http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...r&GRid=7989313Originally Posted by hoorayforhollywood
Birth: Apr. 9, 1891
Denver
Denver County
Colorado, USA
Death: Jun. 11, 1958
Los Angeles
Los Angeles County
California, USA
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...r&GRid=7989313
Birth: Apr. 9, 1891
Denver
Denver County
Colorado, USA
Death: Jun. 11, 1958
Los Angeles
Los Angeles County
California, USA
Last edited by Heavenly Tiger; 05-23-2008 at 12:59 PM. Reason: error
Ouch !
Last edited by Heavenly Tiger; 05-23-2008 at 01:01 PM. Reason: comment
I forgot to post that last week (June 7, 1937) was the 71st anniversary of her passing. Despite being gone so long, she still has legions of fans which continues to expand with every passing decade. A local radio station in Texas did a show dedicated to Jean last week for her death anniversary, and it became their highest rated program of the year. The station's program director was shocked. It's still hard to grasp that she died a YEAR before Natalie Wood was born, and future bombshells such as Jayne Mansfield & Kim Novak were barely out of diapers.
Where would any of these future bombshells be without Jean Harlow.
Here's a picture of Jean in Mexico which I bet no one's ever seen. It recently surfaced on the net:
Last edited by HARLOWNUMBER1; 08-08-2008 at 09:06 PM.
Two more rare shots:
The one at the top is a promo shot from The Saturday Night Kid, a Clara Bow film which Jean had a small part in. Bow felt threatened when the 18 year old Harlow walked on to the set wearing this black-crocheted dress with not a stitch on under it. Assistant director Arthur Jacobson said "You couldn't tell whether she had put it on or painted it on." Bow attempted to get her fired, but then took a liking to the young blond and told Paramount Publicist Teet Carle to "See if ya can help her, she's gonna go places." Harlow would later refer to Bow as "The most vivid and intense person I ever knew."
Last edited by HARLOWNUMBER1; 08-08-2008 at 09:28 PM.
Death Hag
Wow, those pics are really great!
My father was a caretaker of the Cemtary he is now buried in for over 30 years; my sister has carried on the tradition. I am a Gravedigger's Daughter.The purpose of a burial site/crypt is for people to visit and pay respects. The fact that Forest Lawn prevents people from visiting Jean Harlow's Grave Should against the law. ANYONE should be able to visit anyone's grave regardless of bloodline. I have more friends close to me than family so chances are when I go; Friends will be decorating my grave, visiting, etc. Obviously she doesn't have too many friends alive to visit but she does have fans. Especially such a beautiful resting place it's a downright shame that it's chained up and lonely. I would want to be visited. Did they ever give a reason why?
Are they too lazy to show people where the crypt is? are they too cheap to hire some extra security at minimum wage?
Somebody enlighten me as to why this woman's grave is chained up?
A furious Gravedigger's Daughter...
Last edited by burgtwngrl; 08-09-2008 at 03:09 PM. Reason: spelling error
By all accounts the Forest Lawn staff sucks big time....ill never understand whats wrong about visiting somebodys grave, leave some flowers, etc....My father was a caretaker of the Cemtary he is now buried in for over 30 years; my sister has carried on the tradition. I am a Gravedigger's Daughter.
Are they too lazy to show people where the crypt is? are they too cheap to hire some extra security at minimum wage?
Somebody enlighten me as to why this woman's grave is chained up?
A furious Gravedigger's Daughter...
Look at those shoes!Here's a picture of Jean in Mexico which I bet no one's ever seen. It recently surfaced on the net:
Thanks for posting this, it looks like a friend took that.
I LOVE LIBELED Lady. One of my favorite screw ball comedies of all time. I wonder if William Powell would have married her. Jean had no luck in love.
Not a chance.
