee (1929). After her divorce from McGrew, she continued to work as an extra, until she landed her first speaking role in The Saturday Night Kid (1929), starring Clara Bow and Jean Arthur.

 

LEFT: Jean Harlow with Laurel and Hardy in Double Whoopee. RIGHT: Jean Harlow with Clara Bow and Jean Arthur in The Saturday Night Kid.

 

While working at Hal Roach Studios, Harlow was spotted by agent Arthur Landau, who was hypnotized by her «high firm breasts [and] astonishingly blonde hair, unnaturally light and brushed back from her high forehead.» Convinced that he had discovered «a product of simmering sexuality,» Landau arranged for Harlow to have a screen test with the eccentric film and aviation tycoon Howard Hughes. At the time, Hughes was looking for an actress to replace Greta Nissen as the leading lady in his World War I epic Hell's Angels (1930). After Hughes decided to re-shoot the film as a sound picture, Nissen's thick Norwegian accent had been deemed undesirable for her character, a seductive English girl.

 

Jean Harlow in Hell's Angels. This is the only colour footage of Harlow's career.

By all accounts, Harlow's screen test with Hughes was a disaster. «In my opinion, she's nix,» he told Landau after seeing the footage. Never one to take no for an answer, Landau argued with Hughes, raving about her hair, her acting ability and her sensuality. He said that Jean was the perfect combination of «good kid and tramp» to make the role a success.

 

Perhaps sensing the appeal of Landau's argument, Hughes cast Harlow in Hell's Angels and even signed her to a long-term contract with his production company, Caddo. To showcase his young starlet to full advantage, Hughes dressed Harlow in gowns with highly revealing necklines and shot the film's party scene using the two-strip Technicolor process. After a spectacular premiere on May 27, 1930 at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, where a crowd of about 50,000 people gathered to catch a glimpse of the stars, Hell's Angels became a unprecedented sensation and catapulted Jean Harlow to international stardom.

 

Jean Harlow at the premiere of Hell's Angels at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

To cash in on her overnight success, Hughes loaned Harlow out to other studios for lead roles, notably to Warners Bros. for William A. Wellman's The Public Enemy (1931), starring James Cagney. She was also loaned to Columbia Pictures to star in Frank Capra's Platinum Blonde (1931), titled that way to capitalise on her peculiar hair colour. Although both films were successful, reviews for her acting were uniformly negative. However, the public embraced Harlow and many female fans began dyeing their hair to match hers.

 

Apparently, to be a platinum blonde required several hours of work each week with washes consisting of peroxide, ammonia, chlorine bleach and commercial laundry soaps. This regimen permanently damaged Harlow's naturally ash-blonde hair, leaving it brittle and difficult to shape. She had to apply oils and moisturizers and pin-curl or finger-wave her hair nearly every night, as well as take extra precautions to avoid sun exposure, so as not to damage it further.

 

LEFT: Jean Harlow with James Cagney in a publicity still for The Public Enemy. RIGHT: Jean Harlow in a publicity still for Platinum Blonde.

Meanwhile, Paul Bern, one of the most respected producers at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, took an interest in Harlow. He had already helped to start the careers of Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, and persuaded studio chief Louis B. Mayer to give Harlow a part in the gangster film The Beast of the City (1932), co-starring Walter Huston and Wallace Ford. When filming ended, she went on a nationwide personal appearance tour that solidified her star status.

By now romantically involved with Harlow, Bern spoke to Mayer about buying out her contract from Hughes and signing her to MGM, but the mogul promptly declined. The studio's leading ladies were presented and elegant, while Harlow's «sultry seductress» screen persona did not impress Mayer. Bern then began urging Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro, to sign Harlow, noting her popularity and established image. After initial reluctance, Thalberg agreed and, on March 2, 1932, her 21st birthday, Harlow received the news that MGM had purchased her contract from Hughes for $60,000. She officially joined the studio on April 10.

 

Jean Harlow and her second husband, Paul Bern, in 1932.

At MGM, Harlow was subjected to a «star treatment» by the studio's wardrobe and make-up department, both of which helped create a more stylish image for her. Her first film assignment as an MGM contract player was opposite Chester Morris in Jack Conway's Red-Headed Woman (1932), one of few pictures in which she did not appear with her signature platinum blonde hair; she wore a red wig for the role. At first, Harlow hated the script and worried that people would confuse her with her character, a small-town secretary who uses sex to advance her social position. It was Bern who ultimately convinced her to take the part and give it a comedic touch, sensing that Harlow had a unique gift to make sex funny. Despite the controversies, the film was a success and Harlow conquered audiences and critics alike.

 

Jean Harlow with Chester Morris in Red-Headed Woman.

