PICTURE STARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 40, 10 May 1927, Page 15

PICTURE STARS

CLARA BOW Clara Bow was born in Brooklyn on July 29, early in the twentieth century. In her junidr year at the Girls’ Bayridge High School she won a magazine beauty contest of which the judges were Harrison Fisher, Neysa McMein and Howard Chandler Christy. She did not. think of the contest until she was called and with a few others given a screep test. The contest closed in November, 1922, and shortly afterward she was called to the contest headquarters and given three more screen tests.

Eventually she won and received for her efforts an evening gown, a screen contract which guaranteed she would play in one picture and a beautiful silver trophy. William Christy Cabanne gave her a small part in “Beyond the Rainbow,” featuring Billie Dove. She did not know how to put make-up on, and when her chance to act came she was told to cry, the tears made a complete mess of the m'ake-up and when the action was viewed on the screen, Cabane cut it out of the picture altogether. This decided Clara to forsake motion picture ideas and she entered a business school. Three months later, Elmer Clifton telephoned her, said he was about to make a film, and that judging from the pictures of her he had seen in magazines she might be the girl for It. Following a test he offered her the role at 50 dollars a week. i

During the 22 weeks that the picture was in production the little film newcomer was beaten, thrown around and subjected to other realistic bits of acting but she fitted into the. part so well that Clifton built it up until it became one of the outstanding per-

formances of “Down to the Sea in Ships.” On the strength of her work in this picture Miss Bow was given the leading feminine role in “Grit,” playing opposite Glenn Hunter. Since then she has played in more than a score of pictures including “Maytime.” “Black Oxen,” “Kiss Me Again,” “Poisoned Paradise,” “Free to Love,” “The Lawful Cheater,” “My Lady’s Lips,’*' “Capital Punishment,” “Eve’s Lover,” “This Woman,” “Wine,” “The Primrose Path,” “Daughters of Pleasure,” “Two Can Play,” “The Two Gates,” “The Adventurous Sex,” “My Lady of Whims,” “The Keeper of the Bees,” “The Scarlet West,” “The Ancient Mariner,” “The Best Bad Man,” “Black Lightning.” “Parisian Love,” “The Plastic Age,” “Empty Hearts,” "Helen’s Babies,” and “The Great Sensation.” Since late 1925 she has. played in the following Paramount pictures: “Dancing Mothers,” “The Runaway,” “Mantrap,” “Kid Boots.” “Wings,” “It” and “Rough House Rosie.” Clara Bow is a good athlete but not an expert. She likes hiking, swimming. and horseback riding. She handles any make of automobile and never has so much as scratched a fender. She dances well. She is five feet and two and a half inches tall, weighs 109 pounds and has auburn hair and brown eves. Her father is Robert W. Bow. of English and Scotch extraction. Her mother, who died three years ago, was Frances Gordon, of Scotch and French parentage.