Jean Harlowe

Description

There are 78 personal portraits categorize in one of my portfolios to demonstrate my talent in portrait painting and charcoal drawings only. The movie and music stars in this portfolio are called “Hollywood”. Anyone who are interested in commissioned personal portrait from CobbWeb Designs and Illustrations may get an idea of the artist’s dedication and spirituality to realism. Most of these subjects have inspired him in some way throughout his life.

Jean Harlow (born Harlean Harlow Carpenter; March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) Harlow was born as Harlean Harlow Carpenter in a house located at 3344 Olive Street in Kansas City, Missouri. Her father, Mont Clair Carpenter (1877–1974), was a dentist who attended dental school in Kansas City. Her mother, Jean Poe Carpenter (Harlow; 1891–1958), was the daughter of wealthy real estate broker Skip Harlow.

Harlowe was an American actress. Known for her portrayal of “bad girl” characters, she was the leading sex symbol of the early 1930s and one of the defining figures of the pre-Code era of American cinema. Often nicknamed the “Blonde Bombshell” and the “Platinum Blonde”, Harlow was popular for her “Laughing Vamp” screen persona. Harlow was in the film industry for only nine years, but she became one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars, whose image in the public eye has endured. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Harlow No. 22 on their greatest female screen legends of classical Hollywood cinema list.

Harlow was first signed by business magnate Howard Hughes, who directed her first major role in Hell’s Angels (1930). After a series of critically failed films, and Hughes’ lost interest in her career, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought out Harlow’s contract in 1932 and cast her in leading roles in a string of hits built on her comedic talent: Red-Headed Woman (1932), Red Dust (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Reckless (1935) and Suzy (1936). Harlow’s popularity rivaled and then surpassed that of MGM’s top leading ladies Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. She died at the age of 26 of kidney failure while filming Saratoga. MGM completed the film with the use of body doubles and released it less than two months after her death; it became MGM’s most successful film of 1937, as well as the highest-grossing film of her career.