Jean Harlow's Real Name: Harlean Carpenter

Quick answer: She was known as Jean Harlow. The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains says she was born Harlean Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911, and EBSCO Research Starters and Turner Classic Movies also give Harlean Carpenter. Her screen surname was her mother's maiden name. Encyclopaedia Britannica records her death in Los Angeles on June 7, 1937, at 26.

Real name and early life

The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, published by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, says Harlean was an only child of a dentist father and a domineering mother. She grew up in a lavish Kansas City home and spent summers at her grandparents' twenty-five-room retreat in Bonner Springs, Kansas. Britannica also describes her father as a prosperous Kansas City dentist.

After her parents' divorce, she moved to Los Angeles with her mother. Britannica says she attended the Hollywood School for Girls and later Ferry Hall Seminary in Lake Forest, Illinois. At 16 she eloped; the Great Plains entry and EBSCO name her husband as Charles McGrew. TCM says her mother, also named Jean Harlow Carpenter, had transferred her own dreams of stardom to her daughter.

Career highlights

Britannica says she drew notice in the Laurel and Hardy short Double Whoopee (1929). Howard Hughes then cast her in his aviation epic Hell's Angels (1930), and EBSCO says a press agent coined the phrase "platinum blond" for her hair.

After loan-outs in The Public Enemy (1931) and Platinum Blonde (1931), Hughes sold her contract to MGM. Britannica says the studio saw her comic potential in Red-Headed Woman (1932). Red Dust (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Hold Your Man (1933), and Bombshell (1933) were all box office hits, and she made several films with Clark Gable, including China Seas (1935). Later films included Libeled Lady (1936).

EBSCO says she ranked 22nd on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest actors of Hollywood's Golden Age and was the first female film actor on the cover of Life magazine, in May 1937.

Death

Britannica says she fell seriously ill while engaged to her frequent costar William Powell, was diagnosed with uremic poisoning, and died at 26. TCM and EBSCO both say she had long-standing kidney disease and was receiving medical care, which counters an old rumor that she was denied treatment. Her last film, Saratoga (1937), was finished with a stand-in and released after her death.

Name notes for searchers

The Great Plains entry says she assumed her mother's maiden name when she became a star. Britannica and the Library of Congress list the longer form Harlean Harlow Carpenter, and the Library of Congress also has the spelling Harlean Carpentier. Three cited sources use Harlean Carpenter.