Jean Harlow: A Life in Photos

-
Jean Harlow is one of most the defining figures of the early decades of American cinema. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911, she made her feature film debut as an uncredited extra in the silent drama Honor Bound (1928). After a small speaking part in The Saturday Night Kid (1929), starring Clara Bow and Jean Arthur, she was hired by Howard Hughes to star in his World War I epic Hell's Angels (1930), which turned her into a overnight sensation. Signing with MGM in 1932, she became one of the studio's most profitable leading ladies, appearing in such hits as Dinner at Eight (1933), China Seas (1935), Wife vs. Secretary (1936) and Libeled Lady (1936), the last three co-starring Clark Gable. Her final picture, Saratoga (1937), which also paired her with Gable, was released after her death and became not only the highest-grossing film of her career, but also the biggest moneymaker of that year. Although she was in the motion picture industry for only nine years, she was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest female screen legends in Hollywood film history. To celebrate Jean Harlow on her 115th birthday, here is her life in photos.


 At age 12.
 
At age 14.
 

 With Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in the silent short Double Whoopee (1929).
 

Scene from Hell's Angels. This is the only colour footage of her.


 During a visit to New York City, on September 9, 1930.
 

With James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931).
 

With Lew Ayres in Iron Man (1931).
 

With Wallace Ford in The Beast of the City (1932). 
 

With Chester Morris in Red-Headed Woman (1932).
 

With Clark Gable in Red Dust (1932).
 

Photographed by Clarence Sinclair Bull. Photo dated April 29, 1932. 
 

With her second husband, MGM executive Paul Bern, shortly after their marriage. Photo dated July 6, 1932.
 
 
Photographed by Clarence Sinclair Bull in 1932.
 

Portrait dated January 4, 1933. 
 

Photograph by George Hurrell dated April 4, 1933. 
 

With Clark Gable on the set of Hold Your Man (1933). 
 

On the set of Dinner at Eight.
 

Publicity still for Dinner at Eight. 
 

At the National Air Races in California, on July 3, 1933. 
 

With Mary Astor and Clark Gable. Photo dated July 24, 1933.
 

With her third husband, MGM cinematographer Harold Rosson (right), her mother, Jean, and her stepfather, Marino Bello (background). Photo dated September 19, 1933.
 

Promotional photo for Bombshell (1933). 
 

Studio portrait from 1934. 
 

With Franchot Tone in The Girl from Missouri (1934).
 
 
With her book of autographed fingerprints, including those of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. Photo by Virgil Apger dated August 15, 1934.
 

 With Howard Hughes. Photo dated November 19, 1934.
 

With William Powell in a publicity photo for Reckless (1935). 
 

With Clark Gable and Wallace Beery on the set of China Seas. 
 

Photographed by George Hurrell in 1935.
 
With Spencer Tracy in a scene from Riffraff (1936).
 

With William Powell at the Cafe Trocadero in Los Angeles. Photo dated March 30, 1936.
 

Still from Wife vs. Secretary. 
 
With Cary Grant and Franchot Tone in Suzy (1936). 
 
Promotional photo for Libeled Lady. 
 

With director W. S. Van Dyke and Robert Taylor on the set of Personal Property (1937).
 

Publicity photo for Saratoga.
 
All photos found on Getty Images. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Golden Couples: Gary Cooper & Patricia Neal

-
Image
It was April 1948 when director King Vidor spotted 22-year-old Patricia Neal on the Warner Bros. studio lot. A drama graduate from Northwestern University, she had just arrived in Hollywood following a Tony Award-winning performance in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest. Impressed by Patricia's looks, Vidor approached the young actress and asked if she would be interested in doing a screen test for the female lead in his newest film, The Fountainhead (1949). Gary Cooper had already signed as the male protagonist, and the studio was then considering Lauren Bacall and Barbara Stanwyck to play his love interest. Neal liked the script and two months later, she met with the director for sound and photographic tests. Vidor was enthusiastic about Patricia, but her first audition was a complete disaster. Cooper was apparently watching her from off the set and he was so unimpressed by her performance that he commented, «What's that!?» He tried to convince Vidor to...
Read more

The Classic Movie History Project Blogathon: Juvenile Delinquency in Mid-1950s Cinema

-
Image
During the eight-year presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, at the height of the Cold War, the United States was the most influential economic power in the world. Despite constant threats of Communism and nuclear annihilation, it looked as though the «American Dream» was finally a reality. People across the country were comfortably complacent, indulging in new cars, suburban houses, television sets and all sorts of new consumer goods. For the nation's adults, who still remembered the hardships of the Great Depression, life had never been better. However, for their teenage children, who had grown up during World War II, shielded from the most worrying of its effects, life was flawed by powerful feelings of alienation and anger. As the number of teens doubled in the wake of the post-war baby boom, young people began turning their backs on the conformist ideals promoted by adult society. Parents could no longer impress their value system on their children, who longed for greater excite...
Read more

Golden Couples: Clark Gable & Jean Harlow

-
Image
At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony held at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, on November 5, 1930, MGM's hugely successful prison drama The Big House (1930) earned writer Frances Marion an Oscar for Best Writing. Hoping that she would be inspired to repeat that accomplishment, Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro, sent Marion to Chicago, Illinois, to research story ideas. While flicking through the pages of an edition of  The Saturday Evening Post , she found an article revealing that, in a city where people distrusted the police, a small group of leading citizens met in secret to arrange their own justice for criminals. Marion took inspiration from that story and wrote The Secret Six (1931), in which Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone, stars of The Big House , play two mobsters prosecuted by a half a dozen vigilantes. Thalberg was pleased with the leading roles Marion wrote for Beery and Stone, but asked if she could also fill out one of the minor leads for Cla...
Read more