The Little Picture House

Before Hollywood called her the “It” Girl, Clara Bow was a Brooklyn teenager who won a magazine contest and saw her first film part cut. Five years later she could carry a picture with a look. She kept drawing audiences when the movies learned to talk.

Clara Gordon Bow • Brooklyn, New York, 29 July 1905 – Los Angeles area, California, 27 September 1965 • Silent and early sound film actress

Watch at The Little Picture House · Chronological filmography · Other appearances and disputed credits · Sources

Brooklyn and a foot in the door

Clara Gordon Bow grew up in Brooklyn with very little money. Her February–April 1928 Photoplay serial, told to Adela Rogers St. Johns, describes an insecure home, a mother in poor health and a girl who found companionship and excitement at the movies. The serial appeared at the height of her fame. It gives us Bow’s account of her childhood, shaped for publication by a celebrated interviewer and a magazine selling access to the stars. (2, 3)

The usual birth date is 29 July 1905, used by the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. Women in World History gives 29 July 1904, and a 1931 marriage report in the Christchurch Star gives 1906. That report also places her screen debut in 1926, four years after her earliest film work. This profile follows the institutional 1905 dating, with the discrepancy recorded here because the underlying birth registration has not been independently verified. (1, 4, 10, 11)

Bow entered the Brewster publications’ Fame and Fortune contest in 1921. Winning earned her a part in Beyond the Rainbow, but the production cut her scenes from the first release. Silent Era records their return in a later reissue. The AFI catalogue, drawing on a 1924 issue of Motion Picture, identifies Down to the Sea in Ships as her first appearance before audiences. That film played regional engagements in 1922 and went into wider release in 1923, which accounts for the two years attached to it. As Dot Morgan, the young stowaway, Bow already had the quick reactions and physical confidence the camera would pick out in much larger pictures. (12–15)

The making of the “It” Girl

Producer B. P. Schulberg gave Bow a route to Hollywood. She appeared in a succession of independent and studio pictures, often as the restless young woman who upsets a respectable household. Black Oxen is a good example of how quickly the press found a label for her. The New Britain Herald was already presenting her as a flapper in October 1923, several years before Paramount turned that image into a brand. Her work was broader. She played a dancer bent on revenge in Parisian Love, a rich family’s defiant daughter in Dancing Mothers and a flirtatious manicurist who marries a backwoods storekeeper in Mantrap. (1, 2, 12, 32)

In It (1927), Bow’s Betty Lou Spence is a shop assistant who sets her sights on her employer. Elinor Glyn supplied the fashionable idea of “It”, the attraction a person could possess without pedigree or money. Bow shows what it looks like in practice. Watch how quickly Betty Lou takes the measure of a room, then how her expression changes when she realises the man she likes has misjudged her. The Indianapolis Times recognised the film’s appeal in February 1927. (2, 12)

William Wellman’s Wings puts Bow in a very different setting as Mary Preston, who serves overseas as an ambulance driver and crosses paths with the young pilot she loves. The film won Outstanding Picture at the first Academy Awards. For another side of Bow’s work, Dorothy Arzner’s Get Your Man makes her an American visitor in Paris who pursues a man already promised to someone else. Its release history gives an especially good reason to check the trades. The project was announced as You Will Marry Me, and the version audiences can see today incorporates reconstructions of missing passages. (12, 22, 28, 33)

Bow speaks

The transition to talking pictures made Bow anxious and changed how she worked. In The Wild Party (1929), Dorothy Arzner directed her as Stella Ames, a college student whose loyalty to her friends gives the film much of its force. AFI records mixed reviews and strong business. MoMA likewise calls it a hit. That distinction matters because later accounts often treat Bow’s Brooklyn speech as the reason audiences deserted her. In July, Dangerous Curves also drew customers despite tepid trade reviews. Her last two Fox films still lay several years ahead. (16–19)

Arzner is often credited with improvising a movable microphone during The Wild Party. Contemporary trade and newspaper coverage collected by AFI also records the technical delays and the widely retold story of Bow damaging a microphone. Such stories tell us something about the difficulties of early sound production, but box-office reporting gives a firmer measure of audience reaction. Paramount also circulated silent versions of several early talking pictures, including Dangerous Curves, while theatres were still converting to sound. (16–18, 31)

