You look like Clara Bow

The "It" Girl of the 20's

Jul 30, 2024

In honor of being on tour the next three weeks with the Miss Americanas (my Taylor Swift Tribute band - another story for another day), I’m sharing a piece of writing, based on the wonderful Clara Bow, from her perspective. If you listened to Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, she has a song called “Clara Bow” which is one of my favorite’s. As a small town girl from a town population of 4,000 to living in New York City, Los Angeles, Vancouver, etc, this song is special to me for a number of reasons. Without further adieu:

I always wanted to be one of the boys. Feistiness was an instinct of survival that my tomboy-nature eventually stemmed from. We are all defined the moment we come into the world, and whether we are conscious of it or not, the first few moments of our life define the path we will take. It was a hot summer day in New York City the day I was born in 1905. Sweat cascaded from my mother’s forehead as she pushed out a child that she hoped would make it past infancy. Both of my sisters died within a few days upon entering this harsh world, which made those births seem as if they were in vain, and the doctors warned that they weakened her. There was something different about me, though. While I came out as frail as my sisters, I harbored an inner strength that made me a fighter, a trait I would carry throughout my life. There is nothing in the world more tiring than child birth, especially on the hottest day in history without an anesthetic, so my mom struggled to stay alive.

My father worshipped the ground that Mother walked on. Mother didn’t love him, so I didn’t seem him much since he lived his life hidden behind alcohol. I don’t blame him for wanting to numb the pain of his broken heart. He could barely stand to look at me, and I guess it was because I shared my mother’s eyes, nose, and smile. Secretly, I admired Father because he 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. No matter what happened, he was always the first to her side.

I’ll never forget the day my mother fell from our second-story window. I was reading a book in my room when I heard a blood-curdling scream from the next room - my parent’s room. I froze in bed, terrified to make a move or a sound. I’m not sure if I was more afraid of it being my mother’s scream, or the scream of someone else. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, I finally yelled “Father!, Mother!”, but there was no response. Hours passed where I stayed frozen on the bed, and the last thing I remember before falling asleep was the sound of my father sobbing hysterically in the living room.

Mother changed after that day; she became a complete stranger. She was no longer my mother, but I was more of the mother; taking care of her, cooking, and cleaning. She was mean, but I knew she couldn’t help it and I felt sorry for her. One night, I fell asleep after an exhausting day, and awoke to a butcher’s knife on my throat. I was dreaming that I was running from a rapist and I ran through an alley, only to find a dead-end. He cornered me, much stronger than me. Grabbing my throat, he reached into his pocket and slowly brought up the butcher knife, and I awakened from my dream to find that there was truly a butcher knife on my throat. My mother had grabbed my throat, making it impossible to breathe, and I screamed the same terrifying sound that my mother let out the day she fell from the second-story window. I struggled to fight her off, all the while remembering that fall, and that she couldn’t help what she was doing. If I have any regrets about my childhood, it’s that I lost my innocence quickly.

School made me stronger too. The other girls teased me for my worn-out clothes and “carrot-top” hair. I never had any clothes...and lots of time didn’t have anything to eat. We just lived, that’s about all. Girls shunned me because I was so poorly dressed. I preferred spending time with boys since they didn’t make fun of me. We played baseball, and I was the pitcher, so I had a strong arm. I even hopped a ride on behind a big fire engine. I got a lot of credit from the gang for that. Since I was really good at sports and I won five gold medals and had aspirations of becoming an athletic instructor. But, the more I looked like a woman, the less I could continue to be “one of the boys” in the gang.

Everything changed the day I won the Brewster Publications’ Magazine’s Annual Nationwide Acting Contest. At only sixteen years old, Mother didn’t want me to compete, but Father fully supported me. My home and school life taught me to have determination and ambition because I wanted so much more than what my parents settled for. The judges said, “She is endowed with a mentality far beyond her years. She has a genuine spark of divine fire.” I knew at that moment I wanted to be a motion picture actress, even though I was a square, awkward, funny-faced kid. The scenes I filmed in my first movie didn’t make the cut, but I kept auditioning. I was too fat, too young or too little. Usually, I was too fat. But, my father kept encouraging me to audition, and I landed my first role as a tomboy in Down to the Sea in Ships.

The silver screen changed my perspective. For the first time in my life I knew there was beauty in the world. For the first time I saw distant lands, serene, lovely homes, romance, nobility and glamor. Acting became my escape, and I carried the baggage and experience from my childhood, which I released through my emotions on-screen. I went to parties and learned how to put on make-up. Soon after, I chopped off my hair, which became known as the famous “flapper bob”. Life took a sharp turn when I starred in the film, “It” Girl. After that, everyone wanted to be “It.” What made “It” it? I never quite understood what “It” meant during the filming, but I later determined that Lara Turner and Marilyn Monroe had the “it” concept. Now, it is defined as a young woman who possesses the indefinable quality, it, as absolute attraction without flaunting sexuality. Elinor Glyn, the author of the story that inspired the film, wrote that “With ‘It,’ you win all men if you are a woman and all women if you are a man.”

In the movie, I played a spunky shopgirl named Betty Lou Spence who falls in love with her employer Cyrus Walther Jr. However, he is already involved with a wealthy, blonde, beautiful girl named Adela Van Norman. Betty gets the attention of Cyrus, and he takes her on a date to Coney Island, where they have a wonderful time. Before the date, Betty’s friend slits her dress to make it shorter, which outraged the older generation. Cyrus tries to kiss her at the end of the date, but Betty slaps him and runs out of the car. The concept was that some women, like Betty Lou, will stay in a man’s memory, even after they walk down the street. The film was more about the concept of the “It” girl than the actual story.

It’s ironic that everyone wanted to be an “It” girl like me, but you can’t be the “It” girl if you are just like someone else. Breaking box office records, It was a hit. I went from an up-and-coming movie actress to the biggest movie star of the 1920s, and received up to forty-five-thousand letters a week from women asking for advice about hair, eyes, make-up, or learning how to date, kiss, and even court. Remembering my tragic and humbling upbringing, I always connected with my fans. I was just like them, maybe even lower in the beginning. That was another thing I learned about what made someone “It”; she must be humble, because conceitedness destroys “It.” I never had to work at sexuality or being “It”; I was just myself and I enjoyed every second of it.

Some say I “personified” the roaring twenties, but that offends me because the twenties was marked by many shallow people. Yes, I stretched the limits for women, but I was never a shallow person, because a shallow person cannot be a good actress, only a real person can. I enjoyed showing some skin, breaking some rules, attending some parties, and drinking some alcohol in public, but I carried the weight and reality of my past. I think my experiences gave me a flesh quality much different than the shallow, wealthy girls of the twenties. There is something about “flesh which photographs like flesh, flesh you felt you could reach out and touch,” that made women want to be me and men desire me. But, they don’t realize they will never reach their “It” state trying to be like me. I just wanted to be a real person and live a life far better than my childhood. I hope that my life speaks a message to stay true to who you are, rather than try to be like someone else, not matter how “successful” or “famous” they appear.

-Clara Bow

PS - I will be releasing my novel to paid subscribers (but all free subscribers will receive the prologue and a few chapters for free) towards the end of the summer. If you are willing to share my writing with someone who you think would resonate, that would mean so much to me!

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