On July 29, 1905, Clara Bow was born in the tenements of Brooklyn, New York. Her mentally ill mother, Sara Bow, had already suffered two miscarriages, she had hoped to die from her third pregnancy. She was unhappily married to Robert Bow, a busboy who had been her only escape from an even bleaker family life.
Robert often disappeared throughout Clara's childhood. Whenever he returned home, he was verbally and physically abusive to both wife and daughter. When he left them, Sara was forced to turn tricks for food money. She would lock Clara in a closet whenever a customer was in the apartment.
The neighborhood girls laughed at Clara's shabby clothes, so she befriended the boys. She would often escape her troubled life by immersing herself in movie magazines. She also went to the movies whenever she could, and after the show, she would practice the actress' moves in front of her mirror.
Sara told Clara acting was for whores. She had taken to sneaking up behind her and saying she would kill her because she would be better off dead. For this reason, Clara did not tell her mother that she had decided to enter the Motion Picture Magazine 1921 "Fame and Fortune" contest.
The "Fame and Fortune" contest winner would appear on the cover of Motion Picture Magazine and win a part in a movie. Clara needed two photographs in order to enter the contest. She begged her father for the money and he took her to a cheap studio. She hated the results, but the contest judges were impressed.
After numerous screen tests, Clara was selected the winner. She won a part in Beyond the Rainbow (1922), but to her humiliation and disappointment, her scenes were cut from the final print. Clara also had her mother to deal with. One night, she awoke to find her holding a butcher knife to her throat. She lay still until her mother collapsed to the floor in a seizure. As a result of the episode, she suffered insomnia for the rest of her life.
Though life was still rough at home, Clara's movie career began to take off. A director saw her picture in Motion Picture Magazine and cast her in Down to the Sea in Ships (1922). Though the critics hated the movie, they liked Clara.
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