Why Is Clara Bow Important

Clara Bow was an American silent film actress. She appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, her movies sold the most box-office tickets in 1928 and 1929 and and again in 1927 and 1930. Her performance in films was said to have set out sponserse . she first got famous when we was in a silent film in the early 1920s. she soon became the “it girl” of the 1920s
Clara Bow was born in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn on July 29 in 1905, she had two older sisters born in 1903 and 194 but sadly they died when they were infants. She said her dad "had a quick, keen mind ... all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn't...everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling". (Morella, Joe) Since he could never stay at a job
"But there was always something. I was too young, or too little, or too fat. Usually I was too fat.” (Bow, Clara. St. Johns, Adela Rogers)soon enough, director Elmer Clifton needed a tomboy for his movie “Down to the Sea in Ships”, he saw Clara in Motion Picture Classic magazine, and asked her to audition. she tried to look older because she was always tooled she looked to young, she put her hair up and arrived in a dress she took from her mother. Clifton said she was too old, but broke into laughter because she was trying to make herself seem like the girl in the magazine but he knew she wasn't like that. Clifton decided to higher her, but he could not say whether she would "fit the part". (Ponder, Winifred) She later learned that a sub editors had suggested to Clifton to let her try out a part. Clara's mother was getting worse over time, and when her mother realized Clara was going to have a movie career, her mother told her she "would be much better off dead". Then one night in February 1922, Clara woke up to a butcher knife held against her throat by her mother. Clara was able to calm her mother down and get her to but the knife down, then she locked her mother up. In the morning, her mother could not remember the situation, and later she was committed to a sanatorium. (Bow, Clara. St. Johns, Adela Rogers) After filming “Down to the Sea in Ships” she appeared in “Grit” in
she then made her way into talkies which are talking movies in the late 1920s. Her first talkie was “The Wild Party”. She starred in many different talkies in her career. She was probably one of the more overworked and underpaid actresses in the industry, she made 58 films between 1922 and 1933.(Find A Grave Memorial) Even though she was in a lot of talkies her thick Brooklyn accent lost a lot of her many fans. Her career was put on pause when she had a breakdown and went to an sanitarium in 193. while recovering from her breakdown she met actor Rex Bell. They then later got married later in 1931 and had two children. after she made a recovery she started to film movies again until 1933 when she decided to retire from acting. She still struggled with her mental health and tried to end her own life in the mid 1940s. She became a widow in 1962 when her husband Rex Bell died. Claraa died from a heart attack in California on September 27, 1965 at the age of