The 'Original' Blonde Bombshell

What is it about the color of blonde hair that drives some men crazy? For some men, brunettes are hot, redheads are daring, but blonde, now that's sexy. If gentlemen prefer blondes then they must go absolutely crazy over platinum blondes! What is it about the white-yellow tresses that men equate that with sexiness and excitement?

Two such blonde vixens that are legendary and stood the test of time are Jean Harlow of course Marilyn Monroe.

Jean Harlow was born March 3, 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri. She lived to the ripe old age of 26 when she died of uremic poisoning on June 7, 1937. Born Harlean Harlow Carpenter, she was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. At the age of 16, she ran away from she home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23 at the time. The couple pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles, not long after they married. It was here that Jean found work as an extra in films.

Landing bit parts in movies all over Hollywood. In 1929 she had bit parts in at least 11 movies, playing everything from a passing woman on the street to a winged ballerina. Her marriage to McGrew turned out to be a disaster and barely lasted two years. After her divorce, she was able to devote more time in finding roles in feature movies. Her first prominent role was in Double Whoopee (1929), but her big break came in 1930, when she was only 19 years old.
She landed a role in Howard Hughes’ World War I epic, Hell’s Angels, which turned out to be a smash hit. Not long after the film’s debut, Hughes sold her contract to MGM for $60,000, and it was there that her career shot to unprecedented heights. Her appearance in Platinum Blonde (1931) cemented her role as America’s newest sex symbol. The next year saw her paired with Clark Gable in Red Dust (1932), the second of six films she would make with Gable.

It was MGM’s glittering all-star Dinner at Eight (1933) that Jean was at her comedic best as the wife of a ruthless tycoon (Wallace Beery) trying to take over another man’s (Lionel Barrymore) failing business. Later that same year she played the part of Lola Burns in Victor Fleming’s hit Bombshell. In 1935 she was again teamed with Gable in another rugged adventure, China Seas. Her remaining two pictures with Gable would be Wife vs. Secretary (1936) and Saratoga (1937). It was her films with Gable that created her lasting legacy in the film world. Unfortunately during the filming of Saratoga, she was hospitalized with uremic poisoning. The film had to be finished by long angle shots using a double. Gable said he felt like he was in the arms of a ghost during the final touches of the film. Because of her death, the film was a hit. Record numbers of fans poured into America’s movie theaters to see the film.

Platinum. Named after the jeweler's metal, rarer, even more valuable than gold. When referred to as hair color, the technique used is to bleach almost all the color out of the hair and then add violet and blue tones to give it a white-platinum blonde look.
Jean Harlow proved she was much more than just some blonde, she was the 'original' platinum blonde. Other sex symbols/blonde bombshells have followed, but it is Jean Harlow who all others are measured against.