EXHIBITION
Magazines
20 JUNE - 28 SEPTEMBER 2008
Star-Makers
In the 1920s, Hollywood devised the star system, employing actors on long term contracts, and creating their public image.
Studio publicity departments regularly turned out free stories and photographs promoting their stars. Newspapers and the new fan magazines eagerly published them as it increased their circulation and satisfied the public’s insatiable interest in the stars they saw at the cinema every week.
The star system ended in the 1950s. Since then, both the film industry and the media have changed considerably but the close relationship between publicists and the media continues.
Shooting Stars
Cary Grant and Jean Harlow, Suzy, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1936 by Ted Allan. Courtesy of the John Kobal Foundation
Film studios employed teams of photographers, retouchers and printers who produced hundreds of pictures each day. The publicity departments regularly sent out thousands of prints to newspapers, magazines and fans.
One or two photographers at each studio worked exclusively on glamorous star portraits. Creating such intimate portraits demanded a high level of trust between star and photographer, often developed over several years. Some stars would only work with a particular photographer
Stars on Set
Russell Crowe, Gladiator (2000), © Jaap Buitendijk
While some studio photographers concentrated on creating the star image, others worked on set, alongside the director and crew, to produce publicity photographs for each film. Such unit stills photographers have to capture the essence of a film without disrupting its production.
Of the thousands of stills taken, only a few are chosen for press publicity. Until the 1960s, photographs were also reproduced as lobby cards, publicising films at cinemas. Today, the photographer’s work is used more widely – for posters, DVDs, books and other film-related products.
An Outside View
Audrey Hepburn My Fair Lady, 1963, © Bob Willoughby
Despite its thirst for publicity, the film industry is wary of allowing ‘outsiders’ onto sets or gaining access to stars. However, in the 1950s studios began inviting photographers from popular picture magazines on set.
Soon, studios started employing freelance photojournalists as ‘special’ photographers. Their success in getting photo stories published resulted in wider publicity than the studios’ own photographers generated.
As the studio system disappeared in the 1950s and production crew became freelance, the film world became more accessible to photographers from fashion and lifestyle magazines.
Falling Stars
Vanessa Redgrave being taken away by a policeman, 24 March 1962
The Daily Herald Picture Library at the National Media Museum.
Just like us, stars have personal lives. Part of the media loves to uncover the ‘reality’ behind the glamour – particularly scandals involving sex, relationships, drugs and bad behaviour.
The stalking of film stars by photographers began in the 1930s and increased in the 1960s with the emergence of the paparazzi. Today, it is an inescapable part of many film stars’ lives.
Some stars cope better then others, actively using their celebrity status to promote political causes or commercial interests.
Self Image
Catherine Zeta-Jones, © Alistair Morrison/Time to Reflect project.
Always in the spotlight, with a public persona created for and by the media, it isn’t surprising that stars can lose sense of their own identity, sometimes with disastrous consequences.
What happens when stars take control and produce their own image? For his UNICEF project Time to Reflect, Alistair Morrison persuaded hundreds of celebrities, including film stars, to make their own images in a photo booth and write a message of inspiration for the future.