Star system (film)
Encyclopedia
The star system was the method of creating, promoting and exploiting movie star
s in Classical Hollywood cinema
. Studios
would select promising young actor
s and glamorise
and create persona
s for them, often inventing new names and even new backgrounds. Examples of stars who went through the star system include Cary Grant
(born Archie Leach), Joan Crawford
(born Lucille Fay LeSueur), and Rock Hudson
(born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr.)
The star system put an emphasis on the image rather than the acting, although discreet acting, voice, and dancing lessons were a common part of the regimen. Women were expected to behave like ladies, and were never to leave the house without makeup and stylish clothes. Men were expected to be seen in public as gentlemen. Morality clauses were a common part of actors' studio contracts.
Just as studio executives, public relations staffs, and agents worked together with the actor to create a star persona, so they would work together to cover up incidents or lifestyles that would damage the star's public image. It was common, for example, to arrange sham dates between single (male) stars and starlets to generate publicity. Tabloids and gossip columnist
s would be tipped off, and photographers would appear to capture the romantic moment. At the same time, a star's drug use
(such as Robert Mitchum
's arrest for marijuana possession), drinking problems
, divorce
, or adultery
would be covered up with hush money
for witnesses or promises of exclusive
stories (or the withholding of future stories) to gossip columnists.
Thomas Edison
and the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC
) forced filmmakers to use their equipment and follow their rules, since they owned the patents of much of the motion picture equipment. The MPPC frowned on star promotion, although, according to research done by Janet Staiger
, the MPPC did promote some stars around this time.
The main catalyst for change was the public's desire to know the actors' names. Film audiences repeatedly recognized certain performers in movies that they liked. Since they did not know the performers' names they gave them nicknames (such as "the Biograph Girl," Florence Lawrence
, who was featured in Biograph
movies).
Producer Carl Laemmle
promoted the first movie star
. He was independent of the MPPC and used star promotion to fight the MPPC's control. Laemmle acquired Lawrence from Biograph. He spread a rumor that she had been killed in a streetcar accident. Then he combated this rumor by saying that she was doing fine and would be starring in an up-coming movie produced by his company, the Independent Moving Pictures Company
(IMP).
The development of film fan magazines gave fans knowledge about the actors outside of their film roles. Motion Picture Story Magazine (1911-) and Photoplay
. They were initially focused on movies' stories, but soon found that more copies could be sold if they focused on the actors.
Also, precedents set by legitimate theater encouraged film to emulate the star system of the stage. Theater stars in the late 19th century were treated much like film stars came to be treated by the middle of the 20th century.
The reaction shot is a substitution; a mimetic transfer of the spectator's feelings that brings him to identify himself in the star. It is like a mirror or a double, but with a sublimated image. Marilyn Monroe
is a great example of the use of the reaction shot. In many of her films, the audience can appreciate many long close ups of her face reacting. At this point, the spectator has a privileged relationship with her; something even better than being her friend or a member of her family: for a moment, the viewer is Marilyn Monroe. In the Hollywood system, an actor can never really become a character: he is a star, no matter the quality of his performance.
negotiated her contract out of Howard Hawk's hands over the limp roles he had been foisting on her. Olivia de Havilland
and Bette Davis
both sued their studios to be free of their gag orders (Davis lost, de Havilland won). After completing The Seven Year Itch
, Marilyn Monroe
walked out on 20th Century Fox
and only returned when they acquiesced to her contract demands. The publicity accompanying these incidents fostered a growing suspicion among actors that a system more like being a free agent would be more personally beneficial to them than the fussy, suffocating star system. The studio-system instrument Photoplay
gave way to the scandal-mongering Confidential
. In 1959 Shirley Maclaine
would sue famed producer Hal Wallis over a contractual dispute. This suit was another nail in the coffin. By the 1960s the days of the star system were numbered.
The conspiratorial aspect of the studio system manipulating images and reality, eventually began to falter as the world and the news media began to accept the dismantling of social boundaries and the manufactured virtue and wholesomeness of stars began to be questioned; taboos began to fall. By the 60s and 70s a new, more natural style of acting ("the Stanislavski Method") had emerged, been mythologized and enshrined; and individuality had been transformed into a treasured personal quality. With competition from TV, and entire studios changing hands, the star system faltered and did not recover. The studio system could no longer resist the changes occurring in entertainment, culture, labor, and news and it was completely gone by 1970.
