Clara+Bow

media type="youtube" key="UAF2g5X-P4c" height="344" width="425"  For decades, Hollywood and its admirers have been obsessed with identifying the year’s “It Girl,” the one girl with the charismatic smile, the lead roles, and the acknowledgeable performances. This infatuation with Hollywood sweethearts roots back to the Roaring Twenties. During the era of silent cinema in America, Clara Bow captured the hearts of Americans with a resounding boom when she became the first “It Girl” to strike stardom. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Clara was the farthest thing from beings America’s sweetheart. Born into poverty, she acted more like a boy, down-playing her natural beauty. At 5’3” with wide sparkling eyes, red hair, and a perfect complexion, Clara, at just sixteen, won a national beauty competition, along with an audition for a cameo in a motion picture. Bow’s film debut in 1922 led to her signing a contract with Preferred Pictures. By 1925, she signed with Paramount Pictures; and by 1926, Clara had made herself a well-known media figure, starring in more than forty films. Clara’s typical role was a “flapper,” a youthful, promiscuous, uninhibited girl of the Prohibition era, breaking rules and drinking illegally. Bow’s performances captured the reckless youth fighting morality issues of the Roaring Twenties. In 1927, Bow starred as the lead in the film //It//. //It// was based on a novel that focused on sex appeal. Clara Bow personified this character so well and the movie’s sex appeal. Clara Bow’s wonderful performance in //It// earned her huge stardom. It is with this movie that people began to identify her as the “It Girl.” Bow’s roles and performances embodied the recklessness and flirtatious tendencies becoming accepted among women through flappers during the twenties. Clara Bow changed the movie industry and her affects can be seen today. Her promiscuity and sex appeal opened the gates for television and film to use these techniques to attract audiences.