THE EPITOME OF HOLLYWOOD PHOTOGRAPHY






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Jean Harlow Bear Rug Portfolio camera negative by George Hurrell for (Vanity Fair, January, 1935). On October 18, 1934, one month after the suicide of husband Paul Bern, Jean Harlow was photographed by George Hurrell at the home she shared with her mother at 214 S Beverly Glen Boulevard, and featured Harlow reclining diagonally over a bear rug in a session for Vanity Fair, the photographer’s first for the magazine and which he regarded with unusual pride. Thereafter, the bear rug was so often requested he was required to purchase one. The Harlow bear rug portrait was immediately regarded as the perfect expression of Hurrell’s technical and stylistic achievements and is his most important Hollywood portrait. Only contact prints were made for Vanity Fair and no enlargements were printed at the time of the negative. The January, 1935 issue of Vanity Fair provided the following caption for the portrait: “Born Harlean Carpenter in 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri, she eloped at 16, was divorced at 20. Her subsequent marriages and rumored Romances have made newspaper history. Her next film will be Spoiled; she is the author of an unpublished novel, Tonight is Today; and she holds the unofficial dice record at Agua Caliente casino, with 34 straight passes.”

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