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August 19, 2007
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere, Plus Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Sunday Morning. I am not working on my latest script. I am, instead, watching one of the great Hollywood movie stars as she cracks wise: “I thought we might run up a few curtains and make a batch of fudge while we were planning on what to wear to the country club dance Saturday night.”
Red Dust, made over 70 years ago, just takes my breath away. And so does its lead actress.
She was known as The Blond Bombshell. If you look at the studio portraits by George Hurrell you assume she was just another heavy-lidded, sexy star. But Jean Harlow's true talent was as a comedienne.
Friends described her as casual and fun loving with no pretense whatsoever. She held the unofficial dice record at Agua Caliente Casino in Mexico, with thirty-four straight passes.
Harlow's humorous attitude comes across best in Dinner at Eight. She delivers her lines with machine-gun precision, her natural wit punctuating the spaces between her sentences.
Bombshell is a wonderful meditation on the price a Hollywood starlet pays for fame and fortune. Harlow plays, well, herself, a sexy movie star who wants to stop being a sexy movie star and be a "lady." It's a wonderful screwball comedy and Harlow shines.
Harlow made six pictures with Clark Gable, the best is Red Dust, where she plays a fast-talking floozie. But here's the thing about Harlow as a floozie: she doesn't really take herself seriously, not like the oh-so-dreary and humorless Greta Garbo — who just puts me to sleep. Garbo might be the least sensuous star in the history of the movies. No, Harlow teases and vamps, but she's doing it with a wink, as if to say: "Listen, this is a dirty job—manipulating men—but hey, somebody's gotta do it so it might as well be me."
Clark Gable (left) and Jean Harlow (right) in Red Dust
As always with Hollywood stars, her life looked glamorous and sun-kissed. But sadly, Harlow's personal life was miserable. Tragedy was the norm for this vivacious fun-loving young woman, who, more than anything, yearned for simple domesticity.
Harlow was a huge star for ten years. And then she died tragically in 1937 at age 26.
Harlow in “Reckless” 1935
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
My Powerbook beckons.
Oh, look what's just been published. Soccer Dad has done it again. How does that man find the time? Really, the Jewish people should give Soccer Dad a medal, or at least send him some pizza. He just works so hard for Am Yisroel.
Anywhoo!
It's here folks.
Haveil Havalim #130, The Jean Harlow Edition.
We'd like to thank Soccer Dad for including our article The Jew Hating Crunchy Granola Gang, in this fine round-up.
Here are some fine Jean Harlow links:
Jean Harlow: The Platinum Page
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at August 19, 2007 09:45 AM
Comments
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One of my favorite anecdotes, where Harlow is the butt of the joke:
She was at a dinner party and kept mispronouncing Margot Asquith's first name as Mar-got (pronouncing the "t"). The famously acerbic Asquith finally said to her "Oh no, dear, the T is silent, as in Harlow".
Posted by: kishke at August 19, 2007 12:03 PM
Kishke:
Great Harlow story. I'll bet she laughed.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seraphicpress.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 19, 2007 02:26 PM
The one actress that I find extraordinary to watch is Hedy Lamar, whose intellectual gifts (the spread spectrum guidance system patent she co-filed) matched her other gifts. Although people say that Monroe was intellectually gifted as well, I find that hard to believe.
Posted by: Barzilai at August 20, 2007 10:05 AM
Barzilai:
Funny you should bring up Hedy Lamarr. I've been screening some of her work, and oh boy was she good. In fact, riveting. Definitely look for the Haveil Havalim, Hedy Lamar Edition.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at August 20, 2007 10:43 AM