Photoplay (Jan-Sep 1937)

Ws~ Jr Q-duu HU -&L£\ the JEAN HARLOW story HOLLYWOOD SUPPRESSED NOT in the years she lived, but in the life and laughter of which Fame robbed her lies the story of Jean Harlow which Hollywood suppressed. All the things she wanted most to do she had been forced to leave undone when she turned that last, blind, unbelieving smile upon the man she loved, seeking his face through the gathering darkness. And in her heart for all her courage, must have been a passionate protest that death, which had once before stabbed her so cruelly in the back, was taking her away from all the bright and beautiful things her failing hands reached out to touch, at long last. Somehow it does not seem quite fair — somehow it seems she had earned the right to walk out of that prison in which she had been held captive And somehow I cannot bear to think that she had to go alone. She had whistled in the dark so often in her short life that it hurts to think of her, so very young, such a foolishly brave little thing, whistling in the darkness of the valley of the shadow — alone and still trying not to be afraid For a long time, ever since a day in September now almost four years ago. I have thought much of Jean Harlow and the years that lay before her. She has always seemed to me since that September, 1933, the most poignant figure in the dynamic drama of Hollywood. Victim of a tragedy only half understood even by those of us who knew it best. I cannot quite seem to realize that life didn't give her time to find her happy ending — as though just as the storm and rain were over and she reached out her hand to take hold of the rainbow, it turned to lightning and struck her down I wanted so much to see those years to come, to see life repay her for its betrayals, to see the happy ending of her strange story Perhaps we all felt that way Perhaps that was why in spite of the hard-boiled, unsym pathetic parts she went on playing we had a peculiar tenderness for her — we wanted to see her get a square deal and find that happy ending. Jean Harlow had success. Few women have had more success But it wasn't enough. For she was greedy, as all such women must be. She was a vibrant, lusty, high-spirited, generous, faulty, eager young thing and success is a cold bedfellow. We don't always understand the incredible contradictions of women like Jean Harlow The very things that made for her success made success empty for her. The love of life, the warm, sweet desire for love, the all-woman heart of her. reached out from the screen. Under all the glitter and the glamour which were her stock in trade they were there. That's why we loved and forgave the women she played — the platinum blondes and the redheadedwomen — because those wistful piteous moments of heartache and reality always came through. And she wanted so many more things and everything she touched turned to a glittering fame, as everything once turned to glittering gold at the touch of Midas Desperately, she wanted the things all normal women want And over and over again that impulsiveness of hers robbed her of them. Over and over, she was betrayed by her own heart and denied the things she wanted. She wanted a child She wanted marriage — a real marriage. She wanted a home. She wanted to be able to eat and drink and live. These things were just coming within her reach, just before the end Even then, they were withheld from her because of that success and that tragedy which was none of her making Jean loved Bill Powell. Almost two years ago she told me that she loved him. Not in the half measures that had come to her before. Not in a boy-and-girl first love not in a sad affection, not in need, but as a woman loves the man of her life I suppose it is natural that Jean comes back to me tonight in pictures. Vivid pictures. The night I first saw her when Paul Bern brought her to a party at Colleen Moore's. We laughed a little about her that night not realizing that she was painfully shy and trying her poor young best to live up to Jean Harlow. We didn't mean to be unkind, but we had seen her in "Hell's Angels" and we didn't know anything about her and she was wearing such a very, very seductive black dress and a big black hat with a rakish feather and we said, "Paul will go in for all the 'bad girls' of the screen, won't he?" None of us knew how horrible a reason lay behind that habit of Paul's nor into what depths of hell it would lead the shining young blonde he introduced to us that night Then we came to know her well and she began to be herself, and we found her gay and sweet and terribly shy and a little bewildered by this glamour girl, Jean Harlow But delighted too. Laughing a little, amazed at this sudden tremendous success, terribly excited about it all. reaching out hungrily, as any girl would, for the applause and the fame and the luxury with a bright pride that she had done all this herself — at nineteen — twenty That was the young Jean I knew then — This four-color portrait, posed especially for PHOTOPLAY, was from Jean's last sitting by ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS 19