Taking Fame to Market : On the Pre-History and Post-History of Hollywood Stardom

This book explores, from a sociological perspective, the relationship between acting as symbolic work and the commercialization of popular culture. Particular attention is paid to the social conditions that gave rise to stardom in the theatre and cinema, and how shifts in the marketing of stars have impacted upon contemporary celebrity culture. The spatialization of identity in actingKEY; Early stars and the vestigial persona; Enter Kean; 4: Emergent Modes of Stellar Being; The market erosion of personage; The transatlantic transfer; A proto-cinema; Americanizing cinema; 5: Writing the Stars; Positioning stardom; A small history of synoptic binding; Parsing stardom; Anagraphic positioning; Biographic positioning; 6: The High Tide of Biography; The context for Autography; The other side of the field: the gauge of the audience; 7: The Rise of Autography; Enter Confidential; The seeding of autography; People Magazine Cover; Taking Fame to Market; Contents; List of Tables; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Coming to terms; Acting and the semiotics of visibility; 1: Unsettling Identities: From Custom to Price; The new order of the market as a risk society; Merchant psychology; Theatre and the market; From politeness to etiquette; To be is a matter of taste; 2: The Formation of Stardom; Garrick's path to stardom; Garrick's progress: from wage labourer to impresario; The space of stardom; The tactics of identity; The representational grammar of acting; 3: Garrick as a Personage Front Matter....Pages i-vii Introduction....Pages 1-12 Unsettling Identities: From Custom to Price....Pages 13-38 The Formation of Stardom....Pages 39-61 Garrick as a Personage....Pages 63-88 Emergent Modes of Stellar Being....Pages 89-106 Writing the Stars....Pages 107-131 The High Tide of Biography....Pages 133-150 The Rise of Autography....Pages 151-175 The End of Seeming....Pages 177-205 Back Matter....Pages 207-256 Sharon writes herself8: The End of Seeming; (1) Macaulay eats a pizza; (2) Lady Gaga; Stardom, celebrity and commodity life; Fame as tokenism; Notes; Introduction; 1 Unsettling Identities: From Custom to Price; 2 The Formation of Stardom; 3 Garrick as a Personage; 4 Emergent Modes of Stellar Being; 5 Writing the Stars; 6 The High Tide of Biography; 7 The Rise of Autography; 8 The End of Seeming; Bibliography; Index