The Image

by DANIEL J. BOORSTIN

  From here it looks as though Da Costa in particular stands to clean up under the terms of the agreement. In addition to directing the play, he is assured of the same job when the cameras start turning. Furthermore, as collaborator on the dramatization with Sneider, he will cut in on the profits from the adaptation; and as an extra wallet stuffer, his own independent outfit, Belgrave Productions, will co-produce the motion picture with Columbia.

  These are the highlights of the agreement, which has other details setting it apart from the usual. Abe Lastfogel, the big gun at the William Morris Agency, presided over negotiations, with Claire S. Degener of Curtis Brown, Ltd., co-operating as Sneider’s representative.

  It is known that other movie companies, visualizing The King from Ashtabula as a lucrative successor to the same author’s Teahouse of the August Moon, were desirous of tying up the rights but boggled at the conditions.

  In order to stir interest in the sale of movie rights to a book, the book need not yet have been written. Nor even need the supposed writer of the non-existent book himself be an author.

  In this week of the out-of-the-ordinary, the disclosure that Bernard Geis Associates plans to publish the autobiography of entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., has stirred lively interest which has manifested itself in an extreme form. On hearing the news, one of the major studios straightway dispatched a messenger to the office of Scott Meredith, agent for the book, with a sizable offer for screen rights. The offer has not at the moment been accepted. For one thing, Davis’ own services as a performer are expected to be part of the package, and it is thought to be too early to make a commitment along such lines—especially since work on the book itself won’t be starting till January at least.

  Davis will have the assistance of a friend, Burt Boyar, syndicated columnist for the Newhouse papers, in setting his life down on paper.

  In an earlier instance the Meredith agency did sell the picture rights to a book then unwritten. That one, Evan Hunter’s Mothers and Daughters (to be published by Simon and Schuster late this spring), has now been completed, and German rights have just gone to Kindler Verlag, in a deal closed with their representative here, Maximilian Becker, for a record $17,000 advance. Also, Corgi has just acquired British paperback rights on a £15,000 advance.

  In this world of the shadows of shadows, the very concept of literary authorship dissolves and disappears. William Wyler’s presentation of Ben Hur opened on Broadway in 1959 with high-priced reserved seats, a printed program, and all the familiar paraphernalia of the movie spectacular. The detailed printed program listed everybody from Sam Zimbalist, the producer, to Joan Bridge who was Color Consultant for Costumes, and Gabriella Borzelli, the hair stylist. But it nowhere listed the name of Lew Wallace, the author.

  Since both Lew Wallace and his copyright had long since expired, there was nobody to protest. When the author is still alive, however, he sometimes objects that his work has been “adapted” out of existence. This has led to a number of lawsuits, which authors have seldom won. One of the most memorable and most ironic occurred in 1931 when Theodore Dreiser sought a court injunction to prevent a New York theater from presenting the Paramount movie of his American Tragedy. The movie (based both on the novel and on a stage play adapted from the novel), according to Dreiser, had reduced his work from a subtle exploration of how a whole society can be responsible for one young man’s crime to a “tabloid murder story.” Dreiser lost his case.

  In the movie world the distilling of novels into films, as Van Nostrand observes, has become a series of standard processes. In Hollywood jargon these include the making of a “treatment” (a narrative based on a synopsis), the development of a “continuity” (translating the treatment into movie scenes), and the concocting of a “shooting script.” This is finally elaborated by “cross-cutting” (showing alternate shots of different scenes), by the “gimmick” or “switcheroo” (suddenly cutting to another scene and revealing new facts to heighten suspense), by the “yak” (a funny surprise), and the “bleeder” (a pathetic surprise). A comparable set of transformations takes place whenever a novel, a stage play, or a movie is adapted into a television show. Such multiplication of the media into which a dramatic notion can be cast inevitably divorces the content from literary form.

