Do we still have movie stars?

[redmustang]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:04pm

Had lunch with my sister's 15 year-old niece shortly after the Oscars. I asked her if she watched the show. "No." Asked her who her favorite movie stars were. She seemed unsure (uncomfortable?) of the term. She called them "people in movies." Are all the movie stars gone? I consider actresses like Monroe, Novak, Taylor, Hayworth, Davis and both Hepburns movie stars. But is Judi Dench a movie star? Meryl Streep is a great actress, but is she a movie star? To me, movie stars were always well-dressed, beautiful, elegant, and could walk well in evening gowns and heels (at least the females.) Has the younger generation of actresses lost the aura and mystique of a "movie star?"

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:08pm

Can Meryl Streep not walk well in an evening gown and heels?

This is kind of silly.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:08pm

I really need Angelina Jolie & Charlize Theron to make a movie together to make up for Marilyn Monroe & Elizabeth Taylor never being in a film together.

It's so rare to see two strong, beautiful women hold the screen together. If they do, they're usually playing enemies. (Charlize and Teri Hatcher in 2 Days in the Valley come to mind. They were pretty great together, but still.)

Updated On: 3/7/14 at 03:08 PM

[tazber]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:10pm

I think there a dozens of definitions of what qualifies someone to be a "movie star".

Based on your view I would say Angelina Jolie.

Always poised, always aloof, wildly popular despite her sporadic output.

And gorgeous.

There is a mystique about her.

[Wildcard]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:13pm

The times have changed. There are no more studios to carefully craft a stars' image. Likewise, with the internet, paparazzi and social media, the everyday lives of actors are well documented hence removing the mystique. So because of that, the definition of today's movie star is different from those you mentioned.

We still have them though… Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney to name a few.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:15pm

That's nothing. You want to know a term that's lost all meaning? "Porn star".

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:25pm

LOL

Everyone with a camcorder is a porn star now. The magic is gone.

Movie stars aren't made the same way today, but neither are movies. The studio system is gone. If you're talking about putting on glamorous gowns and jewels and creating that Hollywood mystique, some do it some don't. It's harder with camera's everywhere and access available to all via the Internet. There's no studio to control over who is seen when and how. So much of that was "make believe" and just as much part of the "show" as being in a film. It wasn't real life, even to see a famous star in a restaurant. It was planned, choreographed, rehearsed, and given wardrobe and makeup just as much as any scene in a film.

So yes, those days are gone.

EDIT: And we may have Judi Dench today, but they had Marie Dressler back then. Both hugely popular older women who played everything in movies from homeless tramps to dowagers.

Updated On: 3/7/14 at 03:25 PM

[redmustang]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:34pm

Angelina and Cate. Yes. Movie stars.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:40pm

You better tell that the the 15 year old you made uncomfortable.

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:42pm

It sounds as of you're really asking "do we still have elegance?" We have some terrific actresses still making movies. Besides the ones previously mentioned I'd like to add Jessica Lange to the mix.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 5:24pm

We certainly still have glamor. You just have to watch the Oscars to see that. But what fewer and fewer "movie stars" have is that aloofness and distance that makes them "other" and apart from the general population. In our age, I think having a publicly available Twitter or Instagram account is the first sign of no longer being a "movie star". I don't think it's an accident that George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Brad Bitt, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Robert Downey Jr, Will Smith, Nicole Kidman don't have Twitter accounts. They (and their teams) understand the value of being somewhat inaccessible to the public.

[SweetLips]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 5:40pm

Well said HorseTears-agree with every word.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 6:02pm

Almost everyone is more casual nowadays. (We used to wear ties and sports coats to ride on an airplane!)

And in addition to the internet, discussed widely above, everyone appears on TV, a more intimate medium that comes right into our homes.

I think people like Ben Affleck (like him or not), George Clooney and Brad Pitt certainly would have been old-fashioned movie stars under the studio system. They certainly command my attention on screens large and small. Ditto for Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, etc.

It's been a few years but BOUNCE reminded me of a certain type of "domestic" studio product. Its plot could have been a MOW, but Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck did what they do best: command the big screen. (But of course most of us who saw it did so on video.)

