“No one ever expects a great lay to pay all the bills.”
Jean Harlow was born Harlean Harlow Carpenter in Kansas City in 1911. Jean, an only child, was very close to her mother who was very protective of young Harlean. When Jean was 11, her parents divorced and Jean’s mother gained sole custody of her.
In 1923, Jean and her mother, also Jean, moved to Hollywood as Jean’s mother harbored hopes of becoming an actress although these did not come to fruition. When Jean was 16 years old, she married Charles “Chuck McGrew”, heir to a large fortune and shortly afterwards the couple moved to Los Angeles. Jean was noticed by Fox Studio executives in Los Angeles who gave her letters of introduction to the Central Casting Bureau despite Jean not having expressed an interest in acting. Jean,however, did sign up with Central Casting as a result of a bet and being urged by her mother to do so, which she did under her mother’s name, Jean Harlow.
After turning down several film offers and at her mother’s pressing, Jean accepted her first film role as an unbilled extra in “Honor Bound” in 1927. This led to various other roles and Jean starred in silent films such as “Why Is a Plumber?” (1927), “Moran of the Marines” (1928) and “The Love Parade” (1929). While filming “Weak But Willing” in 1929, Jean was spotted by James Hall, an actor who at the time was shooting a Howard Hughes film, “Hell’s Angels”. Hughes was re-shooting the film from silent into sound and needed a new actress as the original actress, Greta Nissen’s Norse accent was unsuitable for a talkie. Hughes met with Jean and offered her this role and a five-year contract on the spot. Jean proved to be a big hit with audiences although not all the critics were so taken with her.
Jean began to get more attention when in 1931 Hughes loaned her out to other studios and she appeared in several noteworthy films including “The Public Enemy” with James Cagney, “The Secret Six” with Clark Gable and “Platinum Blonde” with Loretta Young. Although some of the films were big successes, the critics dismissed Jean’s acting as “awful”. Howard Hughes was so concerned by this that he sent on her a personal appearance tour of the East Coast in late 1931 where to everyone’s surprise, Jean packed every theater she appeared in. Jean proved to be so popular that the tour was extended through early 1932 and Jean began to gather a following of female fans who dyed their hair platinum to match hers. Howard Hughes decided to capitalize on this by organizing a series of “Platinum Blonde” clubs across the country which offered a prize of $10,000 to any beautician who could match Jean’s hair color.
After some persuasion from Paul Bern who was romantically involved with Harlow, MGM bought her contract from Hughes amd she officially joined the studio in April 1932. At MGM, Jean finally became a superstar and she was given superior film roles to show off her beauty and her genuine talent for comedy. In 1931, Jean had the starring roles in “Red-Headed Woman” and “Red Dust”, her second film with Clark Gable. Jean and Gable worked well together and worked on a total of six films together. Jean was also paired multiple times with Spencer Tracy and William Powell. Jean also starred in “Wife vs. Secretary” with Myrna Loy and James Stewart. By the mid-1930’s, Jean Harlow was one of the biggest stars in America and the main female star at MGM. Unlike other female stars at MGM including Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer whose popularity was waning, Jean was a young woman with her star continuously on the rise.
In the early part of 1937, Jean Harlow allegedly fell ill with influenza which significantly weakened her body. During this period, Harlow began filming “Saratoga” with Clark Gable which would prove to be her final film. In May 1937, Jean collapsed on set and was rushed to hospital where she was diagnosed with uremic poisoning where despite receiving constant medical attention, her condition worsened and Jean died at at the age of 26 in June 1937.
Jean Harlow was buried in the negligee she had worn just weeks before while filming “Saratoga”. Many rumors circled round her death including that her mother had forbidden medical intervention as a Christian Science believer but these were disproved in the 1990’s when her medical records were released and it was shown that she died of renal failure.
