Possible Clara Bow novella.....

[Nitratedreams]

(Already posted this a few months ago)

So there's this potential story that's been brewing in my head. I've already talked to someone who frequents this site about the plot and she thinks its a good idea, so I'm gonna give it a shot as to what you, the viewers at home, think:

Clara Bow--amongst the many affairs she had--had a
brief liaison with John Gilbert. While, as far as I know, very little is
known about their fling and how or why it ended, I couldn't help but think
about how much in common the two had in terms of their past and
devil-may-care personalities and tastes. You'd think, in a sense, he would
have fallen for her just as hard as Garbo, despite Clara being the total
opposite of her. The fact that Bow and Gilbert are two of my favorite
stars of the silent era helps greatly too. I've done alot of research on
both their lives and I'm considering writing a kind of Alternate Universe story on that. That is, delving into the idea that what if it went beyond the little talked about fling and actually, an intensely deep love affair that, due to conflicts involving their reputations, studios, and peers (I'm sure you all know Clara was not very popular amongst the Hollywood elite) simply wouldn't have worked out; despite this, it would not stop either from ever forgetting, much less feeling any different despite going separate ways.

So, yeah. If anyone could give me any feedback as to whether or not I should write this or has any more info on them, let me know!

[rudyfan]

Well, I can't add anything really. But heck, go for it and see what happens. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

[stovelsten]

Interesting idea. Tui Lorraine said in a late interview that Clara needed her company when she visited Gilbert, because she was afraid he would rape her.
According to Stenn, Lorraine wrote her memoirs, although un-published. Being a low life Clara fan I would kill for that document.

[boblipton]

You know, I might be afraid that aliens from Algol VII will kidnap me for anal probes if I go into the diner across the street unless I have a Doberman with me. That doesn't mean I need a Doberman with me. It means I either need extensive therapy or to not go into that diner.

Bob

[Nitratedreams]

Interesting idea. Tui Lorraine said in a late interview that Clara needed her company when she visited Gilbert, because she was afraid he would rape her.
According to Stenn, Lorraine wrote her memoirs, although un-published. Being a low life Clara fan I would kill for that document.

Really?! Where did you hear this?? Do you know the source? Details!!

[stovelsten]

Interesting idea. Tui Lorraine said in a late interview that Clara needed her company when she visited Gilbert, because she was afraid he would rape her.
According to Stenn, Lorraine wrote her memoirs, although un-published. Being a low life Clara fan I would kill for that document.

Really?! Where did you hear this?? Do you know the source? Details!!

In my Bow stash I found an interview made in Australia with Lorraine back in 1993. Her unpublished memories hopefully ended up in some archive after her death, unless some relative got hold of it. Stenn might have a copy...

Tui Bow

Date of Birth
19 October 1906, Hawera, New Zealand

Date of Death
25 March 1993, Alderly, Australia

Birth Name
Mary Lorraine Tui

Spouse
Robert Bow (22 September 1928 - ?)


# Frenchman's Farm (1987) .... Miss Morton
# Heatwave (1982) .... Annie
# The Earthling (1980) .... Lyla

# The Irishman (1978) .... Grandma Doolan

# The Thin Man (1934) (uncredited) .... Stenographer

# Sunshine of Paradise Alley (1926) (as Tui Lorraine) .... Queenie May
# Dumb Romeo (1926) (as Tui Lorraine) .... Daisy Connors
# The Love Fighter (1926) (as Tui Lorraine) .... Fifi - French Refugee
# Half a Man (1925) (uncredited) .... Shipwrecked woman


Tui’s Tinseltown memories

New Zealander Tui Bow was there, more than 60 years ago, during the golden age of Hollywood

Gary Cooper would walk into Tui Bow’s house at any time of the day or night, Clark Gable often refused to pay for lunch and it was best for a young girl to keep out of Charlie Chaplin’s way. At 85, Tui Bow remembers it all.

