Clara Bow’s family have praised Taylor Swift for her ‘hauntingly beautiful’ new song about the late silent film queen. 

One of the reigning movie stars of the 1920s, Clara is perhaps best known for her 1927 movie It, which popularized the term ‘It Girl.’

However in the 1930s, she became a lightning rod for scandal, hounded by allegations that she was a drunken, gambling man-eater.

Taylor’s new song Clara Bow is part of her 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department, which she dropped to a ravenous fan response at midnight Friday.

Now Clara’s great-granddaughters Nicole Sisneros and Brittany Grace Bell have told People they ‘love’ the song – but added that they have been unable to ‘successfully connect’ with Taylor’s team to communicate their feelings to her directly.

The lyrics include Hollywood ‘suits’ telling a young aspiring starlet that she looks like various showbiz icons such as Clara, Stevie Nicks – and Taylor herself.

Nicole said she got ‘chills’ when she listened to the song and heard the way it ‘poetically draws parallels between Clara Bow and Taylor.’

She praised Taylor and Clara as ‘raw and amazingly talented artists’ and gushed that ‘My family and I love the song and are thankful for Taylor connecting with Clara’s legacy through her songwriting.’

Brittany meanwhile picked out specific lyrics from Taylor’s song and drew connections to her great-grandmother’s life and legacy.

The opening lines of the song are: ‘You look like Clara Bow in this light – remarkable. All your life, did you know you’d be picked like a rose?’

Brittany explained: ‘Clara was a “rose” that was picked by the men of Hollywood who capitalized on her fame and talent. I think it perfectly encapsulates how she would feel as the “It” girl of Hollywood.’

She also focused on the line: ‘This town is fake but you’re the real thing,’ which she interpreted as a reference to ‘how Clara Bow was unapologetically herself despite the media noise in Hollywood and societal norms of the 1920s and 1930s. The song to me feels ethereal and somewhat melancholy.’

In the teaser to her upcoming Fortnight music video with Post Malone, Taylor wore a style of hair and makeup that Nicole felt was a throwback to Clara. 

‘She has the same sultry stare that was signature of Clara Bow. And there’s no denying the precise application of the lipstick,’ Nicole argued.

Clara was one of the top Hollywood screen sirens of the 1920s, the original ‘It Girl’ who achieved sex symbol status playing the archetypal flapper.

She once told Photoplay that during her heyday she ‘was “running wild,” I guess, in the sense of trying to have a good time,’ and her theory about her stardom was that ‘a lot of that excitement, that joy of life, got onto the screen.’

However she was scarred by childhood traumas – her father had raped her and her mother had been committed – and began to buckle under the pressures of fame.

When silent films went out of style, Clara was able to shift into talkies, but she disdained the new form of moviemaking as ‘stiff and limiting.’

Then, during the early 1930s, she found herself enmeshed in a thicket of scandals that ultimately took their toll on her showbiz career.

One of the allegations she had to contend with was a persistent rumor that she had indulged in an orgy with the entire USC football team – a story immortalized in Kenneth Anger’s infamous 1965 book Hollywood Babylon.

Her private life became subject to blistering scrutiny after she fired her secretary Daisy DeVoe and took her to court for embezzlement and blackmail.

When the case went to trial, Daisy aired out a raft of gossip about the star’s love life and accused her of gambling and drunkenness.

Although Daisy went to jail, the combination of Clara’s various problems drove her to a breakdown and landed her in a sanatorium.

She left the movies and married a Nevada politician, and although she briefly returned to Hollywood for the money, she finally retired for good in 1933.