Actress. Born Clara Gordon, on July 29, 1905, in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Robert Bow and Sarah Gordon. The family was poor, her father working at such jobs as waiter and handyman. Her mother was a nervous semi-invalid. Bow later recalled that because of her shabby clothing she was the "worst looking kid on the street." Keenly aware of her family's poverty, she avoided the better-dressed girls and played boys' games like baseball and football, and even boxed. Some writers have speculated that this early companionship with males helped to account for her essentially boyish approach to life. Never a good student, she quit school after the eighth grade and began working as a receptionist in a physician's office.

In November 1921, Bow won a national beauty contest. Among the prizes she received was the chance to appear in a motion picture. Good looks were extremely important in silent films, and any young woman with a beautiful face and figure had a chance to get into movies. Bow made her film debut in 1922, in Beyond the Rainbow, but her scenes were cut before the release. Her photograph in Motion Picture caught the eye of director Elmer Clifton. He put Bow in one of his productions, a whaling story entitled Down to the Sea in Ships (1922). In this movie Bow, playing a young woman who disguises herself as a boy to go along on the voyage, received some very good comments from the reviewers. A short time later she was signed by Preferred Pictures.

During the next few years there followed a series of unexceptional roles in ordinary films such as Maytime (1923), The Daring Years (1923), Grit (1924), Daughters of Pleasure (1924), Wine (1924), Black Lightning (1924), Capital Punishment (1925), Parisian Lovers (1925), Eve's Lover (1925), Kiss Me Again (1925), and The Primrose Path (1925). Although these films were far from great, the plump, vivacious, little redheaded flapper with the wide brown eyes was gaining recognition in the film industry. In 1925, The Plastic Age, a romantic story about youth and morality in the Jazz Age, provided the ideal vehicle for Bow's vivacity and zest for life. After this movie she was touted as "the hottest jazz baby in films."

Late in 1925, Bow's contract was purchased by Paramount for $25,000. The first picture she made for Paramount was Dancing Mothers (1926). This was followed the same year by The Runaway, Kid Boots, and Mantrap. In Mantrap, directed by Victor Fleming, she gave one of her best performances; the film did very well at the box office. By late 1926 she was receiving 40,000 fan letters each week. In 1927 came the turning point in Bow's career. She was chosen to play the lead in the screen version of Elinor Glyn's book It. "It" was supposedly the quality possessed by rare individuals to attract members of the opposite sex, and Bow became the personification of that quality. She was now the "It Girl" of the movies, the actress who symbolized the 1920's flapper on the screen. It made her a major star.

Bow is in many respects the perfect representative figure of Hollywood during the 1920's. Movies had become a part of high finance, and it was important for the studios to find performers with personalities that could attract millions of paying customers. The star system, with much publicity involved, became standard. Bow was also representative of the general relaxing of moral standards that occurred right after World War I. Her style of sophisticated sexuality enjoyed wide appeal. In the next few years Bow's film credits included Children of Divorce (1927), Rough House Rosie (1927), Wings (1927), Hula (1927), Red Hair (1928), and The Fleet's In (1928).

But almost as sudden as her rise to stardom was her decline. In the 1920's cheap tabloids played up the vice and sin in Hollywood. Bow was one of the many young stars who had become rich and famous almost overnight, and like many others she could not handle the money or the fame. Her excesses, like those of Hollywood in general, were legendary. She would cruise down the boulevards in a convertible, surrounded with seven red chow dogs who matched her hair. She got headlines by running up large gambling debts in Reno. She had a scandalous affair with her physician, Dr. William Earl Pearson. Her private secretary, Daisy Devoe, made lurid disclosures about her love life.

Although she married western actor Rex Bell on December 4, 1931, the marriage did not change her reputation. Another factor that damaged her career was the advent of sound in movies. Like many other silent film stars, she had trouble adjusting to talkies. And the Great Depression put an end to the appeal of the carefree screen flapper. Whatever the case, Paramount did not renew her contract when it expired.

Although Bow tried to make a comeback in Call Her Savage (1932) and in Hoopla (1933), it did not work out. She settled on her husband's Nevada ranch, and later had two sons. Her later years were marked by nervous breakdowns and long stays in sanitariums. She died in Culver City, California on September 26, 1965 of a heart attack.

Although the critics were never greatly impressed with Bow's acting ability, she remains a legend in the history of movies because she epitomized the era of the Roaring Twenties, the flapper, the jazz baby, and flaming youth. Her films were not great, but they were not intended to be. They were made primarily to display her body and personality.

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