Movie star
A movie star is a celebrity who is well-known, or famous, for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. The term may also apply to an actor or actress who is recognized as a marketable commodity and whose name is used to promote a movie in trailers and posters...
s in Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.Classical style is...
. Studios
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
would select promising young actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
s and glamorise
Glamour (presentation)
Glamour originally was a magical-occult spell cast on somebody to make them believe that something or somebody was attractive. In the late 19th century terminology a non magical item used to help create a more attractive appearance gradually became 'a glamour'...
and create persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
s for them, often inventing new names and even new backgrounds. Examples of stars who went through the star system include Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
(born Archie Leach), Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
(born Lucille Fay LeSueur), and Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
(born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr.)
The star system put an emphasis on the image rather than the acting, although discreet acting, voice, and dancing lessons were a common part of the regimen. Women were expected to behave like ladies, and were never to leave the house without makeup and stylish clothes. Men were expected to be seen in public as gentlemen. Morality clauses were a common part of actors' studio contracts.
Just as studio executives, public relations staffs, and agents worked together with the actor to create a star persona, so they would work together to cover up incidents or lifestyles that would damage the star's public image. It was common, for example, to arrange sham dates between single (male) stars and starlets to generate publicity. Tabloids and gossip columnist
Gossip columnist
A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are material written in a light, informal style, which relates the gossip columnist's opinions about the personal lives or conduct of celebrities from show business ,...
s would be tipped off, and photographers would appear to capture the romantic moment. At the same time, a star's drug use
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
(such as Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
's arrest for marijuana possession), drinking problems
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
, or adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
would be covered up with hush money
Hush money
Hush money is an informal term for financial incentives or rewards offered in exchange for not divulging information.Hush Money may also refer to:* Hush Money , a 1921 silent film directed by Charles Maigne...
for witnesses or promises of exclusive
Exclusive
Exclusive typically means not with other things or not including other things.The terms inclusive and exclusive are contrasting terms, and often appear in the same context to describe contrasting things.Exclusive may refer to:...
stories (or the withholding of future stories) to gossip columnists.
Beginnings of the star system
In the early years of the cinema (1890s–1900s), performers were not identified in films. There are two main reasons for this.- Stage performers were embarrassed to be in film. Silent filmSilent filmA silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
was only considered pantomime. One of actors' main skills was their voice. They were afraid that appearing in films would ruin their reputation. Moguls such as Adolph Zuckor, founder of Famous Players in 1912, brought theater actresses such as Sarah Bernhardt into the movies however audiences wanted movie stars. Early film was also designed for the working class. Film was seen as only a step above carnivals and freak shows. - Producers feared that actors would gain more prestige and power and demand more money.
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
and the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC
MPPC
MPPC can refer to:* The Motion Picture Prop Company* Motion Picture Patents Company* Microsoft Point-to-Point Compression* Menlo Park Presbyterian Church* Milk Sphingomyelin...
) forced filmmakers to use their equipment and follow their rules, since they owned the patents of much of the motion picture equipment. The MPPC frowned on star promotion, although, according to research done by Janet Staiger
Janet Staiger
Janet Staiger is the William P. Hobby Centennial Professor of Communication in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin.-Biography:...
, the MPPC did promote some stars around this time.
The main catalyst for change was the public's desire to know the actors' names. Film audiences repeatedly recognized certain performers in movies that they liked. Since they did not know the performers' names they gave them nicknames (such as "the Biograph Girl," Florence Lawrence
Florence Lawrence
Florence Lawrence was a Canadian inventor and silent film actress. She is often referred to as "The First Movie Star." When she was popular, she was known as "The Biograph Girl," "The Imp Girl," and "The Girl of a Thousand Faces." Lawrence appeared in more than 270 films for various motion...
, who was featured in Biograph
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over three thousand short...
movies).
Producer Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...
promoted the first movie star
Movie star
A movie star is a celebrity who is well-known, or famous, for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. The term may also apply to an actor or actress who is recognized as a marketable commodity and whose name is used to promote a movie in trailers and posters...
. He was independent of the MPPC and used star promotion to fight the MPPC's control. Laemmle acquired Lawrence from Biograph. He spread a rumor that she had been killed in a streetcar accident. Then he combated this rumor by saying that she was doing fine and would be starring in an up-coming movie produced by his company, the Independent Moving Pictures Company
Independent Moving Pictures
The Independent Moving Pictures Company was a movie studio/production company founded in 1909 by Carl Laemmle, and was located at Eleventh Avenue and 53rd Street New York City, and in Fort Lee, New Jersey....
