"I like to wake up every morning with a different man," said Jean Harlow, who Hollywood legends say had a voracious s- appetite. She is the quintessential blonde of golden Hollywood, an icon of cinema but also of fashion and style.
A determined and brave woman who achieved success and died too young. Jean Harlow was the name Harlean Carpenter chose to be a star. And she achieved it. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a dentist and a housewife who could do little when her little girl turned 16 and ran away with businessman Charles McGraw, seven years older than Jean. to get married in Los Angeles. It was 1927 and the young woman dreamed of being an actress. After playing some minor comic roles, she worked with the famous Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Fat, and Skinny, in the film Double Whoppe, but it was clear that it was not the type of film she wanted to make.
In 1929 she divorced her husband and through tenacity and courage, she managed to get Howard Hughes to hire her for Hell's Angels, a title with which she achieved the success she so desired. Was it because of her talent? Yes and no. Hollywood legends say that Hughes insisted that Harlow be 'the blondest blonde' in cinema. So it was. The actress is considered the first platinum blonde, although to have this title she had to suffer a lot from the chemicals that were added to her hair and she went bald, and she had to resort to wigs. “We used peroxide, pure ammonia, chlorine, and soap flakes,” confessed years later Alfred Pagano, the famous hairdresser who also took care of Marilyn Monroe's hair.
He filmed 18 films, including some as well-known as City Lights, by Charles Chaplin, The Public Enemy, by William Wellman, and The Golden Cage, by Frank Capra... His fame grew as his appeal, to the men and film studios. In 1932 she signed with Metro Goldwyn Mayer and married Paul Bern, twenty-two years her senior, but the marriage did not last long: months after the wedding he was found dead in her house. Everything indicates that he had committed suicide because he was impotent and unable to s- satisfy his young wife. This drama was missing an act and came a day later when Paul Bern's ex-wife, Dorothy Millette, committed suicide by jumping into the Sacramento River.
Her personal misfortunes were not obstacles in her career and Jean Harlow shone with her own light in the 1930s: Tierra De Pasión and Povorilla, by Victor Fleming; Dinner at Eight, by George Cukor; I'm Looking for a Millionaire, by Jack Conway; China Seas, by Tay Garnett... We must highlight La indómita, in which she wore Adrián dresses, designs that were too minimalist for the time but that she made fashionable. The 1930s were the scene of her glory and she, along with divas such as Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Greta Garbo, formed a group of admired goddesses and style icons.
She also sought success in her private life and tried the adventure of marriage again by marrying Harold Rosson, director of photography, but her relationship only lasted two years and she fell into the arms of actor William Powell. But... her problems did not stop knocking on her door and during the filming of the film Saratoga she had to be hospitalized - too late, it is said - with a difficult kidney condition. Apparently, she had kidney problems since she was a child due to having scarlet fever. She was only 26 years old and she couldn't finish the movie. It was a stuntwoman named Mary Dees who had to finish filming and Saratoga became the highest-grossing title of 1937. It was the last great success of Jean Harlow, who, once again, was called Harlean Carpenter. At least that's what she said on her death certificate.
Years later, in Hollywood, an eternal source of rumors, she spoke again about her life and her death and it was said that she could have had an illegal abortion. Others talk about a problem with alcohol and some people blame the hairdresser. Succulent ingredients for a film script but, in this case, they seem far from real life.
Many tourists visit the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale (California, USA) to leave flowers on her grave that read 'Our baby', which is what her mother used to call her. Harlow's remains rest in a veined marble crypt paid for by William Powell. She is buried in the wedding dress she wears in the movie Lady Entanglements, with a gardenia in her hands. Next to it is a note written by her boyfriend that reads "Good night, my dearest."
