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

1. Not of Hollywood: Ruth Chatterton, Ann Harding, Constance Bennett, Kay Francis, and Nancy Carroll

18 ★★★★★★★★★★ ✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩ 1 Not of Hollywood Ruth Chatterton, Ann Harding, Constance Bennett, Kay Francis, and Nancy Carroll MARY DESJARDINS Clockwise from top right: Ruth Chatterton, Constance Bennett, Nancy Carroll, Kay Francis, and Ann Harding. All collection of the author. The careers of Ruth Chatterton, Ann Harding, Constance Bennett, Kay Francis, and Nancy Carroll, all cast and promoted as major stars between 1929 and 1937, have heretofore largely escaped sensationalized mythologizing as well as scholarly scrutiny. They were frequently mentioned in or featured as the subjects of major fan magazine stories, their physical assets and manner—from the chic slimness of the golden-haired, smartly attired Constance Bennett to the womanly curves of the maturely confident Ruth Chatterton and the girlish round face of the red-headed Carroll—assessed in relation to emerging styles in fashion and look. Tall, dark Kay Francis’s hair was transformed from a boyish cut to a crown of black waves, but her sleek model-like figure just as easily accommodated the lush velvet gowns of the new decade as it had the crepe and lace tea frocks of the twenties. Ann Harding’s fair skin, long ash-blonde hair, and deep voice combined the nineteenth-century maiden with the steely sophisticate of the new century. They were diverse film performers, fluent in both comedy and melodrama, paid among the highest salaries in the business, and recognized by the industry for their acting excellence (by 1931, Chatterton, Carroll, and Harding had been nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress). At the end of the decade, however, all the women had been relegated to supporting roles or to starring roles in B-films, or were exiting the film business altogether. Shifts in social and cultural values greatly affected the initial success and subsequent decline of these stars and their industry status and popularity among fans. Specific studio practices in the 1930s, such as the production of various subgenres of the “woman’s film,” increased reliance on fan magazine journalism and product tie-ups and tie-ins for film promotion . Strategies for “handling” actors’ labor, particularly in relation to salaries, loan-outs, and control over choice of roles, also figure in the short career trajectories of these actresses as stars. The studio system in the early 1930s was in the precarious position of negotiating a dependence on female stars for some part of its economic stability and much of its cultural capital at a time when what was considered desiring and desirable femininity (in the lived reality of the social sphere as well as films) was shaped by con- flicting discourses about women, work, and sexuality. The images and careers of Chatterton, Harding, Bennett, Francis, and Carroll illuminate how these wider social conflicts were mediated by conflicts within Hollywood as it continued to grow not only in cultural capital, but as a capital— and an industry—of culture. All five stars would at first be embraced as valued citizens of that capital, but ultimately be cast aside as being not “of Hollywood.” NOT OF HOLLYWOOD 19 ★ ✩★ ✩★ ✩★ ✩★ ✩ The Voice of Sex-Appeal: Female Stars and the Transition to Sound All the stars under consideration here made their first pictures in the very last years of silent film production or at the transition to sound. Much of the earliest publicity about them is concerned with how their vocal abilities signal technical excellence and allow them to play particular female types or in particular genres. Kay Francis “vamps” with sound (Photoplay, October 1929, 51), Ann Harding has a “sex-appeal voice” (Photoplay, October 1929, 41), and Ruth Chatterton is acknowledged as having a “beautifully modulated” voice (Los Angeles Times 2 February 1929, C12) that makes her the “talkies’ most consummately skilled emotional actress” (Fortune, July 1930, 38–39). Nancy Carroll is touted as the first actress to sing and dance into a movie microphone (for Abie’s Irish Rose [1928]) (Nemcheck 15). Constance Bennett became quickly recognized for a husky, cultured voice that served her well in both love scenes and smart repartee (Kellow 127). The strategies adopted by the studios to create new stars or sustain old ones for the talkies—namely, the offering of contracts to stage-trained acting talent while ordering established film performers into lessons on diction and enunciation—encouraged a general atmosphere of panic among actors. Because of their stage experience and, in some cases, fluency in foreign languages , Chatterton, Harding...