Christine Gledhill in “Stardom: Industry of Desire” explores the very beginning of stardom. When the concept of “star” didn’t even exist yet. In 1910, Carl Laemmle’s promotion of Florence Lawrence opened the door to the “star system.” At the time, Laemmle’s competitive move was criticized accusing him to be an independent trying to “take business away from the Patents Trust.” This is because, Lewis Jacobs reasons, as an independent you can afford to communicate to the audience the players who are going to appear in the movie you’re promoting, thus, playing with the public’s attraction for some of those players. Trust manufacturers were bound to keep the player’s identities secret because they figured out that any “public recognition actors received would inspire demands for bigger salaries.” Many other independents started following Laemmle’s footsteps, promoting their players by their real name.
Hampton explores that with theatre this system wouldn’t have worked because plays are mostly for a specific niche. The use of personalities had only been adopted on screen because it was a low-cost film exhibition that could reach the masses. That’s how the concept of star entered the “calculation of possible larger revenues.”
It was Anthony Slide who unveiled the first ever actor to be “recognized by the trade press.” Ben Turpin had his own story published on Moving Picture World in 1909, which was followed by other two articles in two other newspapers. Straight after, a new advertising technique was developed, posters with stills of the players and their names were being sold.
In 1910, a Nickelodeon’s writer said that “the fact that exhibitors themselves are becoming more and more interested in the personnel of those with whom they have become so familiar in the image” means that those individuals deserve public recognition.
Richard Decordova argues that “the emergence of the star system can perhaps best be seen as the emergence of a knowledge.” It is safe to say that this “picture personality” was a result of the production and circulation of knowledge, which was then amplified by publicity such as fan magazines. The emerging of the star almost completely depended on the type of knowledge produced by the actor. This was done following three main steps: the discourse of acting, the picture personality, and the star. It was important that the story seen on screen distinguished the profilmic from the real, to give the characters a fictional status. The Picture Personality was the first element of product individuation at that time. It was a well-played game of concealing some information of the player but revealing others, so to keep the audience interested. However, picture personality and star are two very distinctive statuses. In the beginning of 1090, the concept of star started to emerge, “the star is characterized by a fairly thoroughgoing articulation of the paradigm professional life/private life.” However, there are strict rules to this, Gledhill argues, “The real hero behaves just like the reel her.” It was important that the private life of the star could not be in contradiction with his/her film image.
I researched Rodolfo Valentino’s life, after being captured by his handsome looks in The Sheik, and discovered that he had a dark moment in his career during 1922. Up to that point, he was labeled as the “Great Lover,” because of his distinctive features and due to all the very masculine roles he played. However, after marrying Natacha Rambova, in 1922, something changed. Rambova controlled a major part of his acting career helping him choosing which roles to accept, and most of these roles were very feminine. Valentino would be criticized for his strong androgynous costumes and speculations started to fill up many rooms regarding his sexuality. Once he separated from Rambova, he went back to play very masculine and villainous roles, although many people still assumed he was homosexual. This proves that the audience associates what an actor is on screen with his/her personal life. Because Valentino betrayed his “Great Lover” persona, the public attacked him for it, because that’s what they wanted from him.
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