Recycled Stars: Female Film Stardom in the Age of Television and Video

Mary R. Desjardins

Published by Duke University Press 2015

Recycled Stars

Female Film Stardom in the Age of Television and Video

Mary R. Desjardins

In the series Console-ing passions: television and cultural power

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822376033

Overview
Contents

About this book

The popularity of television in postwar suburban America had a devastating effect on the traditional Hollywood studio system. Yet many aging Hollywood stars used television to revive their fading careers. In Recycled Stars, Mary R. Desjardins examines the recirculation, ownership, and control of female film stars and their images in television, print, and new media. Female stardom, she argues, is central to understanding both the anxieties and the pleasures that these figures evoke in their audiences’ psyches through patterns of fame, decline, and return. From Gloria Swanson, Loretta Young, Ida Lupino, and Lucille Ball, who found new careers in early television, to Maureen O’Hara’s high-profile 1957 lawsuit against the scandal magazine Confidential, to the reappropriation of iconic star images by experimental filmmakers, video artists, and fans, this book explores the contours of female stars’ resilience as they struggled to create new contexts for their waning images across emerging media.

Author / Editor information

Mary R. Desjardins is Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies at Dartmouth College. She is the coeditor of Dietrich Icon, also published by Duke University Press.

Reviews

"This meticulously researched book expertly draws from dazzling range material to produce a new understanding of how star images are produced and reproduced over time and to different ends."

-- Kristen Hatch Journal of American History

"Recycled Stars makes an original and sophisticated contribution to film and television studies and will be widely welcomed by readers and teachers. It is also illustrated with a delectable selection of stills that communicate the glamour and the sheer creepiness of the star images under discussion in equal measure."

-- Ruth Barton Journal of American Studies

"Desjardins covers [Gloria Swanson and Lucille Ball] and much more in this fascinating tome, which is richly illustrated with frame grabs from kinescopes, as she considers the shifting landscape of mid-20th-century female celebrity. Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers."

-- G. A. Foster Choice

"Well-written and using a rich variety of examples and methods, Recycled Stars is a useful and very readable addition to star studies, feminist media studies and film history."

-- Ellen Wright Celebrity Studies

"In addition to being multidisciplinary, this book demonstrates the importance of considering different elements of film studies together. Areas that were previously separate in film studies, such as stardom, fandom, and industrial factors, present a completely different understanding of the field when brought together—an understanding that could greatly benefit future research and study."

-- Catherine Bednarz International Journal of Communication

“Recycled Stars offers valuable insights into the relationships between stars and their publics, extending traditional scholarship by evaluating their impacts and consequences beyond a specific historical moment.”

-- Patrick Kent Russell Journal of American Culture

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER ONE “The Elegance . . . Is Almost Overwhelming” Glamour and Discursive Struggles over Female Stardom in Early Television Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
CHAPTER TWO Norma Desmond, Your Spell Is Everywhere The Time and Place of the Female Film Star in 1950s Television and Film Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
CHAPTER THREE Maureen O’Hara’s “Confidential” Life Recycling Hollywood Film Stars in the 1950s through Scandalous Gossip and Moral Biography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
CHAPTER FOUR After the Laughter Recycling Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as a Star Couple Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
CHAPTER FIVE Star Bodies, Star Bios Stardom, Gender, and Identity Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	305

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 320
Illustrations
- Other: 48 illustrations

eBook

Published: April 26, 2015
ISBN: 9780822376033