“I don’t want my two boys to become Hollywood kids. I wouldn’t want them to go through what I did,” Clara Bow said after the birth of her second son, George, in 1938. Several years earlier, Bow and her husband, cowboy actor Rex Bell, had started visiting Palm Springs for extended stays as their schedules allowed. The birth of the couple’s first son, Rex Anthony “Tony” Jr., in 1934 precipitated their search for a more permanent retreat. The Bells rented a home at Winterhaven Manor for several seasons before purchasing their own in 1938 on West Camino Encanto in the fashionable Mesa neighborhood.
At the time, Clara Bow was one of the most famous people in the world. The red-haired star of It (1927) and Wings (1928) embodied everything glamorous and daring about the 1920s. The Jazz Age star had been dubbed “The It Girl” by English author Elinor Glyn, who penned the novel It about a plucky, sensuous shop girl who won over her brooding boss. Bow proved the perfect vessel for Glyn’s character. Her playful, flirtatious screen presence mesmerized audiences the world over. Not bad for a young lady just a few years removed from a childhood of crushing poverty in Brooklyn’s tenements.
Off screen, Bow’s wild lifestyle played just as significant a role in cultivating the “It Girl” mythology. Bow was the quintessential 1920s flapper, replete with cigarettes, a flask, and stockings rolled below her knees. Her amours were the frequent subject of gossip columns. Her burning of the candle at both ends concluded amid the sensational trial of Daisy DeVoe, Bow’s secretary who was convicted of stealing her fur coat. DeVoe’s defense consisted of a character assassination of Bow, trotting out stories real and imagined of the star’s escapades. DeVoe ended up in prison, and Bow ended up temporarily in a sanitarium in Glendale, unable to cope with the anxiety caused by the trial.
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