  Compared with the twentieth-century movie adaptations of novels, John Dryden’s “adaptations” or Thomas Bowdler’s “family” versions of Shakespeare look like literal transcription. The very notion of literary art—“the word one with the thing”—disappears from the popular mind. Each embodiment then competes with all others for the kudos of being the “original.” Out of this competition, by the law of pseudo-events, the winner in the viewer’s consciousness is the embodiment most remote from the naive, spontaneous product of an author.

  VII

  OUT OF the Graphic Revolution came still another phenomenon dissolving the traditional forms of dramatic literature. This was the “star system.” It would have been unthinkable without the invention of photography and motion pictures, without the many new means for reproducing stories and faces and images.

  “Stars” were the celebrities of the entertainment world. Like other celebrities they were to be distinguished by their well-knownness more than by any other quality. In them, as in other celebrities, fame and notoriety were thoroughly confused. Their hallmark was simply and primarily their prominence in popular consciousness, and it made very little difference how this publicity was secured. They could become well known either by flaunting morality (Mary Pickford) or by flouting it (Mae West). As a species of celebrities, stars, too, were spawned in the world of pseudo-events. And they, too, were fertile of other pseudo-events. It is not surprising, then, that movie stars became our celebrities par excellence. In 1940 about 300 correspondents were assigned to Hollywood, which was the largest single source of news (an estimated 100,000 words a day) in the United States outside of Washington, D.C., and New York City.

  Although not born with the movies, the star system emerged within the first decade or so of the commercial life of the motion pictures, and under appropriately pseudo-eventful auspices. Early in 1908 an issue of Moving Picture World carried an advertisement showing a photograph of the beautiful movie actress Florence Lawrence, over the word “Imp,” and reading as follows:

  We Nail a Lie

  The blackest and at the same time the silliest lie yet circulated by enemies of the “Imp” was the story foisted on the public of St. Louis last week to the effect that Miss Lawrence (the “Imp” girl, formerly known as the “Biograph” girl) had been killed by a street car. It was a black lie because so cowardly. It was a silly lie because so easily disproved. Miss Lawrence was not even in a street-car accident, is in the best of health, will continue to appear in “Imp” films, and very shortly some of the best work in her career is to be released. We now announce our next films:

  “The Broken Bath”

  (Released March 14th. Length 950 feet.)

  A powerful melodrama dealing with a young chap, his sweetheart and a secret society. There’s action from the first foot of film and …

  This advertisement was purporting to answer a story in the St. Louis newspapers which had said that Florence Lawrence, known to nickelodeon fans as the “Biograph girl” (she made films for the Biograph film company), had been killed in a streetcar accident. In his advertisement Carl Laemmle meant to imply that the newspaper story had been concocted by his competitors, the film trust, to prevent the public from learning that Miss Lawrence had left Biograph for Laemmle’s company and that in the future she would be lending her fame and face and figure to his productions. Actually Laemmle had planted the original newspaper story himself, for publicity purposes. The whole episode, including Laemmle’s advertised “reply,” was only his characteristic way of announcing that Miss Lawrence, then the most popular personality in films, was now his property.

  This was not the only such stunt that the ingenious Laemmle used to discredit his competitors and to
advertise his own products. It was true that the big General Film Company, sometimes disparagingly called “the trust,” for whom Miss Lawrence had worked, had refused to give out the names of actors. This was both because General Film were trying to standardize film manufacture (keeping it uncluttered by individual personalities) and because they foresaw that if individual actors became famous and known by name, the actors would command higher pay. Among some early movie companies this practice had become a strict rule. But the nickelodeon public insisted on individualizing their favorites, and gave them such names as the “Biograph girl,” the “little girl with the golden curls,” etc. Independent movie-makers like Laemmle, seeing a competitive advantage, and realizing that the public did not like its actors kept anonymous, then began strenuously publicizing their own actors. Incidentally, they were able to lure over to their own studios from the larger companies the actors and actresses who wanted both more publicity and more money. Geraldine Farrar (followed by Mary Garden) signed with Samuel Goldwyn at $10,000 a week. Movie stars became gilded idols. Their salaries soon were the biggest single item in a film budget.