They were the great days of Hollywood, when it was a dusty town a few kilometers from Los Angeles and the stars – Gable, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, and a diminutive New Zealander named Tui Lorraine – were all members of the clan.

Few people alive today remember how it was, says Tui, who lives in a tiny cottage in suburban Brisbane. Surrounded by hundreds of photographs, Tui said ‘Woman’s Day’ had caught up with her just in time.

“The memory’s fading, dear,” she said, but there is plenty of life in the veteran actress. Tui still catches the bus to town most days to have lunch – and even a heavy fall recently hasn’t slowed her much.

Schooled in show-business in New Zealand by her mother, Tui was an accomplished actress, tightrope-walker, singer and acrobat when she arrived in America alone in 1924 while still in her teens.

And she walked straight into the greatest Hollywood era, when stars were truly treated as idols. It still amazes her.

“I walked into San Francisco and took the train down to Los Angeles and nothing even remotely looked like happening to me. I went to a casting place in Hollywood and, because I could do all those things, they said I’d be good for serials and westerns, so they sent me out to Universal Studios.

“They signed me up on the spot for 12 months on a fairly good salary. Mind you, I had to work like a woman possessed. But I never looked back.

“I was in serials and there’d be 18 episodes of each one, so it took nearly a damned year. I made several westerns; I can’t remember what they were – it has been more than 50 years.”

But she remembers her friends the stars, particularly Clara Bow, the “It” girl and one of the first glamor girls of Hollywood. The two were like sisters and shared a house in Beverly Hills, although relationship changed when Tui married Clara’s father, at the star’s insistence.

“Clara was a beautiful girl, but she had a tragic life. I think the world was fascinated by her. She was a great actress who spoke like a ditch-digger and came from Brooklyn.

“Clara’s mother was insane and had tried to kill Clara several times when she was a child. Clara had a bed half the size of her room and she would ask me to sleep with her because she’d often have nightmares. Clara liked me because I came from a different place and had such a different background. Then her father took a liking at me.

“In those days the world really did make idols of movie stars and Clara was one. Her fan mail, frankly, used to disgust me. In the end, living with Clara was a bit like being a babysitter.

“I even married her father at her request. He was more like the father I’d never had but in the end I got sick of the Bows. Then Clara drifted off and married a two-bit cowboy actor, Rex Bell. He married her because of her name, but that sort of thing was prevalent then; there was nothing unusual about it.”

Tui looked aghast when asked if she was thrilled to have Gary Cooper constantly at the house while he was having a wild affair with Clara.

“No, of course not! Gary and I worked for the same studio and Clara had a big crush on him, but to have him come around was nothing out of the ordinary for me.”

It was Tui’s natural honesty and perhaps her innocence which made her so popular with the big names. Greta Garbo used to call her “my little vawn”.

“Did I know Garbo?” she asked incredulously. “Look at those photographs,” she says. You’ll never see anything like those anywhere else in Australia.

“Greta gave them to me, and that was pretty unusual. She wouldn’t give anything to anyone – she was the meanest woman. She never liked anyone in America, or America itself for that matter, but she liked me because, as she said, she came from near the North Pole and I was from near the South Pole.

Whenever she saw me, she’d take me into her arms and hug me. I was always a little worried about that – Momma had warned me about people who took a fancy to me.”

Tui liked Clark Gable, but she was never overly impressed with the ‘Gone With The Wind’ star.

“Gable came along a while after me. He was mean, too. It was a joke around the studio that you didn’t go to lunch with Gable unless you had plenty of money. He always wanted you to pay for a meal.”

Tui spoke more glowingly of Jean Harlow.

“She was magnificent and loved by everyone who knew her. She was kind and generous and gentle, nothing like the myths that were built around her.”

Charlie Chaplin cast his eyes over the young Tui on many occasions, but she much preferred his brother Syd.

“Syd was a lovely man, nothing at all like Charlie. Anything over 12 was regarded as fair game by Charlie.”

