In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

In early 1913, moviegoers from Des Moines or St. Paul to Toledo, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh could have paused, reading their local Scripps-McRae newspaper , and looked more closely at a story signed by Gertrude Price and headlined “Stunning Mary Pickford.” The story would have heartened those who agreed that Pickford had “probably the largest following among feminine moving picture players,” would have amazed even those who did not know that the former “Biograph girl” was taking in a salary of $10,000 a year, and would have disheartened nearly all with the news that she was quitting the movies—yet not for good—to become a New York stage star in David Belasco ’s production of The Good Little Devil.1 Had any of those moviegoers— especially my imagined young working women—had the opportunity, in January , to catch The New York Hat, the last film Pickford made with D. W. Griffith at Biograph before signing with David Belasco, they also might have collected a free postcard of the star at one of their local picture theaters showing licensed films.2 Pickford, of course, was just one of many picture players whose frequent appearances on screen had become so appealing to movie fans. Indeed, the stars and the star system that was being put in place to support them arguably offered an alternative to the strategies guaranteeing audience satisfaction mapped in previous chapters—that is, manufacturers ’ or distributors’ brand names, variations on recurring stories and situations (especially those of sensational melodramas), and, eventually, regularized special features. And this strategy arguably may have been the most significant of all for a rapidly expanding fan culture in creating and sustaining the ever-renewed desire to “go to the movies.” The general outlines of the star system’s emergence in the early 1910s are familiar enough through the historical research and theoretical work of such scholars as Richard deCordova, Janet Staiger, Eileen Bowser, and Kathryn Chapter 6 “The Power of Personality in Pictures” Movie Stars and “Matinee Girls” 231 232 the power of personality in pictures Fuller Seeley.3 Their studies have shown that, although the legitimate theater and vaudeville provided precedents for such a system, “picture personalities” were somewhat different from stage performers: as commodities, they served as a “viable means of product differentiation” across a series of films, certainly , but their singular bodies and faces also served as hermeneutic lures for fans to find out more and more about their favorites, as deCordova has written , continually accruing knowledge as well as renewing their pleasure from one film to another, from one week to the next.4 As informative and insightful as their work has been, however, it has relied almost exclusively on a selective reading of the trade press as well as early fan magazines. What I propose here is to offer a more finely nuanced analysis of the nature and function of the star system, and those who were its fans, by extending the discourse on stars to include largely unexamined material in selected daily newspapers and by rereading some that may seem familiar in the trade press as well as the first fan magazine. Moreover, I want to reconsider that system in conjunction with the concept of personality, “both the unique qualities of an individual and the performing self that attracts others,” a concept that circulated widely at the time and that, Warren Susman long ago suggested, “found brilliant expression” in the development of moving pictures after 1910.5 Finally, my analysis also unfolds (as have previous chapters), at least in part, within the context of the Americanization process so characteristic of the period, for much of this discourse on movie stars introduces an intriguing spin on the contentious process of imagining a national identity. Shaping the Star System: The Fan Magazine and the Newspaper Both deCordova and Bowser have sketched the initial phases of the industry’s response to what Moving Picture World perceived, by 1909–10, as a growing demand by moviegoers for more information about their “favorite actors and actresses.”6 In late 1909, for instance, Kalem printed a group photo of its principal actors for exhibitors to display in their theater lobbies.7 In March 1910, Laemmle launched an infamous publicity campaign to promote Florence Lawrence (formerly of Biograph) as the major star of IMP, his new production company.8 This campaign included several “events”—from a faked news story of Lawrence’s death in a traffic accident to her surprise visit to St...

Share