  The star system, as Richard Griffith and Arthur Mayer explain in their excellent pictorial history of the movies, was thus in a sense created by the public itself: by movie-goers who would not be satisfied by anonymous idols. They demanded that their idols be named—and be apotheosized by expensive publicity. In a word, that they be made into celebrities with the characteristics described in an earlier chapter. What movie-goers wanted in a star was not a strong character, but a definable, publicizable personality: a figure with some physical idiosyncrasy or personal mannerism which could become a nationally advertised trademark. Among these were John Bunny’s jovial bulk, Mary Pickford’s golden curls and winsome smile, Douglas Fairbanks’ waxed mustache and energetic leap, Maurice Costello’s urbanity, Charlie Chaplin’s bowed legs and cane, and Clara Kimball Young’s calf eyes. Acting ability and symmetry of face or figure became less important than the capacity to be made into a trademark.

  Many producers—not only Laemmle, but also Adolf Zukor, with his Famous Players (1912), and Cecil B. De Mille—helped develop the star system. The keynote of the new era was set when Zukor imported Sarah Bernhardt, who had been world-famous for her voice, to act in the silent film of Queen Elizabeth. The film-star legend of the accidentally discovered soda-fountain girl who was quickly elevated to stardom soon took its place alongside the log-cabin-to-White-House legend as a leitmotif of American democratic folklore. And the legend could reflect reality precisely because there really was so much chance and whimsy in the star-selecting process. A former prison guard, a hat-check girl—or anyone else who happened to have “what it takes” (which included a distinctive commonplaceness of personality, but seldom much acting talent)—might get the “breaks” and make it to the top. This helped make the movies a democratic art and made Hollywood the American dream factory in an age when dream and illusion were hardly distinguished.

  By about 1920 the star system was well established. It has dominated the screen and much else ever since. Mary Pickford—“America’s Sweetheart”—was among the first stars. There followed many others: John Barrymore, Minnie Maddern Fiske, James K. Hackett, William S. Hart, Pola Negri, Dorothy Gish, Clara Bow, Greta Garbo, Rudolph Valentino, etc., etc., etc. This great innovation has sometimes been described as a movement from the “star film” (the movie which included a famous actor) to the “film star” (the personality whose mere presence made a film). Producers quickly found that the star system paid. Even if they had no new drama to sell, they could do well by displaying the same star in turn in a variety of new vehicles. The more money the film stars made for their producers, the more money producers were in turn willing to invest in “making” particular stars. Of course producers had to pay well and invest heavily in order to protect their investment and to meet competition. The high cost of making new stars led the producer who had a star with proved box-office appeal to exploit him in every conceivable way before his appeal wore out. Despite spectacular exceptions like Marlene Dietrich, the artificial celebrity life of a star was apt to be brief. For this very reason some actors were said to prefer to play supporting roles in order to make their careers less ephemeral.

  High salaries became news and themselves helped make stars into celebrities. These salaries in turn re-enforced the star system. Producers could not afford to abandon it.

  The great significance of the star system for literary and dramatic form was simply that the star came to dominate the form and make it irrelevant. Of course the star had first appeared as an actor—a person skilled at playing assigned roles. Originally it was the play that gave form to the product. But when the system became established, the relation between play and player was reversed. The sign of a true star was in fact that whatever he appeared in was only a “vehicle.” The actor himself was no longer tested by his ability to interpret the play. Instead, the play was tested by its ability to display the actor. But the actor himself was an empty vessel. He was no true hero; usually he was a mere celebrity—a human pseudo-event, “the greatest.” To exploit a star meant only to show his familiar face and figure and gestures, and always as much as possible in his familiar role. It was less what he could do than how widely he was known, how “popular” he was, that made him, and kept him, a star. Again the self-fulfilling prophecy of the true pseudo-event. Every time an actor appeared in a starring role, that fact itself made him more of a star, and, of course, more of a celebrity.

