Do we still have movie stars?

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?"

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.)

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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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.

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no

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