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| Source: Charlie Chaplin: Artistry In Motion by Dan Kamin |
Still from the nightclub scene in City Lights. Jean Harlow is at far left. She was hired to be an extra in this scene, but her appearance didn’t make the final cut of the film. According to his press agent, Charlie was evidently quite taken with the blonde bombshell:
While City Lights was in the making, Charlie became interested in a young woman, an extra. The peculiar color of her hair attracted him. She was provocatively alluring.
At the same table at which this extra girl was seated was an older woman. I learned they were mother and daughter. He instructed me to have the older woman promoted! She should play the bit of the indignant matron who sits upon the burning cigar in that sequence. It was only when he discovered that the woman her hair cut in a boyish bob that he changed his mind.
At the time I made a note that the name of the mother and daughter was Pope--a Mrs. Pope and Jean Pope. Later I discovered that the girl had blossomed forth--in Hell's Angels - as Jean Harlow! The mother was now Mrs. Marino Bello. ("The Private Life Of Charlie Chaplin" by Carlyle Robinson, Liberty, 1933)