Clara Bow: Meet the Tragic Movie Star from the Taylor Swift Song

With the release of Taylor Swift's "The Tortured Poets Department," there are 31 songs to listen to, enjoy, and unpack!

One song title that's caught the attention of fans is "Clara Bow," in which the superstar directly compares herself to the '20s and '30s actress and to rocker Stevie Nicks.

"You look like Clara Bow in this light, remarkable / All your life, did you know you’d be picked like a rose? / I’m not trying to exaggerate, but I think I might die if it happened / Die if it happened to me," she sings early in the song.

Who was Clara Bow?

Born 119 years ago in Brooklyn, Bow survived a harsh childhood marked by poverty, the death of both her older sisters, her mother's violent mental illness, and rape at the hands of her own father.

She would later tell a movie magazine, "I don't suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life."

At just 16, she entered a get-famous-quick contest in a movie magazine, winning top honors. From there, she made her film debut in 1921 and quickly impressed critics and audiences with her beauty, dancing skills, and comedic timing.

Throughout the '20s, Bow's star rose until she was the most successful actress of the Silent Era. Thanks to phenomenal hits like "The Plastic Age" (1925), "Dancing Mothers" (1925), and "It" (1927) — she was the original "It" girl — Bow was one of the most famous women in the world.

Along with fame came unwanted scrutiny, which could be something to which Taylor relates. A tabloid reported Bow had sex with the entire USC football team, was a lesbian, slept with her dog, was a drug addict, and more — before attempting to extort $25,000 from her to cease and desist.

The adversity Bow faced — rarely are men in entertainment built up and torn down as ruthlessly as women are — seems to resonate with Swift, who sings on "The Tortured Poets Department" about the lowpoint in her career, when Kanye West and Kim Kardashian branded her a snake.

Though Bow had starred in the first-ever Oscar Best Picture "Wings" (1927) and easily transitioned from silents to talkies, her career faltered at 25 with a stay in a sanatorium. She made a couple more films before retiring from movies with her cowboy-actor husband Rex Bell, later the lieutenant governor of Nevada.

In the end, Bow, the mother of two children with Bell, endured shock treatments for schizophrenia and became more or less a recluse, moving away from her husband and kids to live alone in Hollywood. She died of a heart attack while under the care of a nurse at just 60.

Her younger son, George Beldam Jr., is alive today at 86.

When news of a Swift song entitled "Clara Bow" leaked in February, Bow's family expressed shock at the hat tip. People magazine reported Bow’s great-granddaughters, Nicole Sisneros and Brittany Grace Bell, the children of Bow's late son Rex Bell Jr., were curious and flattered.

“We could not believe it,” Sisneros said at the time. “We were shocked, and then the intrigue set in because no one from our family has been contacted or knew about this prior."

“[We] just want to know what prompted it and where the connection is coming from,” Sisneros continued.

Sisneros, a fan, said, “[I] took my oldest daughter to the [Eras tour] concert and just to see it through her eyes and see this megastar who appeals to people of all ages. When we told her [about the new ‘Clara Bow’ song,] she was excited and looking forward to telling her little friends.”

Bow was also recently in the news when, 100 years after it was made, a pristine copy of her short film "The Pill Pounder" was found in a parking lot. About a third of her movies are considered lost.