Clara Bow Part II
Suddenly, Clara Bow was a scandalous joke. Schulberg took to calling her "crisis-a-day-Clara" and after clearing up her difficulties with the casino, he gave up on her career. He decided to ride out Clara's contract so he could get his money's worth out of her.
Clara was now too emotionally unstable to work. She suffered another blow when The Coast Reporter printed a libelous, article that accused her of, among other things, bestiality and drug addiction. The publisher would eventually spend eight years in jail for the offense.
Amid studio demands that Clara return to work, she admitted herself to a sanitarium. There the doctors shielded her from her angry employers. By the time she was released from her hospital, her contract had been cancelled, much to the relief of both parties. She was twenty-five years old and her career was over.
Rex decided that Clara's only chance for happiness was to get out of town. They moved to her property on the California-Nevada border. There they spent a year soaking up the sun and building a large estate that they named "Rancho Clarita". It was one of the best years of Clara's life.
Both of them had new film contracts by the end of a year. Rex was hired to star in a series of B-Westerns. Clara signed a two-movie contract with Fox.
Clara's comeback in Call Her Savage (1932) was an enormous hit, but she was not enthusiastic about entering public life again. After another success in Hoopla (1933), she retired for good. Rex and Clara went back to Rancho Clarita.
The couple was married in 1933. They had two sons, Rex Jr. and George. Clara wanted her sons to have a better childhood than she did. Despite her mental frailty, she struggled to raise them well.
Soon, isolated life at the ranch began to bother Clara. Rex had become increasingly interested in politics and sometimes his activities forced him to spend the night in Las Vegas. Clara began to suffer mysterious ailments. Though she was often bedridden, the doctors could find nothing wrong with her.
Clara's condition worsened when Rex announced that he was going to run for a Nevada congressional seat. Fearful of entering public life again, she attempted suicide. Her sons found her in bed, surrounded by empty pill bottles. Her stomach was pumped just in time to save her.
Rex felt guilty that he had increased his wife's anxiety; he ended up losing
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