Clara Bow film planned

Lindsay Lohan wants to portray a woman who could have become Nevada’s first lady.

Lohan wants to play silent film star Clara Bow in a biopic. Known as the “It Girl” in the 1920s, Bow was born in a Brooklyn tenement in 1905. After a troubled childhood with unstable parents, she won a magazine contest, which ultimately led to her film debut.

Bow became a huge star, earning millions for Paramount Pictures, though her films became predictable. Her personal life was wild and widely publicized. She made the transition to sound but was unable to get the scripts or treatment she wanted from the studios.

In 1932, she married actor Rex Bell (real name: George Beldam), and they purchased a ranch in Searchlight, Nevada. She retired from acting the next year. She was plagued with mental illness most of her life, attempting suicide at least once.

Bell lost a race for Nevada’s only U.S. House seat in 1944, then was elected to the first of two terms as lieutenant governor in 1954. He was campaigning for governor on July 4, 1962, when he collapsed during a speaking engagement and died. Their son served as Clark County district attorney.

Bow died on Sept. 27, 1965.

Lohan, who posed as Bow in a 2006 magazine layout, has been quoted saying, “I definitely relate to a lot of the things that she went through. Not with her family, but the trials and tribulations of Hollywood, to an extent.”