 

As Harlow's fanbase increased, she and Bern grew closer. He often escorted her to parties and premieres, but no one in the industry suspected that they might be involved romantically. On July 2, 1932, a week after the premiere of Red-Headed Woman, the couple was married in a simple, intimate ceremony in Hollywood. Guests included Harlow's mother and stepfather, Thalberg and his wife, MGM leading lady Norma Shearer, Arthur Landau, and silent screen star John Gilbert, Bern's best man. Twice her age, Bern seemed to be no more than a father figure in Harlow's life. Some questioned his sexual orientation and nearly everyone that attended the wedding would later agree that the marriage was never consummated.

 

Jean Harlow and Paul Bern on their wedding day (July 2, 1932).

Nine weeks after the wedding, while Harlow was filming Red Dust (1932), her second of five pairings with Clark Gable, Bern was found dead in their home, fatally wounded by a gunshot to the head. The sad affair was quickly transformed into a scandal that «dwarfed even Hollywood's standards.» A contemporary coroner's inquest produced wild and lurid suggestions: that Bern was homosexual, that he was obsessed with obscure sexual practices, that he was impotent, and even that Harlow had killed or arranged his murder. In spite of the intensive study at the time and extensive speculation over the succeeding decades, there seems to be no reliable answers regarding Bern's death. However, his biographer, E. J. Fleming, claims that Bern was in fact murdered by his former common-law wife, Dorothy Millette, and the crime scene rearranged by MGM executives to make it appear as though he had killed himself.

Despite her grief, Harlow returned to the set of Red Dust a few days after Bern's funeral and managed to finish the film. Because she had stayed quiet and dignified throughout the ordeal, she earned the respect of the audiences and became an even bigger star after the scandal. Red Dust was a smash hit and Harlow finally proved that she could act.

 

Jean Harlow visibly shaken on the day of Paul Bern's funeral.

By 1933, Jean Harlow was at the height of her career. A successful third collaboration with Gable, the romantic drama Hold Your Man (1933), was followed by the even more successful Dinner at Eight (1933), wherein she played the adulterous wife of Wallace Beery. But her biggest hit that year was Victor Fleming's Bombshell (1933), one of Hollywood's first screwball comedies, which would forever immortalise her as «The Blonde Bombshell.» Though the story is said to satirize Clara Bow's stardom years, Bombshell also slightly mirrors Harlow's own hassles as a star, right to the annoyance of having her family live off her fame.

 

Jean Harlow in publicity stills for Hold Your Man, Dinner at Eight and Bombshell.

After Bern's death, Harlow had several love affairs, including an especially notable one with prizefighter Max Baer. Although separated from his wife, actress and socialite Dorothy Dunbar, Baer was threatened with divorce proceedings naming Harlow as co-respondent for «alienation of affection,» a legal term for adultery. Wanting to avoid another scandal that involved their most popular leading lady, MGM defused the situation by arranging a marriage between Harlow and cinematographer Harold «Hal» Rosson, who had photographed her in four of her pictures.

 

In eerie similarities with Bern, Rosson was an old MGM hand and nearly twice the age of his young bride. The two had always seem to have a good rapport when working together, and Harlow even told reporters that «ours is one Hollywood marriage that will last.» Less than eight months later, however, they were divorced. Rosson blamed Mother Jean and Marino Bello, whom he described as «greedy, voracious prison keepers.»

 

Jean Harlow and her third husband, Harold «Hal» Rosson.

As studio films were brought under heavy scrutiny following the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code in June 1934, Harlow was forced to change — or at least soften — her «floozy» screen image. Her first project under the Code was The Girl From Missouri (1934), the story of a young woman who runs away from home in hopes of finding a millionaire husband, with Franchot Tone and Lionel Barrymore. The film was another success for Harlow, with critics highlighting her vibrant beauty and blossoming natural talent as an actress.

The Girl From Missouri was followed by Reckless (1935), her third collaboration with director Victor Fleming. Co-starring Tone and William Powell, this was a «musical-comedy-melodrama» about an Broadway actress named Mona Leslie, whose husband commits suicide. Harlow initially refused to take the part, convinced that MGM was trying to capitalize on her own personal tragedy. Determined to prove her skills as a dramatic actress, she eventually yielded to the studio's demands and agreed to do the film. Tasteless as it was, Reckless was a massive commercial success and became Harlow's biggest hit to that date.

 

LEFT: Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone in The Girl From Missouri. RIGHT: Jean Harlow and William Powell in a publicity still for Reckless.

Harlow and Powell had been seen publicly together since mid-1934. Powell, 18 years Harlow's senior, was tall and handsome, in contrast to her last two husbands. Some thought he resembled the father from whom she had been separated at a young age. The relationship was probably the most normal of Harlow's amorous affairs and the pair undoubtedly loved each other. But there was a hitch. For Harlow, show business was a pastime, not a passion; she longed to quit the film industry, marry and have children. Powell, on the other hand, was reluctant to move forward, arguing that they both had had unpleasant experiences with marriage. Harlow still hung on to the relationship, hoping that something would change, but Powell remained adamant.