Updated On: 3/7/14 at 06:02 PM

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 6:17pm

Bigger question: Do we NEED movie stars?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 6:24pm

It would be quite odd given the changes in society since the 1950s to expect that successful movie actresses in 2014 would behave like successful movie actresses of the 1950s did or project the kind of images of relentless unimpeachable glamor that some - but not all - golden age (and circa) Hollywood movie stars did. To expect Meryl Streep to brand herself like Joan Crawford would be certifiably crazy.

However, if you are suggesting that women like Charlize Theron, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Diane Kruger, Kerry Washington, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Halle Berry, Naomi Watts, Jennifer Connelly, Juliet Binoche, Lupita Nyong'o, Sandra Bullock, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Salma Hayek, Nicole Kidman, Toni Collette, Marisa Tomei, Julianne Moore, Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Sigourney Weaver, Susan Sarandon, Catherine Zeta Jones, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway don't seem to care about being "well-dressed, beautiful, elegant, and... walking well in evening gowns and heels," I'd have to disagree with you.










Updated On: 3/7/14 at 06:24 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 7:14pm

As long as we're discussing her, I think Meryl Streep--by keeping her private life mostly private--comes pretty close to studio stars of yore. The major difference is that she takes herself (or appears to take herself) much less seriously than Greer Garson did.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 7:18pm

Bigger question: Do we NEED movie stars?

Probably not. Thanks to Asian sweat shops and Madison Avenue mass marketing (not to mention product placements in movies), we all have full closets and houses crammed with consumer goods now. We don't really need PHOTOPLAY to visit Joan Crawford's estate to show us how "the other half" lives (even though they are really "just like us", of course).

(But at the rate we're headed, we may again need movie stars as faux-royalty very soon.)

Updated On: 3/7/14 at 07:18 PM

[FishermanBob]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 7:47pm

We still have plenty of movie stars. We just don't put them or really anyone else on a pedestal any more. The world has changed. Not knowing every single detail of a public figure's life is simply no longer acceptable. Too many channels, news outlets, blog sites. They all need stories to grab people's attention. We've become a "got ya" culture because negative stuff sells. As they used to say in the local evening news business "what are you going to report on each day, someone that didn't get shot? A building that didn't catch on fire?". If FDR was President today, how many stories would we see day after day from his opponents about how much he mislead the public about his medical limitations from polio, rumors of his affairs etc. Back then, that just wasn't done.

On the bright side, I tend not to form my opinion on where American cinema is at based on the opinion of one 15 year old.

[Brave Sir Robin2]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 7:54pm

Charlize Theron
Angelina Jolie
Cate Blanchett
Sandra Bullock
Nicole Kidman
Amy Adams
Jennifer Lawrence
Anne Hathaway
Emma Watson

I'd say they're the closest things we have to movie stars. In terms of men, I'd throw in Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Channing Tatum, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matthew McCoughnahey.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:49pm

EDIT: And we may have Judi Dench today, but they had Marie Dressler back then. Both hugely popular older women who played everything in movies from homeless tramps to dowagers.

But Dressler was a box office draw. She was #1 two years in a row (1932, 1933) and was #9 in 1934 (the year of her death) on Quigley's top ten moneymaking list. Dench has never made the list.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 9:20pm

And maybe you are judging the world of Hollywood by one uninterested teenager. Back in "the day" there were fewer movies, fewer big stars -- it was easier to track. We also had many fewer distractions, so movies were kind of "it".

Now kids are there own stars, or those they follow on twitter.

Kids that are "into" movies, still know many of the stars. It's just that not everyone is into it.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 10:32pm

I don't think that's the point StageManager. I thought red mustang's point was about glamor not box office power (and I think you might be underestimating Dench's btw; either way that's more of an issue of women's box office power and Hollywood marketing then -v- now (see Blanchett's oscar speech on both Dench's star power and Hollywood kidding itself that people don't want to see women-carried movies0 rather than whether there are actually movie stars).

The point is that Dressler was very much a movie even back then and yet doesn't fit the definition of movie star which requires a woman to look beautiful in heels and gowns.

[~~tiny3~~]

Posted: 3/8/14 at 4:38am

no

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 3/8/14 at 5:03am

"Porn star" and "Supermodel."

[Melissa25]

Posted: 3/8/14 at 10:34am

We still have them.
I still need them.
I still want them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXrWiJcmvBI
link