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Jean Harlow, born as "Harlean Carpenter", (March
3, 1911 - June 7, 1937), US film Actor|actress,
became known as the "original blonde bombshell",
predating Marilyn Monroe as a blonde sex symbol.
Jean was the first blonde to be cast in 'bad girl
roles'. Before her, bad girls in movies were
always dark-haired and exotic looking. She made
over thirty films during a career that lasted only
ten years, and had a talent for comedy as well as
drama that is still recognized today by record
numbers of fans and film critics alike. Her given
name (Harlean) was invented from parts of her
mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow, which she
adopted as a stage name and then, in 1935,
legally.


===Career===
==Early Years==
She was born at 3344 Olive Street in Kansas City,
Missouri, the daughter of Mont Clair Carpenter, a
dentist, and his wife, Jean Harlow Carpenter.
Mother Jean, as she was called, divorced Harlean's
father and moved to Hollywood,
California|Hollywood with hopes of becoming an
actress herself. Shortly afterward she remarried
and moved to Chicago, where Jean attended a
private girl's academy in the wealthy suburb of
Lake Forest called Ferry Hall School. At the age
of 16, Jean eloped with Charles McGrew 2nd, a
wealthy young stockbroker, and the couple moved to
Los Angeles, California. They divorced two years
later.

==Movie Career==
Jean wanted only to be a wife and mother, but to
please Mother Jean she looked for work as an extra
in films.  In which she made $7 a day. In the
beginning Jean landed bit parts in silent films
such as Why is a Plumber? (1927), Moran of the
Marines (1928), and The Love Parade (1929). She
has a more substantial role in Laurel and Hardy's
short Double Whoopee (1929). She got her first
major role when producer Howard Hughes cast her in
the World War I film Hell's Angels (film)|Hell's
Angels (1930).

In 1931, Harlow began to gain popularity when she
appeared in The Public Enemy, Goldie
(film)|Goldie, The Secret Six, with Clark Gable,
and Platinum Blonde. In 1932 she had bigger roles
in Red-Headed Woman, for which she got a salary of
$1,250/week, and Red Dust, her second film with
Clark Gable. Harlow and Gable worked well
together, and starred in a total of six films
together. It was during the making of Red Dust
that Harlow's second husband,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer|MGM producer Paul Bern (né
Paul Levy) died in an episode that remains
mysterious to this day: He was found nude, in his
wife's bedroom, shot in the head, and drenched in
his wife's perfume. Years later, it was suggested
by screenwriter Ben Hecht that Bern was murdered
by an unbalanced former lover, Dorothy Millette,
who did actually commit suicide the next day.
(Years later, the Bern-Harlow house became the
home of Jay Sebring and his lover, Sharon Tate,
who were both murdered by Charles Manson and his
followers.)

By 1933, Jean was becoming a superstar. She had a
great comedic part in Dinner at Eight, and later
that year she starred in Bombshell
(film)|Bombshell. After an affair with boxer Max
Baer, she married in 1933 to cinematographer
Harold Rosson; they divorced seven months later.
Jean then starred in two more films with Clark
Gable, China Seas (1935), and Wife vs. Secretary
(1936).

Following the end of her third marriage she met
MGM star William Powell. They reportedly were
engaged for two years, but differences kept them
from marrying swiftly (she wanted children, he did
not). Harlow also said that studio head Louis B.
Mayer would never allow them to wed. While filming
Saratoga (film)|Saratoga (1937) with Clark Gable,
she was hospitalized with uremic poisoning and
kidney failure, a result from scarlet fever she
suffered from during childhood. She died shortly
afterward at the age of 26, and is buried at the
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Los
Angeles, California. Powell paid for her tomb.

==Trivia==
Jean was linked to American mobster Bugsy Siegel
and was the godmother of his daughter Millicent.
She also dated mobster Abner Zwillman at one time.
He bought her a cadillac and a jeweled bracelet
along with getting her a two-picture deal with
Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures due to a loan he
gave to Cohn.

She was one of Marilyn Monroe's idols when Marilyn
was growing up.

William Powell told Jean that he had married a
blonde bombshell already, and he was not going to
marry another one.

Gwen Stefani made her acting debut playing Jean
Harlow in the 2004 Martin Scorsese movie The
Aviator.

==Filmography==

* Honor Bound (1928)
* Moran of the Marines (1928)
* Chasing Husbands (1928) (short subject)
* Liberty (1929) (short subject)
* Fugitives (1929)
* Why Be Good? (1929)
* Why Is a Plumber? (1929) (short subject)
* Close Harmony (1929)
* The Unkissed Man (1929) (short subject)
* Double Whoopee (1929) (short subject)
* Thundering Toupees (1929) (short subject)
* Bacon Grabbers (1929) (short subject)
* The Saturday Night Kid (1929)
* The Love Parade (1929)
* This Thing Called Love (1929)
* Weak But Willing (1929) (short subject)
* New York Nights (1929)
* Hell's Angels (1930)
* City Lights (1931)
* The Secret Six (1931)
* The Public Enemy (1931)
* Iron Man (1931)
* Goldie (1931)
* Platinum Blonde (1931)
* Beau Hunks (1931) (short subject) (appears in
photo)
* Talking Screen Snapshots (1932) (short subject)
* Hollywood on Parade (1932) (short subject)
* Three Wise Girls (1932)
* The Beast of the City (1932)
* Red Dust (1932)
* Hold Your Man (1933)
* Dinner at Eight (1933)
* Bombshell (1933)
* The Girl from Missouri (1934)
* Reckless (1935)
* China Seas (1935)
* Riffraff (1936)
* Wife vs. Secretary (1936)
* Suzy (1936)
* Libeled Lady (1936)
* The Candid Camera Story (Very Candid) of the
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Pictures 1937 Convention
(1937) (short subject)
* Personal Property (1937)
* Saratoga (1937)

==External link==
* http://www.classicactresses.com/jean.html Jean
Harlow at Classic Actresses
*http://www.jeanharlow.com JeanHarlow.com - images
and biography
*imdb name|id=0001318|name=Jean Harlow