The girl from Missouri

American actress Jean Harlow was one of the first sex symbols of the silver screen but, like Marilyn Monroe, she died young. As fate would have it, both actresses made their last film opposite Clark Gable.

Harlow was a brash, outgoing, but determined young woman with a twangy voice, ash blonde hair, unblemished skin and a beautiful rounded body, which she used effectively in her movies.

In a career that lasted 10 short years, Harlow made 36 films, most of them designed to show her magnetic sex appeal and strong screen presence. She had limited acting talent but, with a flair for comedy, she became one of the most popular actresses of the 1930s.

Harlow was born Harlean Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri on March 3, 1911 – just over 100 years ago. Her father was Mont Clair Carpenter, a dentist, and her mother was the daughter of a wealthy real estate broker and was named Jean Harlow, the name that her daughter later took as her stage name.

The young Harlow was a sickly child; she contracted measles when she was five and at 15 she fell ill with scarlet fever while at summer camp. She was educated at Miss Barstow’s Finishing School for Girls in Kansas City and when her parents divorced when she was not yet in her teens, her mother took her to Hollywood where she attended the Hollywood School for Girls.

Her mother was aspiring to become an actress but film work was difficult to come by for a 34-year-old, so mother and daughter returned to Kansas City. In 1927, when she was 16, Harlow married Charles McGraw and eloped to Beverly Hills.

To make ends meet she started to work as an extra in many silent movies. In one of these films (Whoopee, 1928), she had her dress ripped off by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

The marriage with McGraw lasted a little more than two years, as they were divorced in 1930. Her big acting break came soon after, when she met producer Howard Hughes, who put her in Hell’s Angels (1930), which the producer was in the process of re-shooting from silent to sound, and needed another actress to replace Greta Nissen, who had a Norwegian accent.

Although the film was a success, Harlow didn’t leave much of an impression and she went back to extras duty, appearing in Charles Chaplin’s City Lights (1931). She was given a small featured role in The Secret Six (1931), the first of six films with Clark Gable, and then she was promoted to leading lady, opposite James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931, released in Malta as Enemies of the Public).

On the insistence of film producer Paul Bern, MGM bought Harlow’s contract from Hughes and for her first film with the new company she was put in a red wig for Red-Headed Woman (1932).

Eventually, she and Bern got married in September 1932, but Bern committed suicide two months later.

At MGM, Harlow was getting better roles in bigger films and was teamed up for the second time with Gable for Red Dust (1932). The two superstars went on to appear together in four more films, three of which were Hold Your Man (1933), China Seas (1935) and Wife vs. Secretary (1936).

Harlow also appeared in three films with Spencer Tracy: Goldie (1931), Riffraff (1936), which also featured the Maltese actor Joseph Calleia, and Libeled Lady (1936).

Besides these films, she was in fine form in the comedy Dinner at Eight (1933). In 1933 she got married for the third time, to Harold Rossen, but, again the marriage was short-lived as the couple divorced in 1934.

Despite its title, The Girl from Missouri (1934) was not a biographical account of Harlow’s life and career, but a delightful story of a girl trying to marry a millionaire without losing her integrity.

While filming Saratoga (1937) her final film with Gable and,as it happened, also of her career, Harlow complained of ill-health and was rushed to hospital in Los Angeles.

After slipping into a coma, she died from uremic poisoning on June 7, 1937.

The film was finished by a double named Mary Dees.

In 1965, two films about Harlow’s life and career were produced, both named Harlow.

One starred Carroll Baker and the other Carol Lynley.

More recently, Gwen Stefani portrayed her in The Aviator (2004).