The movie star, Jean Harlow, was the sex symbol of the 1930s, who portrayed frankly sensuous types. Harlow adopted her mother's maiden name, worked as a film extra, and from 1928 played bit parts in comedies at the Hal Roach Studios. Hell's Angels (1930) was a box-office hit that established her stardom and initiated a nationwide craze for platinum-blonde hair. Paired with Hollywood's most popular leading men, including Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and William Powell, Harlow became one of the cinema's chief money-makers by the early 1930s. She emerged as a comedienne in such films as Platinum Blonde (1931), Red-Headed Woman (1932), Red Dust (1932), Bombshell (1933), and Hold Your Man (1933), with even greater success. Other well-remembered films in which she appeared include Dinner at Eight (1933), China Seas (1935), and Libeled Lady (1936). Harlow was married briefly to the motion-picture executive Paul Bern, whose suicide in 1932 caused widespread scandal. The following year she married the Hollywood cameraman Hal Rosson (married 1933, divorced 1935). Her untimely death from uremic poisoning occurred during the filming of Saratoga (1937).

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