Jean Harlow Blond Bombshell

Harlow was first signed by business magnate Howard Hughes, who directed her first major role in Hell's Angels (1930). After a series of critically unsuccessful films, and Hughes's losing interest in her career, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought out Harlow's contract in 1932 and cast her in leading roles in a string of hits built on her comedic talent: Red-Headed Woman (1932), Red Dust (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Reckless (1935) and Suzy (1936). Harlow's popularity rivaled and then surpassed that of MGM's top leading ladies Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. She died at the age of 26, of kidney failure during filming of Saratoga. MGM completed the film with the use of body doubles and released it less than two months after her death; it became MGM's most successful film that year.