They were pretty much done around the time Jean died. Jean had been spending lots of time with mega-publisher Donald Friede who ran Boni & Liveright in the 1920's. Freud, Steinbeck, T.S. Eliot, Theodore Dreiser and many others were all good friends of his and could sometimes be spotted at his LA office. People In the building were shocked when Jean Harlow started coming around. Actress Anne Shirley saw Jean (3 weeks before her death) in Friede's office and said "She didn't look that well, but it didn't matter because to me she was a goddess."
Last edited by HARLOWNUMBER1; 08-10-2008 at 02:51 AM.
Yes. This photo surfaced on the net within the last few days. I've heard from fans who have been collecting Harlow images for decades state that they've never seen this photo. It also gives the false illusion that she was tallish, but the two people in the photo are very short. Jean was asked about her stats in a 1933 interview:Look at those shoes!
Thanks for posting this, it looks like a friend took that.
Q. How much do you weigh, and what are your exact measurements?
A. According to the studio wardrobe department's chart, I am five feet, one and one-half inches tall and weigh one hundred and eight pounds. My other measurements are: bust, thirty-five inches; waist, twenty-three and a half inches; hips, thirty-five and a half inches. I wear size twelve dresses, size six-and-a-quarter gloves and size three-and-one- half-B shoes.
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William Powell still must have loved her. It was reported he sobbed the longest and the most fiercely at her funeral.
I love her friendship with Gable. Too bad she didn't get to finish her last film with him.
Ah, when bust size was natural. She was rather voluptuous.
She was quite voluptuous to have been such a tiny girl. She had rather large hips and a tiny waist.
She was also quite leggy for someone just barely north of five-feet:
If anyone has visited Grauman's in Hollywood, you'll see that Jean and Natalie Wood both had among the smallest adult hands/feet of any star. I believe women's dress sizes have changed over the decades and that Jean would be a size 2 or 3 today.
Last edited by HARLOWNUMBER1; 08-10-2008 at 11:57 AM.
I don't find her attractive at all to be honest ( sorry guys ), i wouldn't even put her on par with the likes of Lombard or even Todd and they are not exactly raving beauties.
I just don't get the WOW Factor when i see her at all.
Wow, there are some great photos and wonderful info in this thread!! I've always thought she was beautiful and a great actress. Thanks for all the great posts!
Jeca and others:
For more great info, Lisa Burks has her Platinum Blog:
http://lisaburks.typepad.com/jeanharlow/
One of the contributors here, Darrell Rooney, is or was working on Jean's entry for FAD. There has been so much misinformation given about this star over the decades that I guess Scott thought it would be great to have an expert assist in writing the entry. Darrell is a MAJOR Harlow collector and owns the actual sign-in ledger from the Grand Hotel premiere! the signatures of Harlow, Dietrich, Shearer, Crawford, Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Bern, Lionel Barrymore and many others are all there in one book!. This event can be viewed on the Grand Hotel dvd or from the youtube link at Lisa's site.
Last edited by HARLOWNUMBER1; 08-11-2008 at 10:21 AM.
Thats a great site, thanks for sharing!
More Cheese Please - Are you a big fan?
i like marilyn monroe ok but i adore jean harlow. she didnt get the attention she deserved. god rest her soul
Years ago I remember reading an article from one of the 1930's fan magazines that had been reprinted in a book in which someone interviewed Jean about an incident when she wrenched her ankle. That lead into Jean's revelation (probably with the studio publicity department's approval) that she had recovered from a far worse injury.
She explained that one or two sequences of Hell's Angels had been filmed in color, and color at that time required huge amounts of light, so much that she actually burned her eyes. During the healing process she had to wear sunglasses almost all the time, and supposedly more than once walked past people she knew without recognizing them. At the time of the interview her eyes had healed.
If this story is true (and I can't imagine why somebody would make it up), it's just one more painful health problem the poor woman suffered!
Unrelated to her health, the other item that comes to mind for me is a scene in Red Dust (I THINK) where she is trying to clean the bottom of a birdcage, and as she's scraping she glares at the bird and says "What have YOU been eatin,' CEMENT??" I can't say why, but that line has always seemed like one of the funniest I've ever heard. It's probably a combination of her delivery, plus the fact that the movie wasn't a comedy, and the line was unexpected.
