Clara Bow: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s First ‘It Girl’

What does it mean to be an ‘It Girl’? The term conjures images of youth, a certain elusive charm, and a style that is both distinctive and carefully honed. Over the past century, many have worn the label, but its origins can be traced to a single figure from the silent film era: Clara Bow.

Born in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights on 29 July 1905, Bow’s early years were marked by loss and instability. Her two elder sisters died as infants, and her mother, Sara Frances Bow, was cautioned against further pregnancies. Reflecting on her birth in Photoplay magazine in 1928, Bow recalled,

“I don’t suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life… She idolized me, but with a strange, bitter love, almost as though she was afraid to love me for fear I, too, would be snatched away from her.”

Her mother’s epilepsy and subsequent mental health struggles, following a serious head injury, meant Bow became a carer from a young age. Their relationship was fraught, with Bow later describing her mother as “mean”, though she recognised,

“she couldn’t help it.”

From Brooklyn to the Silver Screen

Bow’s fascination with cinema began early. After spotting an acting competition in a magazine, she persuaded her father to give her a dollar for headshots. Despite her own doubts, she was selected after several screen tests, the judges declaring,

“She has a genuine spark of divine fire.”

With no formal training, Bow’s passion for the world of film was unwavering. She wrote,

“I’d save and save and beg Dad for a little money, and every cent of it went into the box office of a motion picture theater… My whole heart was afire, and my love was the motion picture. Not just the people of the screen, but everything that magic silversheet could represent to a lonely, starved, unhappy child.”

Her ambitions, however, were not met with encouragement at home. When Bow confided her dreams to her mother, the response was chilling:

“You are going straight to hell. I would rather see you dead.”

One night, Bow awoke to find her mother holding a knife to her throat. After this terrifying incident, her mother was committed to a sanitarium and died in 1923. Bow later wrote,

“Looking back on it now, it seems to me that the day of my mother’s funeral was the beginning of a new life for me. Perhaps it was the birthday of the Clara Bow that you know.”

Hollywood Stardom and the ‘It’ Factor

Bow’s first film role in 1921’s Beyond the Rainbow ended with all her scenes cut, but she pressed on. Her tomboyish energy landed her a part in 1922’s Down to the Sea in Ships, and she soon moved to Hollywood, signing with Preferred Pictures. By 1925, she was appearing in a remarkable fourteen productions, quickly becoming synonymous with the flapper archetype—emotional, charismatic, and unafraid to challenge gender norms.

In 1926, Bow joined Paramount Pictures, and the following year starred in It, the film that would define her career. The story, inspired by Elinor Glyn’s novel, followed Betty Lou Spence, a shop-girl whose indefinable allure wins her the heart of her employer. Glyn described ‘It’ in Cosmopolitan as,

“That quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force. With ‘It’ you win all men if you are a woman and all women if you are a man. ‘It’ can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction.”

Bow’s performance earned her the moniker ‘The It Girl’, and her unconventional lifestyle only fuelled her mystique. As she put it,

“I’m a curiosity in Hollywood. I’m a big freak, because I’m myself!”

Struggles Behind the Spotlight

Despite her success, Bow found the pressures of fame increasingly difficult. She managed to transition into sound films, remaining a box-office draw into the early 1930s, but her mental health began to deteriorate. In 1931, she was admitted to a sanatorium and released from her Paramount contract. Though her initial stardom faded by age 25, she briefly returned to the screen with two well-received films for Fox, Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933), before retiring to raise her two sons.

Bow’s later years were marked by continued struggles. In 1944, she attempted suicide and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, though she rejected ongoing psychological treatment. She withdrew from public life, living alone until her death from a heart attack in 1965, aged 60. Her story, filled with both glamour and sorrow, remains a powerful reminder of the burdens that can accompany fame. As Bow herself once observed,

“All the time the flapper is laughing and dancing, there’s a feeling of tragedy underneath, she’s unhappy and disillusioned, and that’s what people sense.”