Movie Classic (Sep 1936-Feb 1937)

The Real Reason Why Jean Harlow Hated Her Hair [Continued from page 28] a startling barrier to the revelation of her real self. She was pigeon-holed, catalogued, not only as the platinum blonde, but the girl with the platinum soul. From the very beginning of her career Jean realized the price she would have to pay for her fame. When Hell's Angels _ was released Jean Harlow became a sensational controversy over night. Much to her horror, she, as a woman, was invested with the qualities she portrayed on the screen. It was a ready-made reputation which she neither deserved nor understood. IT was on her personal appearance tour, before she went to MGM, that Jean began to pay a large price for her strange fame. The night she first faced audiences is etched in her memory as a dreadful nightmare. She came out on the stage to look at eyes, glaring and leering, with a covetous stare in them. Dreadful eyes. She ran to her dressing-room and cried until it was time for her to go on again. She knew at that moment that her fame would carry a heavy penalty. And because she is a courageous person, she decided to pay it — knowing full well that she would be misunderstood, ungenerously treated and wrongly regarded. And she found that misunderstanding in plenty. Jean recalls today the parties where women gathered in little groups and sometimes gathered their men near them the moment she came into a room. She was the menace, the embodiment of all women feared in another woman. "Women didn't even bother to get to know me," she declares now. "They went into a shell — and no friendly overtures I made, were of the slightest use." There were dozens of incidents at parties which hurt dreadfully — which sent her home with a lump in her throat. She recalls vividly one evening when she was a guest, with many others, at a producer's home. When she entered the drawing room, there was a sudden chill, a sudden stillness. And then a woman near the door suddenly turned away, went directly to her husband chatting near a window. She linked her arm in his, made hasty good-night, and departed with her man in tow._ It was a pointed, a horrid, little trick. And Jean at that moment promised herself complete seclusion. For months she didn't go anywhere. There was no use to pretend a gaiety she didn't feel, knowing that every woman present at social events considered her an enemy and acted accordingly. There came a time when Jean Harlow's super-human forbearance was at an end. Then began a fight to discard her platinum hair — to abandon her trade-mark. She was called unwise — and other names not so flattering — when she first began her campaign to darken her hair, to permit it to be its present shade of brownette. "I don't want to be a show piece," she told them. "I'm tired of being a show piece. If you only want my platinum hair, then get* a wig and stick it on some other girl. I have a right to show what I can do with a personality which is my own. You don't know if I can act. I don't know if I can act. Isn't it about time to give me a chance to find out? I'm tired of being nothing more than a platinum blonde !" Because she wanted dark hair so desperately, she was finally permitted to have it. Even to the first day of production her director pleaded with her. "You're giving up a valuable property. The world knows 90 you by your platinum hair." "That's just exactly what I'm fighting against," Jean replied. "T HAVE always hated my platinum ■*■ hair," Jean says today. "Not only because it limited me as an actress, but primarily because it limited me as a human being. It made me look 'hard,' spectacular. If I were quiet and self-possessed, people said, 'Harlow is out of character.' And so I had my job cut out for me — I had to live up to my platinum personality. "At last, I have a chance to be myself. The change in me is reflected in the reaction Margo, whose exotic personality will next be seen in one of the important roles in Columbia's Lost Horizon, displays one of Hollywood's newest fashion creations, a shirt-and-slack outfit designed for universal sport wear of people towards me. Suddenly women have become friendly. If I go to a party I am no longer treated as a menace. "In the past, few people took the trouble to find out what was behind my supposed platinum personality. The most extraordinary stories were built around me. I was consecutively in love with a prize fighter, with a doctor, with a dance director, with a scion of wealth. "As a matter of fact, I met the prize fighter twice, quite casually. The doctor was an old-time friend, with whose sister I had gone to school. And I had danced to the band-leader's music once. That millionaire, by the way, was pure fiction. "I have had to fight against the reputa PRINTED IN TJ.S.A. tion of sex as no other girl in pictures. As a matter of fact," and Jean's mouth curled in a wry smile, "I understand that my name was synonymous with it. "But I couldn't defend myself. There was nothing that I could say that people would believe. "The past year has been happy because I haven't had to depend upon a platinum personality to sell myself. I have always known all my good qualities and all my bad ones. I am a human being and a woman. At last I have nothing to live up to except my own definite standards. And as long as I never let down a friend or myself, as long as I have the approval of those who love me — that is enough. "I have learned in this past year, which has marked the great change in me, to depend upon myself for my own happiness, and to find it in my own way. Finally I have self-confidence, self-assurance. Now I feel that I have a future ahead of me — a career not based on a trade-mark." AS Jean has changed in her ideas and in -£"-*■ her attitudes, so has she changed in outward details. Long ago if Jean were hurt, if Jean were frightened, she would instantly assume a role, she might have played before the camera, and she was the hey-hey girl, voice high, manner care-free. I remember once when she was scheduled for a general interview with several outof-town writers. Jean was so frightened her knees shook. But she threw back her shoulders, strutted down the stairs to the drawing room, where they waited, and magically assumed the Jean Harlow personality seen on the screen. Jean mas selling her platinum personality. She was selling it in self-defense. Today no matter what the situation is, she is herself. Poised and quiet-spoken, with no undue emphasis given to what might be in the minds of people in regard to her. Her friendship with Bill Powell has had a vital influence on her. It has insulated her against hurts. In his own man-of-theworld fashion he has taught her a womanof-the-world attitude. Jean today has moved from an enormous house high on a hill, with its all-white furnishings, its swimming pool, its tennis courts. These were the trappings of a "Platinum Blonde," not of the Jean Harlow of today. She has taken a comparatively small house in Beverly Hills. The furnishings are modest, with not one note of flamboyance among them. They are a suitable background for the girl of the present. Her social life is almost nun-like in its simplicity. As a matter of fact, in the past year she has attended less than half-a-dozen parties. She lives in slacks and sunsuits when she isn't working. And she wears gala attire only when she is before the camera. She entertains but seldom and then very simply. Usually when she has a guest or two in for dinner, they dine on a table before a fire most informally. Jean Harlow did not begin life with a platinum personality — and neither was she born with "platinum hair." It was something wished on her when she was given a sensational sex role in Hell's Angels. Today that almost-white hair is a thing of the past. And with its discard, the Harlow platinum personality has departed too. And for this Jean is prayerfully grateful ! KABLE BROS. CO., PRINTERS