by Erin Schend

Beauty And The Bleach

Blonde bombshell. A phrase so used frequently in our accumulative vernacular that the significance now wanes. This phrase, once a revelation, was brought to our consciousness by Jean Harlow. The original platinum blonde. Her famous locks, along with her pension for wearing body-hugging gowns with no undergarments, made her a favourite leading lady of the 1930s. After her untimely death, many speculated that the chemicals used in treating her hair were the cause. Is this a Hollywood legend or is there truth in this? And what price did she pay to become the original platinum blonde?

It is a tale as old as Hollywood, a star is created and born from the hands of powerful men. No matter the cost, actresses suffered, externally and internally to reach stardom. Jean Harlow was one of the countless actresses who underwent beauty treatments to become a leading lady. Discovered at the age of eighteen, Harlow was cast in Howard Hughes’s 1930 film, Hell’s Angels, as a vamp. A role that would become her speciality, much to her chagrin. But one that would skyrocket her to fame.

The term “platinum blonde” was born with Jean Harlow and invented by Howard Hughes. At this time, nicknames for stars were common for promotional reasons, think Mary Pickford as “America’s Sweetheart” and Clara Bow as “The It Girl”. As the star of his film, Hughes desired something unforgettable for his leading lady. Thus the term “Platinum Blonde” was coined. A title Harlow would come to loathe but filmgoers loved. The world was fascinated by her hair. Women were purchasing peroxide by the thousands, trying to replicate the look. How exactly did Harlow achieve the famous white halo?

According to Harlow, her hair was naturally platinum. When asked by a reporter about the platinum trend she said, “It can’t be good to bleach your hair with chemicals. As for mine, it’s never touched with anything but soap and water.” While naturally a blonde, In Hell’s Angels, her hair is more of an ashy-blonde, presuming that she must do something extra to create the almost iridescent look. Her hairdresser, Alfred Pagano, confessed, “I used to bleach her hair and to make it ‘platinum blonde’ we used peroxide, ammonia, Clorox, and Lux flakes.” She spent every Sunday at Jim’s Beauty Salon on Sunset Boulevard, touching up her roots. Every. Single. Sunday. Let that sink in. Her hair was bleached every Sunday for almost four years in the name of beauty and stardom. 

Inevitably, Harlow’s damaged, brittle hair started to fall out. This unfolded in the middle of production on 1935’s Reckless. Not wanting word to get out that the “Platinum Blonde” was going bald, MGM quickly went to work assessing the damage. They hired a hair specialist, Marcel Machu, to come to set. He knew immediately it was too late, saying, “It was falling out all over the place. It was completely destroyed.” Not wanting to halt production longer than necessary, MGM called for filming to continue regardless of the issue. Machu protested, “If they touch her again, she’ll have no hair at all.” To help remedy the situation and to help her get through filming, Machu massaged olive oil onto her scalp to stop the breakage, but it would not be enough. Harlow wore custom-made wigs for the remainder of filming. 

It should be noted Harlow hated being a platinum blonde. As a self-proclaimed bad actress, Harlow said, “If it hadn’t been for the colour of my hair, Hollywood wouldn’t know I was alive.” With the hair came roles to match. Sultry. Brazen. Floozy. She played a type that was the opposite of her personality. She admitted, “I’ve always hated my hair, not only because it limited me as an actress, but because it limited me as a person. It made me look hard and spectacular; I had to live up to that platinum personality.” To all who knew her, she was a sweet, affectionate, playful girl. But she never felt respected or properly represented with her platinum hair. Therefore the studio’s decision to give her a new look came as a delight for her.

After a career of playing provocative characters, and ruining her hair in the process, the studio was ready to reinvent their star. What better transformation than from a brazen woman into a lady. Her hair, or what remained of it, was dyed “halfway brown” and she was dubbed as a “brown-ette.” A wig, in the matching shade, was provided for her. Although Harlow loved her new look, she would not have much opportunity to explore its potential in her career or personal life. Harlow was ailing. Friends and coworkers started to notice that her alabaster skin had a greyish tint, and her face was continuously puffy. She constantly had migraines. Many contributed this to Harlow’s heavy drinking, not seeing any serious underlying conditions. On the set of Saratoga Harlow complained of stomach pains. She went home early to recuperate. Nobody could have guessed she was dying. 

The days leading up to her death were shocking for friends. She was so bloated, she was twice her size. Upon visiting the dying actress, Clark Gable, a frequent collaborator, and close friend said he smelled urine on her breath, “It was like kissing a dead person, a rotting person.” She continued to have intense stomach pains and vomiting and was misdiagnosed as having a swollen gallbladder. On June 7, 1937, only ten days after leaving the Saratoga set early with flu-like symptoms Harlow was dead. She had turned twenty-six three months prior. 

Rumours swirled around her untimely death. Botched abortion. Cancer. Polio. Syphilis. And peroxide poisoning from the chemical treatments used on her hair. While the chemicals used on her hair did cause irreparable damage, it was to her hair alone. The truth is Harlow had been slowly dying for years. She had uremic poisoning or acute kidney failure. The signs were all there. The bloating. The greyish pallor. The inability to urinate through the usual fashion, she emitted waste through her breath and sweat, as Gable had noted. Her kidney failure was connected to a bout of scarlet fever she had at age fifteen. Unbeknownst to everyone, her kidneys had been degenerating for years. Although had they diagnosed this correctly, there wasn’t much to be done for Harlow in the 1930s. Dialysis and kidney transplants had not yet come to fruition.

The Hollywood urban legend that she died of peroxide poisoning is a false one, although she did suffer at the hands of being a platinum blonde. Not only did she lose her hair, but she was also unable to create an identity of her own. Like so many actresses of the period, Harlow was unable to dictate much of her career. In the hands of male studio heads, male directors, and the audiences who paid to see a platinum blonde, Harlow was at their mercy. Her life and career were sadly cut short. But had she been given more time, perhaps she would have been able to carve out her own identity on the screen. In the end, bleach did not kill the beauty but it did conceal her true identity. And that, sadly, is Old Hollywood show business.

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