Standing just 5”2’ tall, Jean Harlow had the robust personality and inherent sexuality that propelled her into superstardom. With her platinum blond hair, her enchanting smile, and an intentional brash flash of her perfect figure, Hollywood could not deny her rise to fame. Amazingly, even though she had never taken one acting lesson, Jean went on to make 36 films in just 10 years.
The Howard Hughes Connection
Jean Harlow appeared in several movies before her breakout role in Howard Hughes’ 1930 film, Hell’s Angels, which instantly launched her into international stardom. Hughes then signed Harlow to a five year contract with his Caddo Production Company. Jean Harlow was one of the few starlets of the day that Hughes did not pursue for, shall we say, personal pleasures. It was during the making of Hell’s Angels that Harlow met Paul Bern, an MGM executive who would be both a pivotal yet injurious character in her career, and her life.
A Natural Blond
After making the successful picture Public Enemy with James Cagney in 1931, among other films that year, Harlow went on to make Platinum Blond. Originally titled Gallagher, it was renamed at Howard Hughes’ urging to capitalize on the popular image of Jean Harlow’s striking hair color. In fact, ever the publicity hound, Hughes launched a contest offering any hair stylist who could match Harlow’s shade of hair a whopping $10,000. Harlow vehemently denied ever having dyed her hair, and stated she was indeed a natural blond. Of course this was certainly unbelievable to the masses of want-to-be’s, natural platinum hair color just didn’t exist, but in Jean’s case it was true, she had the rare albino gene. On one occasion, Jean lay in the sun and paid dearly with second-degree burns to her body and face; after that, and under doctors’ recommendations, she avoided sun exposure totally.
A Move to Metro Goldwyn Mayer
On her 21st birthday, March 3, 1932, Paul Bern finally coerced MGM to buy Harlow’s film contract from Hughes for $30,000. Furthermore, that year she starred in Red-Headed Woman, which proved her genuine comedic talent and lightning-timed delivery was as impressive as her exuberant sexuality. Harlow’s success at MGM was immense, making six films with the “King”, Clark Gable, and starring with other leading men like Spencer Tracy, William Powell, Franchot Tone, and Robert Taylor.
The Bazaar Scandal
On July 2, 1932 Jean Harlow married her second husband Paul Bern; two months later he was found dead by his gardener, with a gunshot wound through his head, lying naked in the hallway of their home. The coroner ruled Bern’s death a suicide, but suspicion still surrounds his demise. MGM had fabricated the tale that Bern was impotent, therefore making him unable to pleasure the worlds most sexually desirable woman. A curious note found at the scene in Bern’s writing stated; “Dearest Dear, Unfortunately this is the only way to make the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humiliation. I love You, Paul,” the note goes on to say; “you understand that last night was only a comedy,” giving rise to the speculative story that Paul Bern had tried to enhance himself with props in an attempt to please Jean the night before his death. Harlow kept silent about the entire ordeal, even amid community suspicion of being a murder suspect herself, and she emerged even more popular with movie going audiences.
In 1933, Harlow married her third husband, Hal Rossom. It was a short-lived marriage. Also that year, Jean made several more box office smashes. One of them in particular, Bombshell, was a parody paralleling her own life, involving a controlling mother and greedy stepfather. When Jean was ten years old, her mother, “Mother Jean”, divorced Jean’s father, a successful dentist from Kansas City, Missouri, to move to Hollywood to pursue her own failed attempt at an acting career. She later married Jean’s stepfather Marino Bellow, and this coupling followed, and in fact practically molded, Jean Harlow’s every move up until her death in 1937.
The Loss of an Icon
On May 29, 1937, while filming Saratoga with Clark Gable, Harlow collapsed on set, at which time she was sent home. Mama Jean, whose religion was Christian Scientist, supposedly denied medical treatment for her daughter. Finally on June 6, 1937, after a week of increasing illness, William Powell, with whom she was romantically involved with at the time and was planning to wed, stepped in and had her taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where she died the next day of uremic poisoning.
On June 7, 1937, The New York Daily News headline read: “Beautiful Jean Harlow Dies.” William Powell purchased a mausoleum made of multi-colored marble in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale California for Jean Harlow’s final resting place. Sadly, but appropriately stated, her crypt bears the inscription “Our Baby”.
Sources:
Shulman, I. & Landua, A. (1964). Harlow-An Intimate Biography. New York: Dell Publishing Company.
Marx, S. & Vanderveen, J. (1990) Deadly Illsions-Jean Harlow and the Muder of Paul Bern. New York: Random House.
Sharon Colaizzi - Sharon is a professional freelance writer and is working on many writing assignments. She loves to write on any and all subject matter ...
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