She was the “It” Girl. What was “it”? As Dorothy Parker said, "It...is that strange magnetism which attracts both sexes... entirely unself-conscious...full of self-confidence... indifferent to the effect... she is producing and uninfluenced by others."
That about sums up Clara Bow. One Hollywood writer said of her, "Clara is the total nonconformist. What she wants she gets if she can. What she desires to do she does. She has a big heart, a remarkable brain, and the most utter contempt for the world in general. Time doesn't exist for her, except that she thinks it will stop tomorrow. She has real courage, because she lives boldly. Who are we, after all, to say she is wrong?”
She made over 50 movies, silents and talkies, before retiring at the tender age of 26to get married and live on a ranch somewhere far, far away from Hollywood. Her brief career was tumultuous and controversial, but this quintessential flapper made an impact on movies that few would ever be able to match.
Clara is one of my all-time inspirations. Hard not to love a gal who languishes well in her own skin while flashing that "fuck you if you can't take a joke" smirk.
ReplyDeleteC'mon Heath...lay another one on me.
I've been restoring a rare vintage image found in my wife's (her grand father's) family album. As luck would have it, I'm a bit of an expert in graphic arts being a graduate in Print Media. There are some 300 pictures to restore, mostly taken in Texas and Mexico some dating to the War between the States, but I digress. I've not ruled out the possibility of a gallery display of them if I felt there were enough good ones in the end. Long project ahead though. We believe it is Clara in the image, if so she is very young in the picture we have. She looks a lot more innocent than these images here. What a great and haunting beauty. The eyes held my attention all the time I was working on the image. The eyes and lips are also the tell-tale signs to identifying if it is her. It is possible that the picture I'm working on does not exist anywhere else, the original was very damaged but I have been able to restore it. It's close to being finished, I want to do a little more work on her dress. The finished image should be able to enlarge to an amazing 40x60 inches with no loss of quality, since I've used a high dpi setting.
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