(IMP).
The development of film fan magazines gave fans knowledge about the actors outside of their film roles. Motion Picture Story Magazine (1911-) and Photoplay
Photoplay
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...
. They were initially focused on movies' stories, but soon found that more copies could be sold if they focused on the actors.
Also, precedents set by legitimate theater encouraged film to emulate the star system of the stage. Theater stars in the late 19th century were treated much like film stars came to be treated by the middle of the 20th century.
Star system in American cinema
The cinema operates from three eyes: the eyes of the director and the cameraman, the eyes of the protagonists, and finally, the eyes of the audience. The secret of the star system comes with the second one. In movies, the most efficient way to show the emotions of a certain character is by inserting a shot of him reacting to a specific action (generally, the action is placed just before or after). This is what is called a Reaction shotReaction shot
Reaction shot is a term used in motion picture production and cinematography referring to a basic unit of film grammar. It is a shot which cuts away from the main scene in order to show the reaction of a character to it....
The reaction shot is a substitution; a mimetic transfer of the spectator's feelings that brings him to identify himself in the star. It is like a mirror or a double, but with a sublimated image. Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
is a great example of the use of the reaction shot. In many of her films, the audience can appreciate many long close ups of her face reacting. At this point, the spectator has a privileged relationship with her; something even better than being her friend or a member of her family: for a moment, the viewer is Marilyn Monroe. In the Hollywood system, an actor can never really become a character: he is a star, no matter the quality of his performance.
Myths and dreams of a society
Another important aspect of the Hollywood star system is the stars' ability to convey the myths and dreams of their society, such as the myth of the "self made man", which for many viewers represents the belief that everyone has a chance of happiness in America. For a consumer of the star system, looking at these stars is a way to continue believing that anything is possible, regardless of class or money. Thus, the star system creates hopes and preserves the ideals of a still young country. The film industry is more than aware of this, and puts all of its power into the stars.Decline of the star system
From the 1930s to the 1960s, it was somewhat regular for studios to arrange the contractual exchange of talent (directors, actors) for prestige pictures. Stars would sometimes pursue these swaps themselves. Stars were becoming selective. Although punished and frowned upon by studio heads, several strong-willed stars received studio censure & publicity for refusing certain parts, on the belief that they knew better than the studio heads about the parts that were right for them. In one instance, Jane GreerJane Greer
Jane Greer was a film and television actress who was perhaps best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past.-Career:...
negotiated her contract out of Howard Hawk's hands over the limp roles he had been foisting on her. Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
and Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
both sued their studios to be free of their gag orders (Davis lost, de Havilland won). After completing The Seven Year Itch
The Seven Year Itch
The Seven Year Itch is a 1955 American film based on a three-act play with the same name by George Axelrod. The film was co-written and directed by Billy Wilder, and starred Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, reprising his Broadway role...
, Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
walked out on 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
and only returned when they acquiesced to her contract demands. The publicity accompanying these incidents fostered a growing suspicion among actors that a system more like being a free agent would be more personally beneficial to them than the fussy, suffocating star system. The studio-system instrument Photoplay
Photoplay
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...
gave way to the scandal-mongering Confidential
Confidential (magazine)
Confidential was a periodical published quarterly from December 1952 to August 1953, and then bi-monthly until 1978. It was founded by Robert Harrison and is considered a pioneer in scandal, gossip, and exposé journalism. Newsweek said it featured "sin and sex with a seasoning of right wing...
. In 1959 Shirley Maclaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
would sue famed producer Hal Wallis over a contractual dispute. This suit was another nail in the coffin. By the 1960s the days of the star system were numbered.
The conspiratorial aspect of the studio system manipulating images and reality, eventually began to falter as the world and the news media began to accept the dismantling of social boundaries and the manufactured virtue and wholesomeness of stars began to be questioned; taboos began to fall. By the 60s and 70s a new, more natural style of acting ("the Stanislavski Method") had emerged, been mythologized and enshrined; and individuality had been transformed into a treasured personal quality. With competition from TV, and entire studios changing hands, the star system faltered and did not recover. The studio system could no longer resist the changes occurring in entertainment, culture, labor, and news and it was completely gone by 1970.