Clara Bow, Hollywood’s first “it girl” may be the subject of an upcoming biopic. Variety reports that Silver Bullet Entertainment has picked up screen rights to David Stern’s biography Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild, with Mike Witherill (John Wick, Drinking Buddies) attached to produce. Stern will pen a screenplay based on his book about the screen legend, Hollywood’s first sex symbol.
Bow was one of the preeminent movie stars in the silent era and one of the few that was able to maintain a career once the talkies came about. Her 1927 film It made her a global superstar and spawned the still-popular term “the it girl.” Born in poverty in Brooklyn and raised in a family that suffered from addiction and mental instabilities, Bow ventured to Hollywood and still-green movie industry after winning Motion Picture Magazine’s 1921 “Fame and Fortune Contest” and quickly became one of the most popular and enduring stars of the 192os. As an actress, Bow appeared in 46 silent movies and 11 talkies including Victor Fleming’s Mantrap, the aforementioned It and Wings, a film that won Best Picture at the very first Academy Awards. Bow retired permanently from show business in 1931 after marrying; she died in 1965 at the age of 60.
No casting for the project has been announced. Production is expected to being sometime early next year.