Bow Tied

It's amazing what links one finds where doing some research for Nifty Knick Knacks.

For instance, the reference fourth result in on a simply Google search on Clara Bow:

Did actress Clara Bow service the entire USC football team at orgies?

Pictured here being mauled by a fur wrap, Miss Bow, was Hollywood's original 'It Girl' a picture of both innocence and comehither sexuality which tantilised silent move goers in the 1920s.

Her career only lasted 11 years but those years defined the between-war era popularised by the likes of novelist F Scott Fitzgerald.

This cigarette card dated from 1933 was actually published at the end of her career. The reverse reads:

Clara Bow (Fox)
Won a beauty contest in 1922 and was given small part in a picture. Quickly rose to stardom and great popularity in silent pictures. After temporarily retiring from the screen she is returning in the talking picture "Call Her Savage". Born in Brooklyn. Red hair and brown eyes.

- From Who's Who on the Screen, 1933

Hints of Britney Spears emerges in the tale of Clara Bow - arising from poverty, becoming a sex symbol, suffering terribly from mental illness. Yet in the case of Bow, she acknowledged the end of the public career and retired at the age of 28 to raise two sons with her husband Rex Bell.

Bow died relatively young at the age of 60 in 1965.

So, is there any truth to the urban legend referenced at the start of the post? What do you think?

Below is part one of a documentary about Clara Bow: