American Aristocracy

A strange version of American aristocracy was created in a little backwater town called Hollywood in 1907 by a group of Jewish entrepreneurs. The land was cheap and the skies were sunny. They opened up shop making dreams to sell to the poor and lonely. They choose the name”movies” for the moving pictures, and made a mint off of them. It also created a scheme of employment that produced the “stars,” or celebrities as we know them today.

Thomas Edison who had built the first film studio in 1893, tried to monopolize the industry through law suits, questionable business practices, and when all else failed, strong arm tactics. To produce, distribute or show a film in the United States one had to pay a licensing fee to Edison’s company or suffer the consequences. This action led independent producers to settle permanently in what soon came to be called California’s “movie colony.”

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One of the most odious prohibitions was the ban on giving the credit to those playing in the melodramas. Before 1910 the public had no idea of who they were watching on the screen. As the movie-goers developed favorites they referred to the players by the names they used on the screen. Thus, pretty golden haired Gladys Smith was called, “Little Mary” long before she adopted her stage name, “Mary Pickford.”

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To break the hold the Trust had over film stars, a producer persuaded Florence Lawrence away from the studio that Edison held vast shares in, by promising her more money. Her name promptly went up in lights. It was quickly discovered that Lawrence’s fans could be counted on to show up at the box office to see her movies. A star had been spawned and such stars would dominate Hollywood forever afterward.

As individual stars became obscenely rich, gross consumption and loose living that typically attends fast made fortunes, began to be reported in the press to fans who were hungry for any glimpse of their idols private lives. Local columnist grew powerful and studios fed rumors and lies to an audience fascinated with their stories. It prompted young girls to leave home and head for Hollywood. Some 200,000 of them between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five came to Hollywood during the years of 1919 to 1929.The studios posted notices in railway stations as far away as Calcutta, India, warming young women there was no work in the movies. Warnings had little effect as stars like Swanson and Pickford were obviously so successful.

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The ability to project on screen not just the character played at the moment but some profile made up of looks, manner, presence, and style that strikes a cord for the public can in itself become a qualification for high political office. One such popular movie star “Ronald Reagan” played “The Gipper” a football player who played for the University of Notre Dame. The Gipp was selected as Notre Dame’s first All American. Gipp died at 25 of a streptococcal throat infection days after leading Notre Dame to a win over Northwestern in his senior year. Ronald Reagan went on to become the 40th President of the United States.

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