What Do We Know About Clara Bow?

The literary and historic references in Taylor Swift’s songwriting typically spark a dialogue amongst her followers, however her newest point out of film star Clara Bow holds a particular significance for Southern Nevada.

As the house of a number of historic pictures and oral histories pertaining to Bow and her husband, Rex Bell, there’s nowhere higher to study concerning the topic of Swift’s newest muse than UNLV Particular Collections & Archives. Listed below are only a few items of our collections.

The Oral Historical past of Rex Bell Jr.

As a part of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral Historical past Mission, Oral Historical past Analysis Middle Director Claytee White sat down for an interview with Bow’s son, Rex Bell Jr.

Bell’s oral historical past interview reminisces about his film star dad and mom and his rising up at Strolling Field Ranch, a property simply an hour south of Las Vegas.  

In his interview, Bell advised us that his mom “got here up in considerably poverty” in Brooklyn, New York. When she was 15, she acquired the chance to audition for a film position and was introduced out to Hollywood at 16.

In 1927, Bow starred within the movie, It, which led to her turning into the unique “It Woman” as we’re reminded by so many different oral histories in our assortment (see the oral histories of Sally Halko or Sigrid Capel).

Regardless of her fame although, Bell’s oral historical past reminds us that Bow was simply as a lot of a mum or dad as she was well-known. “Mom was mom. I didn’t have a look at mom as a film star,” he stated.

After starring in a number of dozen movies, Bow and her husband, Rex Bell, fled Hollywood for the desert. The ranch grew to become the house of Bow and Bell in 1931 till the 2 separated within the mid-Forties.

The Strolling Field Ranch is now co-managed by UNLV and the Bureau of Land Administration. Since 2004, the UNLV public historical past program has labored to protect and interpret the ranch and its collections.  

The {photograph} assortment of the ranch is saved at UNLV Particular Collections & Archives and comprises photographs of on a regular basis life, together with this one in every of Bow baking within the kitchen. The gathering is sort of fully digitized and might be seen within the  Libraries’ portal. Different artifacts from the ranch stay on the website. 

Whereas lots of the pictures within the Strolling Field Ranch {photograph} assortment present the Bell household within the desert, the Bell Household Scrapbook consists of photographs of Bow and Bell each on the units of their movies and touring round Europe. 

The connection between Bow and Bell is actually one of the vital closely mentioned points of her life. Inside our collections, there are photographs of the 2 sharing romantic moments however oral historical past quotes painting their relationship in any other case.

In accordance with an oral historical past present in former UNLV historical past professor Ralph Roske’s interview assortment, Stephen La Thair Hawley — a mechanic who lived his total life in Nevada since his delivery within the Thirties — said, “She was the film star. She was the individual behind Rex Bell. She had the cash, she had the category. Rex had a horse.”

These pictures and oral histories are only a few of the items saved in our archive. If Swift’s new tune in Bow’s honor sparks your curiosity, we invite you to cease by Particular Collections & Archives to study extra.