Headlines, court cases and a marriage

In 1931 Bow’s former secretary Daisy De Voe faced 35 counts and was convicted on one, according to the Library of Congress chronology. Newspapers printed allegations made during the case, including accounts of Bow’s spending and private life. A separate proceeding involved publisher Frederic Girnau. The Library of Congress describes his conviction as sending obscene matter through the mail. AFI’s summary of clipping-file material calls it defamation, a shorthand that can obscure what the prosecution was for. The cases show how readily accusations circulated. The verdicts give a much narrower account of what the courts decided. (1, 2, 24, 35)

Bow married the western actor Rex Bell, born George Francis Beldam, in Las Vegas on 3 December 1931. The Walking Box Ranch chronology provides the date and distinguishes it from the earlier engagement reports. Newspaper stories about Harry Richman and other suitors belong to the history of Bow’s public image. The records consulted document one marriage. Bell and Bow had two sons. UNLV’s family archive account places their separation in the mid-1940s, and Bell died in 1962. This helps explain why a contemporary obituary could describe him as her estranged husband while other accounts describe her as his widow. (2, 4–8)

The last two pictures and the years after Hollywood

Bow’s health crisis and the end of her Paramount contract came in 1931, the year Kick In opened. A planned independent comeback with producer Sam Rork fell through for lack of financing. AFI’s account of the Fox legal records shows Bow agreed on Call Her Savage (1932) before signing with Fox, where story approval had been a point of negotiation. Her performance as Nasa Springer moves between swagger, physical comedy and distress as the film puts its heroine through a series of reversals. The film also reflects the period’s racial stereotypes about ancestry. In Hoop-La (1933), Bow plays a carnival dancer whose attempt to make a young man fall for her turns into a romance. UCLA’s retrospective pairs the two, making it possible to see how much she could do with dialogue and with the physical expressiveness she had developed in silent films. (12, 17, 19, 35)

Bow spent part of her later life at Walking Box Ranch near Searchlight, Nevada. The family photographs and oral history at UNLV show the work and routines of ranch life and put detail behind the simpler story that she vanished into seclusion. Bell eventually became Nevada’s lieutenant governor. Bow lived away from the ranch in her later years and died on 27 September 1965 in the Los Angeles area. The Oklahoma City Times reported her death that day. TIME reported a heart attack and framed her life as an emblem of the vanished 1920s. The surviving films give a wider view. Bow could make an audience laugh before an intertitle appeared, and she kept doing so after it could hear her voice. (5–9, 17, 19)

Watch Clara Bow at The Little Picture House

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Chronological filmography

The 58 entries below cover the known theatrical acting work, including a rediscovered short, the cut-and-restored first role and an uncredited appearance. Ordering follows early documented U.S. exhibition or release, with significant differences between premieres and wider release noted. Dates and credits were compared across AFI, a specialist chronology and surviving-film records. A fragment, trailer or reconstruction is identified where it affects how the film survives. (12–15, 20, 21, 30, 34)

1922–1924

Year	Film and role	Credit and release notes
1922	Beyond the Rainbow Virginia Gardener	Filmed debut. Her scenes were cut from the first release and restored in a later reissue.
1922	Down to the Sea in Ships Dot Morgan	Regional screenings in 1922. AFI dates the general release to March 1923. First documented appearance before paying audiences.
1923	Enemies of Women Dancer	Uncredited appearance traditionally identified as a girl dancing on a table. An incomplete print survives. New York opening in spring, before the general release.
1923	The Pill Pounder Drugstore customer	Two-reel Gregory La Cava comedy. The recovered, abridged copy was restored and screened in 2024.
1923	The Daring Years Mary	One of Bow’s early New York roles. No complete print traced in the sources consulted.
1923	Maytime Alice Tremaine	Four reels of the seven-reel feature were recovered from the Dawson City collection. A separate MGM film of the same title followed in 1937.
1923	Black Oxen Janet Oglethorpe	San Francisco opening in December 1923 and wider release in January 1924 account for both dates. The role is sometimes spelled Ogelthorpe.
1924	Grit Orchid McGonigle	Bow plays opposite Glenn Hunter in a story credited to F. Scott Fitzgerald. No complete print traced.
1924	Poisoned Paradise: The Forbidden Story of Monte Carlo Margot Le Blanc	Often shortened to Poisoned Paradise. Sources differ on the completeness of surviving material.
1924	Daughters of Pleasure Lila Millas	Some lists give Beggar on Horseback as an alternate. The 1925 Paramount feature with that title is a different production. Incomplete material survives.
1924	Wine Angela Warriner	Early starring billing at Universal. No complete print traced.
1924	Empty Hearts Rosalie	Surviving material is reported. Sources differ on completeness.
1924	Helen’s Babies Alice Mayton	Comedy with Baby Peggy and Edward Everett Horton.
1924	This Woman Aline Sturdevant	October New York opening followed by November general release. An older checklist marks it lost, while newer listings report a surviving print.
1924	Black Lightning Martha Larned	New York screening in December 1924. The story centres on a police dog.