I would love to know more about her, but when I checked a local bookstore, there was nothing. Irritating, so I may go look up something on Amazon. Anyone have any ideas what book to start with? She was a real beauty.
Bombshell: The Life & Death of Jean Harlow by David Stenn.
If Amazon fails, try looking on ebay.
The other bios written on her are really not essential. Eve Golden published Platinum Girl a year before Stenn's book. It's a larger format book with a lot of nice photos but isn't as well researched as Stenn's book. Being a major fan, I have all of the bios written on her.
Thank u, will start looking! Jean has always been an interesting subject to me, but I've never been able to find much about her in print. The pics are beautiful, BTW. Thanks!
I certainly believe that Harlow may have been one of the precious few who looked as good or better off camera as on. She wasn't a conventional beauty like a Kelly or a Darnell, but she was still quite striking. Much prettier than Monroe, but I'll just purse my lips and keep my opinions about the latter's looks and talent to myself, because I think I'll be in the minority here
I've read the "trash" book. I found it among my grandmother's effects when she died, and I could tell it was the work of a pulp fiction writer. It's kind of an odd blessing to have the internet nowadays. On one hand rumour can spread much further, but we also have neat little groups like these to straighten out all the info.
I wonder if maybe the Christian scientist thing may be such a prevelant rumor because of another blonde actress with a stage mother who followed that faith - Ginger Rogers? I just finished her autobiography and she talks at length about her refusal to see doctors and her mother's as well. It might have gotten all mixed together with the Harlow legend somewhere in there.
sarratoga always bothers me...the entire film is creepy....I mean she is withering away ...the coughing fit its just so eerie!! And if you put the volume on high Clark Gable even seems to say Jean! And then there is no Jean and instead there is the stand in ...very weird.
Renowned Death Hag
Does anyone know who this boxer is?
Renowned Death Hag
I like her even more now that I know she was a pomeranian lover!
I am a big fan... I find her life extremely complex, interesting, sad, full and robust for one who passed so young...
Dinner at Eight is one of my favorite movies as is Saratoga. I snuck into the track at Saratoga during off season a few years ago... (well, some grounds keepers let me in.. I said "I came out here all the way from Seattle and I've got to get in!! ***sniff, sniff***)... and it was so surreal being there all by myself and roaming around... saw the little "shack" where they filmed some of the movie...
She and Bern were an interesting "pair"... plenty of "interesting" things about Jean!
Primo Carnera.
Does anyone know who this boxer is?
The 6ft6 inch "Italian Man Mountain" (as he was called) whom Max Baer ultimately knocked out to become heavyweight champion of the world. I believe he was the tallest heavyweight champion until quite recently. There is also another picture like this from the same event with Myrna Loy standing next to him instead of Jean, only Loy didn't look nearly as tiny as Jean does next to him. Lol.
Renowned Death Hag
What a dreamboat!
thats one man mountain I like to climb...whaaa!!!
Jean looks like she wants to as well (literally!) in this shot. Jimmy Durante is on the left.
I found this uncommon picture of a 19 year old Jean Harlow. I don't know how they did it back then, but how many 19 year olds today look this sultry?
Age 19 again......
so beautiful she was so before her time...
I tend to agree. I know the fashions of the time had something to do with it but she looked much older than a woman in her twenties. Never found her beautiful. It seems the dark haired women in those times ruled.
Definitely. 71 years after her death and she's still a huge influence. Xtina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani & the list goes on. I think the very humble Harlean would be shocked that she's still around when so many others from her era have fallen down the memory hole.
Women back then weren't obsessed with looking like 13 year olds. Consider that she was only 21 when she made Red Dust with Gable. Could anyone see Hilary Duff or Amanda Bynes in this role? She did not look "old" in Red Dust, she simply didn't look like a teenager. Sharon Stone told Harlow's biographer David Stenn that she would love to have a Red Dust type script come across her desk, but no dice.
