Actors - Jean Harlow

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	Actors - Jean Harlow

Jean Harlow (March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American film actress who became known as the "Platinum Blonde", as well as the "Blonde Bombshell" , predating Marilyn Monroe as a blonde sex symbol.

Harlow shot to fame in the early 1930s starring in hits such as "Hell's Angels" and "The Public Enemy" and would die within the same decade at the height of her career of kidney failure. Enormously popular within her lifetime; she to this day has inspired a fervent following.

Early years

Harlow was born Harlean Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri, the daughter of Mont Clair Carpenter, a dentist, and his wife, Jean Poe Harlow.

Her given name (Harlean) was invented from parts of her mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow. At first, Harlow adopted her mother's name as a stage name, then legally changed it in 1935.

Mother Jean, as she was known, divorced Harlean's father and moved to Hollywood with hopes of becoming an actress herself.

Shortly afterward, with plenty of screen tests but no positive results and threats of financial cut-off from Harlow's grandfather, Skip Harlow, she remarried Marino Bello and moved to Chicago, where Jean attended Ferry Hall School, a private girls' academy in the wealthy suburb of Lake Forest.

Beginnings

In the spring of 1928 back in Los Angeles and married to Charles McGrew, III, Harlean was introduced to Fox studio executive when she drove a friend to her appointment there. Although she expressed disinterest in acting, the executive insisted on writing her letters of introduction to Fox and The Central Casting Bureau.

Weeks later, on a dare from friends, she returned to Fox's casting office and signed in under her mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow.

Weeks later, at her mother's insistence and after turning down other job opportunities, Jean appeared in her first film, Honor Bound as an unbilled extra, for $7 dollars a day.

This led for to other roles, and Harlow landed bit parts in silent films such as Why is a Plumber? (1927), Moran of the Marines (1928) and The Love Parade (1929).

She had a more substantial role in Laurel and Hardy's short Double Whoopee (1929). She got her first major role when producer Howard Hughes cast her in the World War I film Hell's Angels
(1930).

Notable for its two-strip Technicolor sequences (including some footage of Harlow in color, the only existing color footage of her), this film launched Harlow as the premier sex symbol of the 1930s and started a craze for platinum blonde hair that continues to this day.

What was notable about this was in Hollywood, only the "good girls" were blonde and the "bad girls" were brunette - Harlow's vamps turned that stereotype on its head and woman across the nation rushed to bleach their hair in wake of Harlow's rapidly rising popularity.

Loaned out by Hughes' Caddo Company to other studios, in 1931, Harlow began to gain more attention when she appeared in The Public Enemy
, Goldie, The Secret Six with Clark Gable, and Platinum Blonde with Loretta Young.

Though the films were moderate hits, Harlow's acting ability was damned by critics as awful and was mocked, with some saying she ruined any scene she was in.

MGM

With Harlow's star on the ascent, she gained the attention of studio brass at MGM who bought out her contract from Howard Hughes. MGM was where Harlow would become "Harlow", not only with the image but be given superior movie roles to show off not only her beauty but her natural talent for comedy. In 1932 she had bigger roles in Red-Headed Woman
, for which she received a salary of $1,250/week, and Red Dust
, her second film with Clark Gable. Harlow and Gable worked well together and co-starred in a total of six films.

It was during the making of Red Dust that Harlow's second husband, MGM producer Paul Bern (neé Paul Levy) died in an incident that remains mysterious to this day; he was found naked in his wife's bedroom, shot in the head. This created a scandal that reverberates to this day. Initially, the Hollywood community whispered Harlow had killed Burn herself though this was just rumor and would quickly be disproven. Harlow would surive this, the first great Hollywood scandal, and would come through unscathed and more popular with audiences than ever.

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Actors - Jean Harlow

Early years

Beginnings

MGM

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