1925–1926

Year	Film and role	Credit and release notes
1925	Capital Punishment Delia Tate	Crime melodrama. Bow is drawn into an experiment testing the reliability of circumstantial evidence.
1925	The Adventurous Sex The Girl	Shot in 1924 and released in 1925. No complete print traced.
1925	My Lady’s Lips Lola Lombard	National Film Preservation Foundation preservation title.
1925	Eve’s Lover Rena D’Arcy	Warner Bros. comedy. No complete print traced.
1925	The Lawful Cheater Molly Burns	A reformed thief drawn back into crime. No complete print traced.
1925	The Scarlet West Miriam	A surviving trailer preserves a glimpse of a feature otherwise untraced in complete form.
1925	Kiss Me Again Grizette	Ernst Lubitsch’s silent Warner Bros. comedy. The later Warner musical of the same name is a separate film.
1925	Parisian Love Marie	A Parisian underworld dancer seeks revenge after a robbery. A print resurfaced at Pordenone in 1998, according to Kino Lorber.
1925	The Keeper of the Bees Lolly Cameron	A trailer survives. The 1935 adaptation of the same Gene Stratton-Porter novel is a separate film.
1925	The Primrose Path Marilyn Merrill	Also catalogued without the initial The. Surviving material is reported, with older records describing it as incomplete.
1925	Free to Love Marie Anthony	An ex-reformatory inmate is taken in by a judge.
1925	The Best Bad Man Peggy Swain	A Tom Mix western. Survival listings differ, so a complete print is unconfirmed here.
1925	The Ancient Mariner Doris	Fox’s contemporary romance framed around Coleridge’s poem. No complete print traced.
1925	The Plastic Age Cynthia Day	A college picture with Donald Keith, released late in 1925.
1925–26	My Lady of Whims Prudence Severn	Silent Era uses 1925. AFI records a December 1925 opening and a February 1926 release date.
1926	The Shadow of the Law Mary Brophy	Also listed without The. The 1930 William Powell picture in our cinema is a different film.
1926	Two Can Play Dorothy Hammis	Fragments are reported. A complete print is unconfirmed.
1926	Dancing Mothers Kittens Westcourt	Herbert Brenon’s family melodrama. A restoration screened in 2024.
1926	Fascinating Youth Herself	Guest appearance in a Paramount showcase for its acting school. A trailer survives.
1926	The Runaway Cynthia Meade	Survives in fragmentary form.
1926	Mantrap Alverna	Victor Fleming’s comedy from the Sinclair Lewis novel.
1926	Kid Boots Clara McCoy	Eddie Cantor’s screen debut, adapted from the stage musical.