Last edited by HARLOWNUMBER1; 10-30-2008 at 08:16 AM.
I just bid on the VHS version of Saratoga I've never seen it I've really never seen any of her movies just bits and pieces.
When I see her I see Glamour! She looked much older than the girls of her age today but back then I think the glamour girls all kind of looked that way.
On screen her life seemed perfect she had money and beauty but in real life her mother and stepfather sponged off of her for her entire life. Her mother ruined all her marriages Who knows what was behind bern's suicide... She wanted a baby her mother thought it was the wrong time for her career...so no baby she made her get an abortion. Honestly she never really had any control over her own life... I think all of her marriages were arranged by momma for publicity except maybe the first... and all ended when Momma said it was over... Momma was living her dream through her daughter and oh her father... Poor Jean had to make a dentist appointment with her father in order to see him because Momma didn't want her to have any contact with her real father. what a whack job. Poor Jean was under her thumb then before her life even started before she was able have a life, family her life was over.
I feel she was robbed of her life by her family, by men and by her illness.
so unfair
After Jean died, MGM was glad to see mother Jean off the lot for good, though L.B. Mayer would pay her $137 per week for the next several years. She was also paid a pension of $305 per month by her daughters retirement annuities until her own death in 1958. Unable to accept/grasp her daughter's death, mother Jean began consulting Psychic's and Mediums. I remember someone visited her in the Palm Desert in the late 1940's where she ran an antique shop. She had also rented an apartment on Beverly Glen blvd (right down the street from the mansion she had built over a decade earlier with her daughter's money). Journalist Herb Read interviewed her around this time and said that mother Jean had gotten so large she could hardly stand. She began living a reclusive existence and eventually stopped going out. It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for her.....
until you're reminded at how she treated her daughter.
Mother Jean would always say of her daughter's death: "My Life began when her life began, and was completed when she went away."
Because of this thread, I decided to do some research on Jean Harlow. I live in KCMO, where she was born, and I do a lot of genealogical research, so I tried tracing her through records.
The neighborhood in which she was born (3344 Olive) is now in a dangerous part of town. From what I've read, her parents next moved to a large house on an oversized lot in midtown. It would have been a very nice area at the time with very comfortable homes. The last address I have for her in KC is not far from the house in which I grew up. It's on the south side of the city, but when Jean was alive, it would have been the southern suburbs, outside of the city limits. Lots of nice, larger homes in the neighborhood.
She probably lived very well while at home. I think her mother and her false ambitions took Jean (Harlean) away from a nice, comfy life in the midwest. Maybe Jean wouldn't have been happy here but most girls would have enjoyed the neighborhoods she lived in and the schools she attended. She was sent to some upper class private schools in KC (which are still here, by the way). Her dad was a dentist with his own practice.
Also, while I don't find most of her photos attractive, we have to consider the styles of the times. They shaved off her eyebrows and drew on fake ones, for one thing. She probably would have looked a lot better to us nowadays with her natural eyebrows. And I read that they bleached her hair with peroxide, Clorox, ammonia, and Lux Flakes, and that combination damaged her hair so much that she had to resort to wigs for some movie roles.
And how many of us look good with platinum blonde hair? I tried it and it didn't work! It made my blue eyes look bloodshot and pointed out every freckle or flaw on my face!
There are many actresses I thought who looked fine with platinum blonde hair. I guess it's just all a matter of taste. In addition to Jean, I also like Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Anita Ekberg, etc. All were platinum blondes at some point. I believe Marilyn actually used the same hair-dresser who dyed Harlow's hair if I'm not mistaken. I also liked Jean as a brownette in her later films. Natural eyebrows did not come back in force until the early 1940's.
Last edited by HARLOWNUMBER1; 11-06-2008 at 09:26 PM.
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I can't wait my movie saratoga is coming in the mail I finally get to see a Jean Harlow picture.
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