Harlow comes across as one of the most likeable stars ever – good natured, hard working, utterly lacking in pretention. Throw in her beauty and talent (which took a while to emerge), no wonder audiences related to her. Even when she played trashy girls she was very engaging.
She isn’t a classic beauty but she was very striking with a great body. A great deal is made about Harlow’s child-like innocence when it came to sex; I think it’s more accurate to describe it as a lack of self-consciousness. She wasn’t the tramp she often depicted on screen, but she was no retiring violet either – she lost her virginity at a very young age in non-stressful circumstances; eloped as a teenager; enjoyed flings with Max Baer and a gangster (Howard Hawks reckons he had a one-night stand with her but I think he was full of it); enjoyed sleeping and walking around nude; liked to discard underwear. That’s quite sophisticated behaviour, even if she did have a sexless second marriage.
I always liked William Powell as an actor and heard good things about him as a person but he doesn’t come across too well here. He genuinely liked Harlow, and she adored him – but it’s plain unfair to drag a girl like that along for so long, and not to give her a kid was rotten (she had an abortion to him). Stenn is empathetic to Harlow's mother - on one hand a dreadful person, on the other hand she did do what she thought was her best for her daughter (Stenn defends in particular her behaviour during her daughter's final days).
Some classic bits: Harlow help up her low cut dresses up by icing her nipples (mother did the icinng!); Paul Bern, her second husband, once tried to kill himself by sticking his head down the toilet but it got stuck. Excellent book.
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