THE ""IT"" GIRL: The Incredible Story of Clara Bow

How similar the trajectories of all these sex symbols were--Harlow and Marilyn and Judy and now Clara Bow--from dreadful childhoods with dreadful-or-no mothers to insomnia undissuaded by barbiturates and booze. Clara, the most extroverted of them, with lots of energy, made it quickly to sliver-screen stardom. She also made it just as quickly with all kinds of men from Gary Cooper to John Gilbert to the whole USC football team for an inexhaustible season. But then she too began to skid; she was blackmailed by her best friend; she began to crack up but was salvaged by minor star Rex Bell who married her and gave her an interval of domesticity and two children. Ain't We Got Fun? Not really--but Morella and Epstein run through all the fdm and tabloid clips and restore the Ultimate Toots who left that Tangee imprint everywhere only to die alone in bed at sixty, watching the Late Show.