What could silent-film star Clara Bow, who has been called a “tormented Hollywood outsider,” have in common with Taylor Swift? That’s the question we’ve been asking since Swift unveiled the track list for her forthcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department. The final song is titled “Clara Bow.”
Swift, whose 11th studio album debuts April 19, has been known to reference real-life figures in her lyrics—from tumultuous Old Hollywood couple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in “Ready for It” to eccentric socialite Rebekah Harkness, who lived in the Rhode Island mansion now owned by Swift, in “The Last Great American Dynasty.” Bow’s family only learned that their relative would be the latest Swiftian subject after she announced the album onstage, as part of her acceptance speech for best pop vocal album at the Grammys 2024.
“We could not believe it. We were shocked and then the intrigue set in because no one from our family has been contacted or knew about this prior,” Nicole Sisneros, one of Bow’s great-granddaughters, told People. Sisneros said she reached out to Swift’s team asking “what prompted” the track and “where the connection is coming from,” but has yet to hear back.
Sisneros and another one of Bow’s other great-granddaughters, Brittany Grace Bell, hope that the song encapsulates their late great-grandmother’s “perseverance.” As Bell explained, “She came from a really tough background and she really made it happen for herself. I hope she conveys a positive image of Clara Bow, which I think she will. I would imagine that Taylor uses this as a way to highlight her accomplishments, her accolades, her talent. They’re both people that have really strong raw talent.”
Bell also noted that Bow and Swift were “both pioneers in their field” and ventured that “Clara Bow would feel the same kinship and protectiveness over someone who’s of the same level of fame as her in dealing with the media and how heavy the crown is to carry.”
The Brooklyn-born Bow grew up in “the most brutal poverty that was known at the time,” David Stenn, author of 1988’s Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild, previously told the BBC. Bow found a ticket out of her turbulent childhood, ruled by an abusive father and mother who was diagnosed with psychosis due to epilepsy, when she submitted her photo to a “Fame and Fortune” magazine competition in 1921 at age 16. After taking the top prize, Bow began appearing in films—making 57 movies in a decade, 46 silent and 11 talkies. “In any other era,” said Judith Mackrell, author of Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation, “she would have ended up on the streets or in a factory, but the existence of cinema as a mass industry gave her the chance to reinvent her life.”
Bow would appear in many successful films, including 1926’s Mantrap, 1927’s Wings, which became the first Oscar winner for best picture, and 1929’s The Wild Party—her first talkie. But it was 1927’s It, an adaptation of the Elinor Glyn novella in which Bow plays Betty Lou, a shopgirl who dreams of romancing her employer, that gave the star her “It girl” branding.
“She was the first American sex symbol,” Stenn said, per The Washington Post. “Women wanted to be her, and men wanted to be with her. She had a warmth and vulnerability that was appealing to everyone.” Bow cultivated what some may now call a parasocial relationship with her most ardent fans. “She really came alive in front of the camera,” Mackrell told the BBC. “When you watch her, you feel as if she’s doing something very spontaneous for you, so you’re having a relationship with her. That may be an illusion, but it’s a very powerful one.”