Before the legendary team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as formed, Tui was Laurel’s leading woman in several minor Hollywood films. She was very fond of him.

“I knew John Gilbert … that rat. He was only 40 when he died (in 1936) and I knew him well, but I couldn’t stand him. He was a bastard. Clara used to drag me along to his house when he invited her so she wouldn’t get raped.”

Tui says they were all part of a tight little Hollywood clan. “But it’s all gone now. Hollywood reached its Zenith then and it has never been the same since. I wouldn’t like to see it now. It has been ruined.

Story: Graham Bicknell
Woman’s Day – 31 May 1993 (Page 114)

[Nitratedreams]

Interesting idea. Tui Lorraine said in a late interview that Clara needed her company when she visited Gilbert, because she was afraid he would rape her.
According to Stenn, Lorraine wrote her memoirs, although un-published. Being a low life Clara fan I would kill for that document.

Really?! Where did you hear this?? Do you know the source? Details!!

In my Bow stash I found an interview made in Australia with Lorraine back in 1993. Her unpublished memories hopefully ended up in some archive after her death, unless some relative got hold of it. Stenn might have a copy...

Tui Bow

Date of Birth
19 October 1906, Hawera, New Zealand

Date of Death
25 March 1993, Alderly, Australia

Birth Name
Mary Lorraine Tui

Spouse
Robert Bow (22 September 1928 - ?)


# Frenchman's Farm (1987) .... Miss Morton
# Heatwave (1982) .... Annie
# The Earthling (1980) .... Lyla

# The Irishman (1978) .... Grandma Doolan

# The Thin Man (1934) (uncredited) .... Stenographer

# Sunshine of Paradise Alley (1926) (as Tui Lorraine) .... Queenie May
# Dumb Romeo (1926) (as Tui Lorraine) .... Daisy Connors
# The Love Fighter (1926) (as Tui Lorraine) .... Fifi - French Refugee
# Half a Man (1925) (uncredited) .... Shipwrecked woman


Tui’s Tinseltown memories

New Zealander Tui Bow was there, more than 60 years ago, during the golden age of Hollywood

Gary Cooper would walk into Tui Bow’s house at any time of the day or night, Clark Gable often refused to pay for lunch and it was best for a young girl to keep out of Charlie Chaplin’s way. At 85, Tui Bow remembers it all.

They were the great days of Hollywood, when it was a dusty town a few kilometers from Los Angeles and the stars – Gable, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, and a diminutive New Zealander named Tui Lorraine – were all members of the clan.

Few people alive today remember how it was, says Tui, who lives in a tiny cottage in suburban Brisbane. Surrounded by hundreds of photographs, Tui said ‘Woman’s Day’ had caught up with her just in time.

“The memory’s fading, dear,” she said, but there is plenty of life in the veteran actress. Tui still catches the bus to town most days to have lunch – and even a heavy fall recently hasn’t slowed her much.

Schooled in show-business in New Zealand by her mother, Tui was an accomplished actress, tightrope-walker, singer and acrobat when she arrived in America alone in 1924 while still in her teens.

And she walked straight into the greatest Hollywood era, when stars were truly treated as idols. It still amazes her.

“I walked into San Francisco and took the train down to Los Angeles and nothing even remotely looked like happening to me. I went to a casting place in Hollywood and, because I could do all those things, they said I’d be good for serials and westerns, so they sent me out to Universal Studios.

“They signed me up on the spot for 12 months on a fairly good salary. Mind you, I had to work like a woman possessed. But I never looked back.

“I was in serials and there’d be 18 episodes of each one, so it took nearly a damned year. I made several westerns; I can’t remember what they were – it has been more than 50 years.”

But she remembers her friends the stars, particularly Clara Bow, the “It” girl and one of the first glamor girls of Hollywood. The two were like sisters and shared a house in Beverly Hills, although relationship changed when Tui married Clara’s father, at the star’s insistence.

“Clara was a beautiful girl, but she had a tragic life. I think the world was fascinated by her. She was a great actress who spoke like a ditch-digger and came from Brooklyn.

