in her earliest pictures she is the image of the luscious child in the pears soap advertisements , a white-skinned little temptress , gazing soulfully yet playfully at the spectator by the time she was eighteen , she was clara bow on the night of her death , she was , according to numerous eyewitnesses , a femme fatale of unforgettable power , dancing the charleston wildly in her short fringed skirt and glittering stockings , flashing her enormous jewelike eyes on everyone and no one as she commanded the attention of every man in the room .