In the early 1920s roughly 50 million Americans—half the population at that time—attended the movies every week. As Clara Bow grew into womanhood, her stature as a “boy” in her old gang became “impossible.” She did not have any girlfriends, and school was a “heartache” and her home was “miserable.” On the silver screen she found consolation; “For the first time in my life I knew there was beauty in the world. For the first time I saw distant lands, serene, lovely homes, romance, nobility, glamor.” And further; “I always had a queer feeling about actors and actresses on the screen ... I knew I would have done it differently. I couldn’t analyze it, but I could always feel it. I’d go home and be a one girl circus, taking the parts of everyone I’d seen, living them before the glass.” At 16, Bow says she “knew” she wanted to be a motion pictures actress, even if she was a “square, awkward, funny-faced kid.”
Against her mother’s wishes but with her father’s support, Bow competed in Brewster publications’ magazine‘s annual nationwide acting contest, “Fame and Fortune,” in fall 1921. In previous years, other contest winners had found work in the movies. In the contest’s final screen test, Bow was up against an already scene-experienced woman who did “a beautiful piece of acting.” A set member later stated that when Bow did the scene, she actually became her character and “lived it.” In the January issues 1922 of Motion Picture Classic, the contest jury, Howard Chandler Christy, Neysa McMein, and Harrison Fisher, concluded:
“She is very young, only 16. But she is full of confidence, determination and ambition. She is endowed with a mentality far beyond her years. She has a genuine spark of divine fire. The five different screen tests she had, showed this very plainly, her emotional range of expression provoking a fine enthusiasm from every contest judge who saw the tests. She screens perfectly. Her personal appearance is almost enough to carry her to success without the aid of the brains she indubitably possesses.”
Bow won an evening gown and a silver trophy, and the publisher committed to help her “gain a role in films,” but nothing happened. Bow’s father told her to “haunt” Brewster’s office, located in Brooklyn, until they came up with something. “To get rid of me, or maybe they really meant to (give me) all the time and were just busy,” Bow was introduced to director Christy Cabanne, who cast her in Beyond the Rainbow, produced late 1921 in New York City and released February 19, 1922. Bow did five scenes and impressed Cabanne with her ability to produce tears on call, but was cut from the final print. “I was sick to my stomach,” she recalled and thought her mother was right about the movie business.
Bow dropped out of school in her senior year, after she was notified about winning the “Fame and Fortune Contest,” possibly in October 1921, and got an ordinary office job. However, movie ads and newspaper editorial comments from 1922 to 1923 suggest that Bow was not cut from Beyond the Rainbow. Her name is on the cast list among the other stars, usually tagged “Brewster magazine beauty contest winner” and sometimes even with a picture.
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