“Clara’s mother was insane and had tried to kill Clara several times when she was a child. Clara had a bed half the size of her room and she would ask me to sleep with her because she’d often have nightmares. Clara liked me because I came from a different place and had such a different background. Then her father took a liking at me.

“In those days the world really did make idols of movie stars and Clara was one. Her fan mail, frankly, used to disgust me. In the end, living with Clara was a bit like being a babysitter.

“I even married her father at her request. He was more like the father I’d never had but in the end I got sick of the Bows. Then Clara drifted off and married a two-bit cowboy actor, Rex Bell. He married her because of her name, but that sort of thing was prevalent then; there was nothing unusual about it.”

Tui looked aghast when asked if she was thrilled to have Gary Cooper constantly at the house while he was having a wild affair with Clara.

“No, of course not! Gary and I worked for the same studio and Clara had a big crush on him, but to have him come around was nothing out of the ordinary for me.”

It was Tui’s natural honesty and perhaps her innocence which made her so popular with the big names. Greta Garbo used to call her “my little vawn”.

“Did I know Garbo?” she asked incredulously. “Look at those photographs,” she says. You’ll never see anything like those anywhere else in Australia.

“Greta gave them to me, and that was pretty unusual. She wouldn’t give anything to anyone – she was the meanest woman. She never liked anyone in America, or America itself for that matter, but she liked me because, as she said, she came from near the North Pole and I was from near the South Pole.

Whenever she saw me, she’d take me into her arms and hug me. I was always a little worried about that – Momma had warned me about people who took a fancy to me.”

Tui liked Clark Gable, but she was never overly impressed with the ‘Gone With The Wind’ star.

“Gable came along a while after me. He was mean, too. It was a joke around the studio that you didn’t go to lunch with Gable unless you had plenty of money. He always wanted you to pay for a meal.”

Tui spoke more glowingly of Jean Harlow.

“She was magnificent and loved by everyone who knew her. She was kind and generous and gentle, nothing like the myths that were built around her.”

Charlie Chaplin cast his eyes over the young Tui on many occasions, but she much preferred his brother Syd.

“Syd was a lovely man, nothing at all like Charlie. Anything over 12 was regarded as fair game by Charlie.”

Before the legendary team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as formed, Tui was Laurel’s leading woman in several minor Hollywood films. She was very fond of him.

“I knew John Gilbert … that rat. He was only 40 when he died (in 1936) and I knew him well, but I couldn’t stand him. He was a bastard. Clara used to drag me along to his house when he invited her so she wouldn’t get raped.”

Tui says they were all part of a tight little Hollywood clan. “But it’s all gone now. Hollywood reached its Zenith then and it has never been the same since. I wouldn’t like to see it now. It has been ruined.

Story: Graham Bicknell
Woman’s Day – 31 May 1993 (Page 114)

Huh. That seems utterly contradictory to how others described Gilbert. He never really struck me as the, er..."rapey" type?

[missdupont]

Well, what can you say about an article in WOMAN'S DAY? It's not exactly as thorough as THE NEW YORKER in its coverage.

[barafan]

Well, why not write it? If you like the story idea, write a chapter or two and see where it leads. That's what I did with my Theda Bara novel. At the very worst, you'll look at it and say, "well, I guess it wasn't all that good an idea after all." So go for it, I say!

[Jim Roots]

"My little vawn" ??????


Jim

[stovelsten]

Possible Swedish: "Vawn" as in "Vän", meaning "Friend"...

[Frederica]

Possible Swedish: "Vawn" as in "Vän", meaning "Friend"...

Or "fawn" with an accent. Did Tui look like Bambi, by any chance?

[sepiatone]

I wish that Clara Bow had lived at least another twenty years, that way she could've possibly got to know Kevin (Brownlow) and been interviewed herself for the great HOLLYWOOD television series, then she wouldn't have had to have Louise Brooks speak for her.