Trivia

As soon as Bow started to make money, she brought her father to live with her in Hollywood. For the next few years, she funded numerous business ventures for him, including a restaurant and a dry cleaners, all of which failed. He soon became a drunken nuisance on her sets, where he would try to pick up young girls by telling them his daughter was Clara Bow.

Had a turbulent love affair with actor Bela Lugosi (who had yet to deliver his career-making legendary performance in Dracula (1931) on the big screen) in the late 1920s. Lugosi had a nude portrait of Bow hanging in the bedroom of his small Hollywood apartment for the rest of his life.

1949: After being diagnosed with schizophrenia, her regimen included shock treatments. Later in her life her husband sent her to one of the top mental institutions in the nation.

Refused to write her memoirs on the grounds there were many things that might embarrass her two sons and their families. She felt all the money in the world would not compensate for the embarrassment.

She worked at a hot dog stand on Coney Island as a teenager, run by a man named Nathan Handwerker, who later founded Nathan's Franks. However, contrary to legend, she was not discovered there.

After her death there were rumors that she had faked her death, and some had reported seeing her visiting her own grave, at Forest Lawn, Glendale (Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Heritage), where she is interred next to George Burns and Gracie Allen.

1994: She was honored with an image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

Before she was known as "The It Girl", she was known as "The Brooklyn Bonfire".

Bow applied her red lipstick in the shape of a heart. Women who imitated this shape were said to be putting a "Clara Bow" on their mouths.

Prince refers to her in his song "Condition of the Heart". The line goes, "There was a woman from the ghetto who made funny faces just like Clara Bow".

Was billed as "The Hottest Jazz Baby in Films" by independent producer B.P. Schulberg for Quand on a vingt ans (1925).

F. Scott Fitzgerald described Bow in 1927 at the peak of her fame: "Clara Bow is the quintessence of what the term 'flapper' signifies as a definite description. Pretty, impudent, superbly assured, as worldly wise, briefly clad, and 'hard-berled' as possible... Now, there are thousands more [flappers] patterning themselves after her".

1928: She became the highest paid movie star, receiving $35,000 per week.

She was considered for the role of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" (1950).

During the 1950s, she and actor Marlon Brando were pen pals. They corresponded regularly until her death in 1965.

She lived in a seven-room bungalow at 512 N. Bedford Dr. in Beverly Hills at one point. She also lived in a Spanish-style house on Hollywood Blvd. between 1925 and 1927, and her last home was on Aneta Street in Culver City. She reportedly preferred playing poker with her cook, maid, and chauffeur over attending her movie premieres. Some of the properties in question are shown in Hollywood Mouth 2 (2014), whose director, Jordan Mohr lived near the Culver City property as a child and recognized the name of the street while reading David Stenn's biography of the actress.

Sons, by Rex Bell: Rex Bell Jr. (b. 1934) and George Robert (b. 1938).

Pictured on one of ten 29¢ US commemorative postage stamps celebrating stars of the silent screen, issued 27 April 1994. Designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, this set of stamps also honored Rudolph Valentino, Charles Chaplin, Lon Chaney, John Gilbert, Zasu Pitts, Harold Lloyd, Theda Bara, Buster Keaton, and the Keystone Kops.

Bow was never a fan of the limelight and lavish parties that were nightly fixtures in 1920's Hollywood. She stayed home and played penny ante gin rummy with her household staff instead.

She had a rare singing role (sang "I'm True To The Navy") in Paramount on Parade (1930), a talkie and one of her last films.

She was the inspiration for the character Nellie LaRay in the motion picture "Babylon" (2022).

She has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Le coup de foudre (1927) and Les ailes (1927).

WAMPAS Baby Star of 1924.

Kristin Hersh wrote a song about her for the band 50 Foot Wave entitled "Clara Bow." It appears on the band's debut album "Golden Ocean".

In the 2024 album "The Tortured Poets Department" by singer Taylor Swift, the final track is in honor of Bow with the song simply entitled, "Clara Bow".

Father Robert was a drunk, her mother Sarah was bedridden with a nervous disease. Her mother died in an asylum after being diagnosed with psychotic epilepsy.

In February, 1922, when Clara was entering films, her mother Sarah, who suffered from psychological illness was so upset about her daughter going into the movies, she woke Clara up in the middle of night with a knife to her throat. Clara was able to fend off the attack but suffered from insomnia the rest of her life. Her mother was institutionalized and died in 1923 at the age of 43.

For her first talking picture, Clara Bow had only 2 weeks to learn.

Paramount signed Clara to a weekly contract of $50.

After her retirement from films, in her later years she signed her Christmas cards "Remember me? Clara Bow".

She was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind" (1939).

Was Brewster Publications 'Fame and Fortune Contest Winner of 1921'.