  Each star soon became type-cast. This meant that every one of his appearances had to be more of the same. By definition, then, the star could not offer anything strikingly new. The vehicle would be unacceptable to him unless it re-enforced his desired image. A sign of the rise of the star system, noted by historians of the film, was that about 1914 Febo Mari refused to wear a beard as Attila and Alberto Capozzi rejected the role of St. Paul because it would require him to wear a beard. Stars commonly refused roles or costumes which seemed inappropriate to their star personality, or which concealed the face already well known to millions. Occasionally before, a stage play had been written for a particular actor. Now it became standard practice for a screen play to be modified, a new character to be inserted, or a whole plot developed, to meet the box-office proved specifications of the stars.

  As the star rose, he became one with his roles. Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne, who were the first starring movie “love team” (Romeo and Juliet, 1916), kept their marriage a secret for fear it would tarnish their romantic appeal. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were married (1920; divorced, 1935) by the logic of a world which, as one writer has observed, “existed, really, more through the screen than on the screen.” “People say,” Jean Gabin once remarked, “I’m the same in real life as I am in my movies, and that’s why they like me.” Charles Boyer received a letter addressed to him c/o Mayerling, Hollywood, U.S.A. In 1936 the Gary Cooper Fan Club of San Antonio boomed him for President of the United States: they said he had already demonstrated his political acumen in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

  Everyone knows, of course, that a star is not born, but made. The familiar process was well described by Edgar Morin:

  A talent scout is struck by a promising face in the subway. Proposition, test photo, test recording. If the tests are conclusive, the young beauty leaves for Hollywood. Immediately put under contract, she is refashioned by the masseurs, the beauticians, the dentists, even the surgeons. She learns to walk, loses her accent, is taught to sing, to dance, to stand, to sit still, to “hold herself.” She is instructed in literature, ideas. The foreign star whom Hollywood cuts back to starlet level sees her beauty transformed, recomposed, Max-Factorized, and she learns American. Then there are more tests: among others a 30-second close-up in technicolor. There is a new winnowing-out. She is noticed, approved, and given a minor role. Her car, her servants, her dogs, her goldfish, her birds are chosen for her. Her personality grows more complex, becomes enri
ched. She waits for letters. Nothing. Failure. But one day or the next the Fan Mail Department might notify the Executive Producer that she is receiving 300 letters a day from admirers. The studio decides to launch her, and fabricates a fairy tale of which she is the heroine. She provides material for the columnists; her private life is already illuminated by the glare of the projectors. At last she is given the lead in a major film. Apotheosis: the day when her fans tear her clothes: she is a star.

  Plainly the star is a pseudo-event. He proves it by spawning other pseudo-events. The Fan Club, for example. Although these clubs are generally not fomented by a press agent, they are encouraged by press agents and by the star himself. When the star visits a city, the local fan club becomes a body guard, following the fan about, attracting attention, asking for autographs, and encouraging non-members to do the same. The star sometimes has a series of photographs of himself—posing in his “real” costume in character—with some token of the season, holding lilies or bunnies or holly berries or turkeys, to send to his fan clubs. Nelson Eddy, for example, once sent a Christmas box of chocolates to each of the presidents of his fan clubs in different cities. The Bing Crosby Club of Ramseur, North Carolina (including 40 per cent of the population) once persuaded the city government to rename a thoroughfare Crosby Street. In 1960 Ricky Nelson alone had some 9,000 fan clubs. Early in that year the national secretary of the fan club for the Ozzie Nelson family was receiving every week about 10,000 letters and between 120 and 150 requests to start “official” fan clubs for some member of the family (mostly for Ricky). The Deanna Durbin Club, with higher standards than others, had limited membership to fans who: (1) had seen each of Deanna’s movies at least twice, (2) presented an important collection of documents about Deanna, and (3) subscribed to the Deanna Journal. Dues of fan clubs are commonly about fifty cents a year.