1927–1928

Year	Film and role	Credit and release notes
1927	It Betty Lou Spence	The Paramount shopgirl comedy that gave Bow her nickname.
1927	Children of Divorce Kitty Flanders	Frank Lloyd has the directing credit. Josef von Sternberg’s reworking is an offscreen contribution.
1927	Rough House Rosie Rosie O’Reilly	A trailer survives. A complete feature is untraced.
1927	Wings Mary Preston	1927 roadshow premiere. The later synchronised presentation used music and effects, with the story still told through intertitles.
1927	Hula Hula Calhoun	Directed by Victor Fleming and set in Hawaii.
1927	Get Your Man Nancy Worthington	Announced as You Will Marry Me. Dorothy Arzner directed. The surviving restoration reconstructs missing passages.
1928	Red Hair Bubbles McCoy	Based on Elinor Glyn’s The Vicissitudes of Evangeline. A two-colour Technicolor fragment preserves Bow’s red hair.
1928	Ladies of the Mob Yvonne	Crime melodrama with Richard Arlen. The feature is untraced, though lobby cards and stills survive.
1928	The Fleet’s In Peaches Deane	AFI gives Peaches. Some lists use Trixie. The 1942 Paramount musical is a separate film.
1928	Three Week-Ends Gladys O’Brien	Also printed as Three Weekends. Fragmentary material is reported.

1929–1933

Year	Film and role	Credit and release notes
1929	The Wild Party Stella Ames	First released talkie, directed by Dorothy Arzner. A silent version also circulated.
1929	Dangerous Curves Pat Delaney	Second released talkie. AFI also records a silent version.
1929	The Saturday Night Kid Mayme	Based on the stage play Love ’Em and Leave ’Em, an earlier announcement title. The 1926 silent adaptation is separate. Silent and talking versions circulated.
1930	Paramount on Parade Revue performer	Bow appears in the navy number. The Spanish-market edition is listed separately below.
1930	True to the Navy Ruby Nolan	A separate narrative feature from the revue sketch with a similar name.
1930	Love Among the Millionaires Pepper Whipple	Bow plays a waitress who falls for a man from a wealthy family.
1930	Her Wedding Night Norma Martin	Paramount made foreign-language versions with other casts. AFI credits Bow in the English-language original.
1931	No Limit Helen “Bunny” O’Day	A theatre usher is drawn into a gambling racket.
1931	Kick In Molly Hewes	Her last released Paramount starring feature. Earlier silent adaptations of the Willard Mack play are separate films.
1932	Call Her Savage Nasa Springer	First of her two Fox films. AFI uses Nasa. Some modern cast listings add the nickname Dynamite.
1933	Hoop-La Lou	Also styled Hoopla. Her final acting feature, based on the play The Barker, filmed separately under that title in 1928.

Other appearances and disputed credits

The following records cover promotional shorts, variant editions, newsreels, later compilations and possible appearances. They sit outside the theatrical acting count. AFI’s person index also returns films that mention Bow in production histories. A casting announcement, anecdote or studio photograph can be evidence of a connection while leaving the screen credit unresolved.

Year	Title or appearance	Evidence
1926	Go Straight	Possible cameo. AFI cites a production photograph with Bow, Lillian Leighton, Frank O’Connor and Harry Perry. A photograph taken during production cannot settle whether Bow appeared in the released film. (36)
1926	Dance Madness	Some film lists ascribe a cameo to Bow. Neither the AFI nor Silent Era cast listing establishes it. The role remains unverified. (26)
1927	A Trip Through the Paramount Studio	Studio promotional short listing Bow among the featured players. (27)
1929	Hollywood Snapshots #11	Bow is attributed in secondary film indexes. An original credit or surviving print has yet to be verified for this profile.
1930	Galas de la Paramount	Spanish-market version of Paramount on Parade with added material. Bow’s navy number carries over from the English-language revue. (25)
1931	The House That Shadows Built	Paramount anniversary compilation. Listed separately from original acting roles. (37)
1933	The Film Parade / March of the Movies	Bow is indexed in secondary sources as archive footage. The compilation circulated in more than one version, so Bow’s inclusion in a specific cut remains open.
1937	Opening of the It Cafe	Hearst newsreel material of Bow and Bell opening the Hollywood café, held by UCLA.
1940	Screen Snapshots, Series 20, No. 1	Columbia anniversary short, indexed as a public appearance.
1947	Truth or Consequences	Bow was revealed as mystery guest Mrs Hush on the radio programme. Later retellings sometimes call it television. (9)
1949	Screen Snapshots: Howdy, Podner	Celebrity short featuring Bow and Bell in Las Vegas.
1958	Screen Snapshots: Ramblin’ Round Hollywood	Compilation using earlier celebrity footage. The release date does not date Bow’s filming.
1963 onward	Hollywood Without Make-Up and later retrospectives	These reuse archival images. They are kept outside the acting chronology, along with later documentaries about Bow.

