Meet the Tragic Movie Star from the Taylor Swift Song

With the release of Taylor Swift’s “Tortured Poets Oath”, there are 31 songs for you to listen to, enjoy and unpack!

One song title that caught fans’ attention is “Clara Bow,” in which the star directly compares herself to 1920s and 1930s actress and rock singer Stevie Nicks.

“You look like Clara Bow in this light, gorgeous / All your life, did you know you’d be picked like a rose? / I’m not trying to exaggerate, but I think I might die if that happened / Die if it happened to me,” she sings at one point Early in the song.

from He was Clara Bow?

Born 119 years ago in Brooklyn, Poe survived a harsh childhood marked by poverty, the deaths of her two older sisters, her mother’s violent mental illness, and rape at the hands of her father.

She later told a film magazine: “I don’t think two people have looked death in the face more clearly than me and my mother on the morning I was born. We both gave up, but somehow struggled to get back to life.”

At just 16 years old, she entered a film magazine’s “Get Famous Fast” contest, taking top honors. From there, she made her film debut in 1921 and quickly impressed critics and audiences with her beauty, dancing skills, and comedic timing.

Throughout the 1920s, Poe’s star rose until she became the most successful actress of the silent era. Thanks to such hits as “The Plastic Age” (1925), “Dancing Mothers” (1925), and “It” (1927) — she was the original “It” girl — Poe was one of the most famous women in the world. .

Along with fame came unwanted scrutiny, which may be something Taylor relates to. One tabloid reported that Poe had sex with the entire USC football team, was a lesbian, slept with her dog, was a drug addict, and more — before trying to blackmail her for $25,000 to cease and desist.

Beau’s adversity — men in entertainment are rarely built up and torn down as harshly as women — seems to resonate with Swift, who sings in the “tortured poets section” about the low point in her career, when Kanye West and Kim Kardashian called her a snake.

Although Poe starred in the first Best Picture Oscar winner, “Wings” (1927), and moved easily from silent films to talkies, her career faltered when she was 25 with a stay in a sanitarium. She made a few more films before retiring from films with her husband, cowboy actor Rex Bell, who later became Lieutenant Governor of Nevada.

Eventually, Poe, a mother of two with Belle, underwent shock treatments for schizophrenia and became somewhat of a recluse, moving away from her husband and children to live on her own in Hollywood. She died of a heart attack while under the care of a nurse at the age of 60.

Her youngest son, George Beldam Jr., is alive today at the age of 86.

When news of Swift’s song “Clara Bow” leaked in February, Bow’s family expressed shock at the tip of the hat. People magazine reported that Beau’s granddaughters, Nicole Cisneros and Brittany Grace Bell, children of Beau’s late son Rex Bell Jr., were curious and bubbly.

“We couldn’t believe it,” Cisneros said at the time. “We were shocked, and then the conspiracy started because no one in our family had ever been contacted or known about this before.”

“[We] “I just want to know what prompted it and where the connection comes from,” Cisneros continued.

Cisneros, a fan, said:[I] I took my eldest daughter to… [Eras tour] The concert and just to see it through her eyes and see this huge star that is admired by people of all ages. When we told her [about the new ‘Clara Bow’ song,] She was excited and looking forward to telling her little friends.

Poe has also been in the news recently when, 100 years after its production, an original copy of her short film “The Pill Pounder” was found in a parking lot. About a third of her films are considered lost.