MOVIE STAR: The Women Who Made Hollywood

by Ethan Mordden ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 8, 1983

Brief musings on 70 movie queens (""my own highly personal selection of actresses . . . superlative women, exemplary persons"")--with attempts to define why they became stars and why they faded. From the silent era, there are, among others, ""egotistically self-destructive"" Mae Murray; Zasu Pitts, a victim of type-casting; glamorous Gloria Swanson, killed off (unconvincingly) by the Depression; Mary Pickford, doomed by her ""indestructible, unvariable image""; and Lillian Gish, who's had ""the longest star career in history."" (Mordden, always quick but inconsistent with labels, changes his definition of ""star"" whenever convenient.) Then, on to fatally unglamorous Janet Gaynor, a murky glimpse of Garbo, a campy turn with Joan Crawford. (""She died in 1971, of unemployment."") Jean Harlow gets shrill defense: she ""has become the target of every journalist looking for a cheap cultural lay."" Mae West gets her own chapter--and oversimplified analysis: ""Most of West's shtick. . . is just the gay style exposed to the outsider."" Lucille Ball seems to be included just so Mordden can (echoing dozens of others) be bitchy about her in Mame, ""photographed behind enough gauze to outfit twenty hospitals. . . ."" Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis (""camp's principal victim"") get predictable treatment; so does Elizabeth Taylor, who, with The Little Foxes, ""had such a good time she celebrated by dumping Warner. . . ."" Audrey Hepburn's ""eminence as a comedienne"" is saluted; Ingrid Bergman is praised for being more a ""person"" than a star; Bo Derek and Raquel Welch are recoiled from; and so it goes--with major/minor others from Ann Harding to Meryl Streep. As usual, Mordden (The Hollywood Musical, The American Theatre) goes in for a mix of sarcasm and gush, often indulging in cutesy prose and a junior-college-lecture style. Also as usual, his generalizations become especially dubious whenever he strays into sociology (""The 1920s were the age of bunk, the 1930s that of inquiry""). And his comments on the phenomenon of stardom are almost always verbose statements of the obvious. (""They come, they are seen, they are given the world, they are dropped."") Rambling, sometimes-gossipy sludge--with a few misplaced pretensions and occasional shrewd notations on particular film performances.

Pub Date: June 8, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION