A curvaceous ash-blonde appeared one day on The Saturday Night Kid set. “The closer she came, the more interesting she became,” explains assistant director Artie Jacobson, “because she was wearing this black-crocheted dress with not a stitch on under it. From where I sat you couldn’t tell whether she had put it on or painted it on.” It was visibly apparent that the voluptuous stranger was a natural blonde. Why the crew ogled the visitor Clara summoned Jacobson to her dressing room. “Who the hell is that?” She asked him. Jacobson checked a casting office memo a messanger has just handed him. “Don’t know,” he told her. “Says here her name’s Jean Harlow.” “Well, what’s she doin’ here?” Demanded Clara. Jacobson assumed that Harlow, like Clara’s cousin Billy Bow, had been given a minor role in the movie. “Oh yeah?” Snapped Clara. “Well, you tell’em t’take her off this goddamn set and never bring her back. I don’t want her in the picture.” “Why not?” Wondered Jacobson disingenuosly. “She’s a nobody”. “Are you kiddin? If she dresses like that for an interview, how’s she gonna dress in a scene? Who’s gonna see me nextra her?”. Jacobson called the casting office and told them to take Jean Harlow off The Saturday Night Kid. To his astonishment the request was refused. Harlow had a “friend” in the front office with even more clout than Clara. Not surprisingly, Clara hated both The Saturday Night Kid and Edward Sutherland. “A horrible picture,” she wrote of the movie. “A loosy no-good bastard” she said of its director.

David Stenn, Clara Bow Runnin’ wild, New York, Doubleday, 1988