Flickers of Desire: Movie Stars of the 1910s PDF
Preview Flickers of Desire: Movie Stars of the 1910s
Flickers of Desire S T A R ★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩ AMERICAN CULTURE / AMERICAN CINEMA D E C A D E S Each volume in the series Star Decades: American Culture/American Cinema pre- sents original essays analyzing the movie star against the background of contempo- rary American cultural history. As icon, as mediated personality, and as object of audience fascination and desire, the Hollywood star remains the model for celebrity in modern culture and represents a paradoxical combination of achievement, talent, ability, luck, authenticity, superficiality, and ordinariness. In all of the volumes, star- dom is studied as an effect of, and influence on, the particular historical and indus- trial contexts that enabled a star to be “discovered,” to be featured in films, to be promoted and publicized, and ultimately to become a recognizable and admired— even sometimes notorious—feature of the cultural landscape. Understanding when, how, and why a star “makes it,” dazzling for a brief moment or enduring across decades, is especially relevant given the ongoing importance of mediated celebrity in an increasingly visualized world. We hope that our approach produces at least some of the surprises and delight for our readers that stars themselves do. ADRIENNE L.McLEAN AND MURRAY POMERANCE SERIES EDITORS Jennifer M. Bean, ed., Flickers of Desire: Movie Stars of the 1910s Patrice Petro, ed., Idols of Modernity: Movie Stars of the 1920s Adrienne L. McLean, ed., Glamour in a Golden Age: Movie Stars of the 1930s Sean Griffin, ed., What Dreams Were Made Of: Movie Stars of the 1940s R. Barton Palmer, ed., Larger Than Life: Movie Stars of the 1950s Pamela R. Wojcik, ed., New Constellations: Movie Stars of the 1960s James Morrison, ed., Hollywood Reborn: Movie Stars of the 1970s Robert Eberwein, ed., Acting for America: Movie Stars of the 1980s Anna Everett, ed., Pretty People: Movie Stars of the 1990s Murray Pomerance, ed., Shining in Shadows: Movie Stars of the 2000s Flickers of Desire Movie Stars of the 1910 s ★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩ EDITED BY JENNIFER M. BEAN RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Flickers of desire : movie stars of the 1910s / edited by Jennifer M. Bean. p. cm. — (Star decades : American culture / American cinema) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–8135–5014–5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978–0–8135–5015–2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States—Biography. I. Bean, Jennifer M., 1968– . PN1998.2.F5585 2011 791.4302'80922—dc22 [B] 2010035281 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This collection copyright © 2011 by Rutgers, The State University Individual chapters copyright © 2011 in the names of their authors All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America For my students C O N T E N T S ★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩ Acknowledgments ix Introduction:Stardom in the 1910s 1 JENNIFER M.BEAN 1 G.M.Anderson:“Broncho Billy” among the Early “Picture Personalities” 22 RICHARD ABEL 2 Mary Pickford:Icon of Stardom 43 CHRISTINE GLEDHILL 3 Lillian Gish:Clean,and White,and Pure as the Lily 69 KRISTEN HATCH 4 Sessue Hayakawa:The Mirror,the Racialized Body,and Photogénie 91 DAISUKE MIYAO 5 Theda Bara:Orientalism,Sexual Anarchy,and the Jewish Star 113 GAYLYN STUDLAR 6 Geraldine Farrar:A Star from Another Medium 137 ANNE MOREY 7 George Beban:Character of the Picturesque 155 GIORGIO BERTELLINI 8 Pearl White and Grace Cunard:The Serial Queen’s Volatile Present 174 MARK GARRETT COOPER 9 Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle:Comedy’s Starring Scapegoat 196 ROB KING 10 Douglas Fairbanks:Icon of Americanism 218 SCOTT CURTIS 11 Charles Chaplin:The Object Life of Mass Culture 242 JENNIFER M.BEAN In the Wings 264 JENNIFER M.BEAN Works Cited 269 Contributors 279 Index 283 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩ No book is written on a tabula rasa, and no author is alone with her obses- sions. This feeling of community is particularly acute when one shares the company of contributors such as these, each of whom I thank for their respective wisdom, their unwavering diligence, their shrewd thinking—and our shared passion. This book would not exist without the fierce encour- agement of the series editors, Adrienne L. McLean and Murray Pomerance, nor would it have a home without Leslie Mitchner, the visionary at Rutgers University Press, whose patient support has enabled more than a few words of thanks can convey. At the University of Washington, Megan Bertelsen offered foundational research and a keen eye for copy, while Anagha Kulkarni’s tireless and exacting assistance in the final stage of production demands an equal note of gratitude. I owe far more than just gratitude to Tom Gunning, who reminded me (among so many other things) that early cinema gained the name “flickers” from its association with the rapid motion of light and the “flickering” effect previously associated with the behavior of flames. Light’s ability not only to reveal, illuminate, and enlighten but also to conceal, cast shadows, and create illusion underlies the tense dance between truth and doubt that every moving image brings. A similarly strange dance surely defines our fascination with film stars, that luminous species whose appearances enchant and deceive even as they clarify what we otherwise might not recognize—or remember—as desired ideals. Although this collection is highly specialized in the sense that it scruti- nizes many figures and films buried by time, negligence, or habit, and although it attempts to cover ground that remains terra incognito even for other specialists, it is also meant for readers who care about the past out of intellectual curiosity rather than solely for professional reasons. I have been blessed these past few years with a special group of friends whose intelli- gence reminds me that technical jargon and academic snootiness can hin- der real learning. To Ernie Andres, Graeme Atkey, Chuck Burgess, Steve Davies, Gary Kratt, David Stob, and, especially, John O’Neal, I offer a rev- erent nod of praise, accompanied by heartfelt thanks for not only keeping me sane, but for teaching me to dodge the wickedest balls life can throw at you with an aggressive courage tempered by grace. I am indebted to my sis- ter, Stephanie Bean, and to Michael Gundle for discussing the issues ix
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