95: Jean Harlow Flashback (Dead Blondes Part 3)

You Must Remember This

Karina Longworth

Tv & Film

4.7 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2017

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jean Harlow was the top blonde of the 1930s, and even though she didn’t survive the decade - she died in 1937 at the age of 26 - she’d inspire a generation of would-be platinum-haired bombshell stars. Today we revisit our 2015 episode on Harlow, to set the stage for the relentless forward march of Dead Blondes through the Twentieth Century. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	joy
0:25.9	welcome
0:28.1	Welcome to another episode of You Must Remember This, the podcast dedicated to exploring
0:36.6	the secrets and or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century, part of the Panoplay
0:44.1	Network.
0:45.1	I'm your host, Karina Longworth.
0:49.3	Today we're revisiting a story that we first told as part of our MGM series in 2015.
0:57.1	This is the story of Jean Harlow.
1:01.6	In last week's episode on Thelma Todd, we talked a little bit about the ways in which Thelma's
1:06.9	look and function within early-tockey comedies prefigured Jean Harlow's more significant
1:13.2	stardom.
1:15.1	One important difference between the two women is that Thelma Todd often played the straight
1:20.1	woman.
1:21.5	Though Jean Harlow's image huge to the template of bubbly, curvacious blonde that Thelma Todd
1:26.8	had earlier popularized, very early in her career, Harlow was given starring roles in
1:32.9	films that allowed her to be the butt of the joke while also controlling the narrative.
1:39.5	There was also a difference in the way Todd and Harlow used their very similar blonde
1:44.5	beauty.
1:45.5	Thelma Todd was sexy, but Jean Harlow was a sex symbol, and she was arguably the first
1:52.4	and best sex symbol comedian of the early sound film era.
1:58.1	And while Thelma Todd's death was tragic, and no matter what you believe about how she
2:03.7	died was almost definitely preventable, Harlow's death at the age of 26 is a prime example
	...

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