 

LEFT: Jean Harlow and William Powell at Max Reinhardt's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl (1934). MIDDLE: Jean Harlow and William Powell at the Biltmore Bowl for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences dinner (March 1935). RIGHT: Jean Harlow and William Powell at the Café Trocadero (October 1935).

 

Ever since her arrival at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1932, Harlow had been fighting the upper brass for the chance to adopt a more natural hair colour. «I've gotten over acting with my hair,» she announced. In late 1935, with her star power at its highest, the studio finally agreed to let her return to her natural ash-blonde colour. Howard Strickling, then the head of publicity at MGM, even invented a new word to describe it: «brownette.»

 

The first film in which Harlow donned her new look was Riffraff (1936), co-starring Spencer Tracy, Una Merkel and a young Mickey Rooney. Although critics welcomed the picture and Harlow's «natural» look, audiences were somewhat confused by her new hair color and demanded the old Harlow back. As a result, the film was a financial disappointment.

 

Jean Harlow with Spencer Tracy in J. Walter Ruben's Riffraff.

 

It was during the making of her next two films that Jean Harlow really came into her own. While her role as an innocent secretary wrongly accused of having an affair with her boss in Clarence Brown's Wife vs. Secretary (1936) allowed her to make a complete transition from bad girl to good girl, Jack Conway's Libely Lady (1936) gave her the best of both worlds. Sharing the screen with former co-stars William Powell, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy, Harlow returned to the kind of brassy comic roles that had made her a star, but still retained some traits of her new good-girl image, including her «brownette» hair. Libeled Lady was a critical and commercial hit, receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, and made Harlow a bigger star than ever.

 

Jean Harlow in Wife vs. Secretary and in a publicity still for Libeled Lady.

 

In the spring of 1937, after starring opposite Robert Taylor in W. S. Van Dyke's comedy Personal Property (1937), Harlow began filming Saratoga (1937), her last of six pairings with Clark Gable. Production on Saratoga was delayed, however, when Harlow began complaining of severe toothache. Her dentist recommended she have all four of her wisdom teeth removed, but the procedure was complicated and she had to be hospitalized for 18 days.

 

When she returned to the set, several of the crew noticed her grey complexion, fatigue and weight gain. Near the end of filming, Harlow collapsed on the set and was escorted home, where Dr. Ernest Fishbaugh diagnosed her with a «several cold» and a «stomach ailment.» A few days later, she complained of abdominal pain, vomited, and seemed to become delirious, which led her doctor to believe she was suffering from cholecystitis (inflammation of the gall bladder). Gable went to visit her the next day and found her «bloated to twice her normal size and when he bent forward to kiss her he smelled urine on her breath.»

 

LEFT: Jean Harlow and Robert Taylor in Personal Property. RIGHT: Jean Harlow and Clark Gable in Jack Conway's Saratoga, her final film.

Over the next several days, as it became clear that Harlow was not improving, a new doctor was called in to examine her. Reviewing her records, especially the blood chemistry tests done by Fishbaugh, Dr. Leland Chapman discovered that what Harlow had was not gall bladder inflammation, but actually chronic progressive disease of the kidneys that had reached the point where her kidney function was «insufficient to maintain life.» Chapman immediately administered new medicine, but it was already too late. By this time, Harlow's blood was «loaded with accumulating waste products of protein metabolism, mainly urea, and she had a condition known as uremia or uremic poisoning.» In the evening of June 6, 1937, she was rushed to the hospital, placed in an oxygen tent and given blood transfusions. The next morning, her major organs, the heart and respiratory systems all failed. At 11:37 a.m., following unsuccessful attempts to ventilate her artificially, Jean Harlow died at the young age of 26.

 

LEFT: Crowd lined up at the entrance to the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, where Jean Harlow was buried. MIDDLE and RIGHT: William Powell, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard at Jean Harlow's funeral (June 10, 1937).

 

Initially, Louis B. Mayer suggested discarding all the footage that had been shot with Harlow and remake Saratoga with a different actress. This notion was short-lived, however, when the studio was overwhelmed with fan mail demanding the release of Harlow's final film. In the end, MGM devised a way to finish the film as a tribute to Harlow by using long shots and employing a body and voice double. Released just two months after Harlow's premature death, Saratoga was MGM's second highest grossing picture of 1937 and the biggest moneymaker of Harlow's career.

They say that when stars die they burn so bright that they outshine their entire home galaxy. In the case of Jean Harlow, that was most definitely true. Happy Birthday, Baby.

 

 

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SOURCES:

Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004)

Paul Bern: The Life and Famous Death of the MGM Director and Husband of Harlow by E. J. Fleming (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009)

Whom the Gods Love Die Young: A Modern Medical Perspective on Illnesses that Caused the Early Death of Famous People by Roy Pitkin (2008) 

William Powell: His Life and Films by Roger Bryant (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006)

Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell (TV documentary, 1993)