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Dentist's Daughter. Jean Harlow was born in Kansas City in 1911. Her father, an easy-going dentist named Monte Carpenter, lives there now, still practicing his profession. Her mother, who still calls her daughter "Baby" and whose executive ability has been the most significant influence in Jean Harlow's life, divorced Dentist Carpenter and remarried. Her second husband was a sombre Latin named Marino Bello. Mrs. Bello's maiden name had been Jean Harlow. She had always wanted to be an actress. She had made a trip to Hollywood when her daughter Harlean Carpenter was a little girl. As Harlean grew up, it became apparent that her appearance might be of value to the cinema industry. Mrs. Bello began to see that her dreams for her own career might finally be realized vicariously. After Harlean Carpenter's first and unsuccessful marriage at 16 to a rich young broker named Charles McGrew, the Bellos descended on Hollywood in 1928 and Harlean began to get jobs as an extra, using her mother's maiden name.
On Mrs. Bello's first trip to the Coast, she had learned that in Hollywood it did not matter who you were but who you seemed to be. Instead of an apartment or a bungalow, the Bellos lived in a house which had two floors. In it they gave parties to which they invited the people Jean met on the sets. Unlike other extras, Jean drove to work with her mother in their own car. This was a limousine, old but well-polished. At the wheel sat a smart driver whose trim clothes and foreign air helped confirm the impression that Jean was a rich society girl in pictures for a lark. Extras without carfare gaped as Mrs. Bello and Jean entered the lot in their fine conveyance, might have opened their mouths for another purpose if they had known the identity of the trim driver. He was Mr. Marino Bello.
In 1929, the cinema industry was in a state of more than usual confusion. Warner Brothers had just proved that the screen could talk. Howard Hughes, who had just spent $2,000,000 making a silent picture called Hell's Angels, was preparing to spend $1,000,000 more remaking it with sound. Because Greta Nissen, who played the silent lead, had the thickest Swedish accent in California, she had to be replaced. Ben Lyon, playing the hero, had noticed Jean Harlow on the set and recommended her to Producer Hughes. After a glance at the Harlow hair and a brief study of the Harlow frame, Producer Hughes caused his press agent to coin the phrase "platinum blonde" and his costumer to design the lowest cut evening gown ever photographed. The climax of Hell's Angels was reached, not in the million dollar uproar of 90 airplanes, but when Jean Harlow appeared in her evening dress and said: "Do you mind if I slip into something more comfortable?"