Sources

1. Library of Congress, Clara Bow in Chronicling America. Timeline of the contest, the De Voe and Girnau cases, the Fox comeback and the later years.
2. Library of Congress, selected historic newspaper articles. Includes the New Britain Herald (2 October 1923), Indianapolis Times (14 February 1927), Imperial Valley Press (24 January 1931) and Washington Times (5 December 1931).
3. Clara Bow as told to Adela Rogers St. Johns, My Life Story. Photoplay, February–April 1928, in transcription. Bow’s recollections in an edited fan-magazine serial.
4. The Star, Christchurch, 19 December 1931. Contemporary marriage report. Its birth and debut dates differ from the institutional sources.
5. Walking Box Ranch Historic District, National Register nomination. Ranch history, property records and accounts of Bow and Bell’s life in Nevada.
6. Walking Box Ranch master plan, Bureau of Land Management and UNLV. Chronology includes the Las Vegas wedding on 3 December 1931.
7. UNLV, What Do We Know About Clara Bow?. Family papers, photographs and oral history on the ranch and the couple’s separation.
8. Oklahoma City Times, 27 September 1965. Same-day death report, preserved by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
9. TIME, The Girl Who Had IT, 8 October 1965. Obituary and a contemporary example of how the press framed her retirement.
10. Smithsonian, Clara Bow cinema card. Uses 29 July 1905.
11. Women in World History, Bow, Clara. Uses 29 July 1904. Useful evidence of the biographical disagreement.
12. American Film Institute, Clara Bow credits and individual film records. Main source for character names, release dates, variant titles and production notes.
13. The Clara Bow Page, filmography. Title-by-title chronology. Its older preservation notes are compared with newer archive records.
14. Silent Era, Beyond the Rainbow. Records the removal of Bow’s scenes and their restoration in a later reissue.
15. AFI, Down to the Sea in Ships. Contemporary trade reporting on the film’s regional run, general release and Bow’s first screen appearance.
16. AFI, The Wild Party. Trade coverage, release history and commercial reception.
17. MoMA, The Wild Party. Reassesses the idea that the talkies ended Bow’s career.
18. AFI, Dangerous Curves. Trade reviews, official release, financial success and the parallel silent version.
19. UCLA Film & Television Archive, Call Her Savage and Hoop-La. The last two films and their later exhibition.
20. San Francisco Film Preserve, The Pill Pounder. The rediscovery and restoration of the abridged surviving version.
21. Library of Congress, American Silent Feature Film Database. Archival holdings and the distinction between complete films and fragments.
22. AFI, Get Your Man. Trade announcement under You Will Marry Me and the December 1927 release.
23. Silent Era, Red Hair. Records the surviving UCLA fragment and two-colour Technicolor.
24. Screening the Past, Clara Bow’s Star Persona, Scandal and Celebrity. Examines how the trades, fan magazines and tabloids shaped the public account.
25. AFI, Galas de la Paramount. Documents the Spanish-market edition and Bow’s number.
26. AFI, Dance Madness. Its cast list offers no support for Bow’s often-repeated cameo attribution.
27. Silent Era, A Trip Through the Paramount Studio. Contemporary studio promotional short.
28. San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Get Your Man. Restoration presentation of Arzner’s silent feature.
29. David Stenn, Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild. The modern biography cited by MoMA and the film preservation team. Used here through their accounts.
30. AFI, My Lady of Whims. Separates the December 1925 engagement from the February 1926 general release.
31. AFI, The Saturday Night Kid. Production history and relationship to Love ’Em and Leave ’Em.
32. Kino Lorber, Parisian Love. Surviving print and 1998 Pordenone rediscovery.
33. Library of Congress, Wings. Archive record for the 1927 aviation epic.
34. AFI, The Pill Pounder. Trade reviews, credited cast and the 2024 festival screenings.
35. AFI, Call Her Savage. Fox legal records, Bow’s comeback negotiations and period clipping-file accounts.
36. AFI, Go Straight. A production still suggests a possible cameo, which AFI treats as uncertain.
37. AFI, The House That Shadows Built. Catalogue record for Paramount’s anniversary compilation.

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