Glamour in a Golden Age: Movie Stars of the 1930s

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Glamour in a Golden Age AMERICAN CULTURE / AMERICAN CINEMA Each volume in the series Star Decades: American Culture/American Cinema presents original essays analyzing the movie star against the background of contemporary 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, stardom is studied as an effect of, and influence on, the particular historical and industrial 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 S T A R D E C A D E S ★★★★★★★★★★ ✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩ Glamour in a Golden Age Movie Stars of the 1930s EDITED BY ADRIENNE L. McLEAN ★★★★★★★★★★ ✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩ RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS N E W B R U N S W I C K , N E W J E R S E Y, A N D L O N D O N L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S C ATA L O G I N G - I N - P U B L I C AT I O N D ATA Glamour in a golden age : movie stars of the 1930s / edited by Adrienne L. McLean. p. cm. — (Star decades : American culture / American cinema) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–8135–4904–0 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978–0–8135–4905–7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—United States—History—20th century. I. McLean, Adrienne L. PN1993.5U6G53 2011 791.430973'09043—dc22 2010013761 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 Larry and my parents, and with dearest love always to Cary Grant ...