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JEAN HARLOW
New girl in town
Jean Harlow provided the feminine counterpoint to the staccato chatter .of the machine gun. Her face was as hard as that of a porcelain doll. Her settings were always high-key, brilliant. There were many mirrors, much white satin, both on her person and in her bedroom, to which the camera quickly repaired and where it lingered long. Her principal occupation was the painstaking application of make-up — a make-up of such high gloss that one could almost catch a reflection in it. The platinum in her hair seemed the result of electroplating, not dye. In her way, she was as frank about sex as Mae West, but with considerable difference — symbolized by their figures. West seemed soft and yielding, a kind of painted earth mother for whom pleasure was everything. Miss Harlow's body was trim and efficient; no doubt she would prove highly efficient in her love making, but there was no promise of a comforting and comfortable afterglow with her. Instead, the implication was that the final act of love's drama would be the exchange of money.
In the movies, the sex queen, the Theda Bara, the Mae West, the Harlow, the Marilyn Monroe — even the Garbo — always ends up playing a parody of herself. It is as if the audience cannot stand for long this physical manifestation of its dream life. It must at a certain point relieve the inner tension engendered by such stars through laughter. With considerable relief, the critics burst into print with the information that the Symbol has become an extremely talented comedienne. Harlow was such when she died in 1937, having refused, because of her Christian Science faith, medical aid for complications following uremic poisoning.
It is also true that stars who symbolize an era's sexual longings rarely find sexual happiness themselves. Harlow's only marriage ended in a month, with her husband's suicide. He, it developed, had been unable physically to satisfy any woman. Only William Powell brought her any happiness. For many years after she died he saw to it that fresh flowers were always present at her grave.
The beautician s delight: Jean Harlow's dress was too tight for her to sit down between takes of Dinner at Eight. A characteristic preoccupation demands attention in Blonde Bombshell (right).
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