Hollywood Remembers Jean Harlow
Little Harlean Carpenter eloped at the age of 16 heading for Hollywood, where she started working as an extra. She gradually earned prominence in Hal Roach’s comedy shorts and seized an opportunity to enter the major league with the advent of the talkies.
Harlow won a screen test and took over from Swedish Greta Nissen in Howard Hughes Hell’s Angels when it was re-shot with sound in 1929. Initially seen as vulgar and brash, the platinum blonde was re-packaged when she signed with MGM in 1932. She tragically died at the age of 26, with three husbands and 20 feature films to her name.
