Right after that, while I was making a picture once more with my dear Frank Lloyd, a picture called Children of Divorce, I met a young man named Gary Cooper. It was his first big part - he'd been a cowboy up in Nevada or something and played a small part in some Western picture. He was to play the lead. Of course he was new to the screen and didn't know exactly how to do things, though he was wonderful and photographed marvelously. I always like to help anyone who is new, so I was willing to go over and over scenes with him, in rehearsal, to help him out.

While we were doing that, we fell in love. If I wanted to be the Clara Bow of the screen, I'd say - and how! It was very wonderful and beautiful while it lasted. But - I can't altogether explain. It's very difficult to be a motion picture star and be married. So many fail at it. I have made up my mind that I shan't fail when I do marry. I shall wait until I'm sure. Gary was - so jealous. I know he wouldn't mind my saying that. Anyway, we parted.

Is that so many romances for a girl of twenty-two? Haven't most girls been engaged two or three times, before they're twenty-two? Yet just because I am Clara Bow and it is always printed, it sounds as though I were a regular flapper vamp. And I'm not at all.

It seems to me I've said very little about my career, after I became successful. But the story of every success is much the same. You work and suffer and battle and starve, and then you get your nose in a little way and then - you get the break. And if you have it in you, you make good. And then you just go on working, getting more money and loving the fame and the admiration of the public.

Somehow, I had managed to make a niche for myself. I'd created a Clara Bow by being myself largely I guess, who fitted the public desire and the public imagination. I hope they'll go on loving me a long time. I don't know.

I live in my little bungalow in Beverly Hills with my father. I work very, very hard. I like young people and gaiety, and have a lot of both around me whenever I have time. I like to swim and ride and play tennis. I have a few close friends, but not many acquaintances. I don't have time. I am happy - as happy as anyone can be who believes that life isn't quite to be trusted. I give everything I can to my pictures and the rest to being young and trying to make my father happy, and filling up the gaps in my education.

I don't think I'm very different from any other girl - except that I work harder and have suffered more. And I have red hair.

All in all, I guess I'm just Clara Bow. And Clara Bow is just what life made her. That's what I've tried to tell you in this story. I'm terribly grateful and still a little incredulous of my success. It seems like a dream. But - I'm willing to work just as hard as ever to go on having it. Beyond that, I haven't yet evolved any plans or desires.

After all, I'm still only twenty-two. That isn't so very old, is it?

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