The Life and Tragedy of Jean Harlow (Part I)

Jean Harlow married Mont Clair Carpenter on October 1, 1908. By 1910, Jean was pregnant and gave birth to their daughter, Harlean, at 7:40pm on March 3, 1911. From then on, Jean Harlow would be known as Mother Jean and Harlean simply as The Baby.

Mother Jean and Mont Carpenter divorced while The Baby was eleven years old, and the following year Mother Jean and her daughter moved to Hollywood. In 1925, the two moved back to Kansas City at the insistence of Skip Harlow, Mother Jean’s imposing, wealthy father, after her failure to find work as an actress. While back in Kansas City, Harlean spent her summer at Camp Cha-ton-ka where she lost her virginity and later contracted scarlet fever. Harlean’s mother came to nurse her back to health and as they traveled home upon her recovery, Mother Jean met a suave Italian gentleman, Marino Bello, and fell in love. They married on January 17, 1927.

In September of 1927 Harlean Carpenter dropped out of school and married Chuck McGrew. She was sixteen years old. In an attempt to distance Harlean from her manipulative and suffocating mother, Chuck McGrew moved the family to Beverly Hills.

While living in California, Harlean befriended actress Rosalie Roy. After a luncheon in the spring of 1928, Harlean offered to drive her friend to an appointment at Fox Studios. When Rosalie emerged from meeting with executives, they noticed Harlean and insisted their secretary write letters of introduction to Fox and the Central Casting Bureau. On a bet a few weeks later, Harlean took the letters and applied as an extra, only instead of using her own name, registered as Jean Harlow.

A few days later, Harlean was offered work as an extra. She declined this and further offers. Hearing of her daughter’s good fortune, Mother Jean moved to Los Angeles to be near her daughter and take control of her career. She ordered Harlean to accept the next offer and Harlean reported to work as an extra in Honor Bound. After several films as an extra, she found herself playing bit parts until December 28, 1928 when, at the behest of her mother and step-father, “Harlean McGrew II AKA Jean Harlow” signed her first contract for $100 dollars per week. Chuck McGrew was upset that Mother Jean was forcing her daughter to pursue acting in lieu of her own failed attempts and that Marino Bello expected Harlean to support both he and his wife. On March 2, Harlean asked for her contract to be broken. She claimed in was ruining her marriage, but it is believed that her mother and step-father made her do it so they could seek a more lucrative contract elsewhere after more work began rolling in.

It was during this time that Harlean became pregnant and had an abortion at the suggestion of her mother, who didn’t want her daughter to make the same mistake she did. It is not known whether Chuck McGrew ever knew, but the two separated shortly after, on June 11, 1929, less than two years into their marriage. Both McGrew and her grandfather refused to support Harlean and Mother Jean so extra work became a necessity in order to survive. While working as an extra on the set of Weak but Willing, Harlean ran into an ex-lover, James Hall, who was starring in Hells Angels, a World War I drama directed by Howard Hughes.

“Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?”

Howard Hughes re-shot his original film after “talkies” took over from silent films. He needed a new lead actress, as the original had a thick Norwegian accent that didn’t work for the character, and sought an unknown. James Hall suggested Harlean and after a screen test, she was hired. Harlean, AKA Jean Harlow was signed to a five-year contract with Hughes’ Caddo Company. She was the sole actress employed there and was only eighteen years old.

Soon after, Harlow began filming Hells Angels, often on set for sixteen hours a day. She suffered burned eyeballs (Klieg eyes) from the bright studio lights and her director was harsh, often berating her. When she begged him to tell her exactly what he wanted, he moaned “My dear girl, I can tell you how to be an actress, but I cannot tell you how to be a woman.” Jean Harlow was hardly a polished performer, but she made it through to finish the film in 1929. It was during her break as the film was edited that she began spending time with MGM executive Paul Bern, her escort to the movie’s premier.

The movie was deemed mediocre and Harlow’s performance was awful according to The New Yorker, but she was a hit with audiences and became a star almost overnight. She became known as a vixen both onscreen and off, an image she would spend the rest of her career and life fighting to overcome.

Hughes company didn’t have any other movies in the works, but he held onto Harlow and her image was property of the studio. He sent her out on the road for interviews and other press opportunities. There were rampant rumors that she and Hughes were having an affair, but they couldn’t be less true. In fact, Harlow and Hughes had a rather hostile relationship.

In 1930, Paul Bern convinced Howard Hughes to lend Harlow to MGM where she began work on her first of many films with Clark Gable. She was lent out to several different studios and shot four films in five months in which her performances were all graded poorly. While her ability to act was lacking, her fame was blossoming, as women wanted to be and look like Harlow with her white hair and fashion sense. The public adored her.

Harlow began filming a film titled Gallagher for Columbia pictures which was later renamed Platinum Blonde, in reference to the hair color Harlow was becoming so famous for. While she claimed otherwise, Harlow died her hair to achieve her signature look, a practice that would eventually lead to her hair becoming so damaged that it would fall out, requiring her to wear a wig.

On April 20, 1932, Jean Harlow joined MGM studios after Howard Hughes finally allowed them to buy her contract out for $30,000. She was to be paid $1250 per week and her first film was, ironically, Red-Headed Woman in which she would wear a red wig to hide her trademark blonde hair. The studio was worried that without her hair and with previous poor reviews, that the film would be a disaster. Harlow was backed, however, by her friend Paul Bern, who fought for her to get the part.

On July 2, 1932, Jean Harlow and Paul Bern were married, much to the surprise of the public and all of Hollywood. No one expected that the two would ever be a match, as she was one of the most desired women onscreen and off while Bern was secretly known as MGM’s “palace eunuch.” Around this same time, Red Headed Woman debuted and Jean received rave reviews for her performance. Her life was finally coming together and she appeared to have everything she wanted: a successful career and a living relationship with a man who respected her enough not to be intimate with her until after they were married.