What was the role of the Hollywood studio system in creating and promoting stars?

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What was the role of the Hollywood studio system in creating and promoting stars?

A star is an actor whose persona transcends the total sum of his or hers performances. Their image may be rooted in specific roles, but it extends beyond them, establishing itself in subsidiary forms, in secondary representations of the actor’s persona, such as those found in magazines or tabloids.

In the late 1920s, it was estimated that over 32,250,000 fan letters were received annually by stars in Hollywood, portraying their impact on the public. From the mid-1930s through the early 1950s, over 500 journalists and newspaper correspondents gave Hollywood as their dateline, generating more than 100,000 words per day about the film industry, making Hollywood the third largest source of news information. This portrayed the size of the film industry and the power that the studios and stars held. Stars themselves, inhabit a different world from the rest of us, living by different rules.

The film “Singin’ in the rain” (1952) is a good portrayal of the studio system and there stars. To paraphrase Lina Lamont (Hagen) in “Singin’ in the rain “(1952), stars are not people but rather celestial bodies. Lina explains she is a “shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament.” But Lina is not a real star; she does not radiate her own light, but merely reflects light cast upon her by others. She has been carefully fabricated into a star. Partly product of studio press releases, reprinted verbatim by the media and digested without question by both the public and Lina herself. It also is partly the product of the film technology that functions o conceal her flaws.  Though she may look like a star, she doesn’t sound like a star – her lower-class voice lacks refinement, failing to match the glamour and sophistication of her appearance. This was easily avoidable by silent film. The answer to preserving her image comes by another actress, Kathy Sheldon (Debbie Reynolds), whom dubs her, substituting her voice or Lina’s dialogue and even song sequences. However, Linas phoniness is later exposed, as ultimately she is unmasked when the curtains are drawn back to show the public part of the invisible machinery that has allowed Lina to become a star; we see Reynolds, now revealed as the real star, singing the film’s title song in the background as Lina pathetically lip-syncs to her voice. In the opening sequence of Singin’ in the rain, a radio columnist (Dora) interviews stars attending the premier of the new Lockwood and Lamont picture. Dora’s presence indicates the role the media play in Hollywood’s construction of stars and their stardom, becoming the vehicle for the transmission of Don Lockwood’s exaggerated reconstruction of his past to the listening pubic. Lockwood has concocted a charming to tale that matches the elegance of his onscreen roles.  Again the movie exposes the artificial construction of stardom through the mismatch of voice and image.

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Stars also held power; saving studios because stars sell films. In 1919, when the investment firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company decided to bankroll Paramount, they did so based largely off the roster of the studios stars, which included Swanson, Fairbanks, William S. Hart and Frederick. Stars were assets that the studios could take to the bank. Some stars even recognised this and took themselves to the banks, forming their own studio. In late 1919, Pickford, Fairbanks and Chaplin along with director D.W. Griffith, formed United Artists, to distribute their own pictures. However, between the 1920s to the 1950s the ...

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