From: reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher)
Subject: The first movie star (was: Leeper Screws the Pooch on CHAPLIN)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 19:14:30 GMT

In article <mattm-210193090945@mcmelmon.apple.com> mattm@apple.com (Matthew Melmon) writes:
>In article <1993Jan21.001549.1050@cs.ucla.edu>, reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu
>(Peter Reiher) wrote:
>> 
>> In article <mattm-190193163940@mcmelmon.apple.com> mattm@apple.com (Matthew Melmon) writes:
>> >Pickford deserves the title "First Movie Star" - she was the
>> >first "Biograph Girl" audiences began to identify with repeatedly,
>> 
>> I'd have to check my sources to be sure, but I believe this is not correct.
>> Alas, I cannot remember the name of the actress who this honor belongs to
>> (it was definitely an actress, not an actor), but it wasn't Pickford.  The
>> actress in question is completely forgotten, today, but was perhaps the
>> first non-established stage performer to force producers to include her
>> name on the credits.   (Long before Pickford became famous, at least some
>> well known stars of the stage appeared in a few films, and, as one might
>> guess, the producers made no secret of their presence.)
>
>I beg to differ.  It was Pickford, and "long before Pickford became
>famous" is long before films were much more than penny attractions
>at carnivals.  

As someone else pointed out, the name I was searcing for was Florence
Lawrence, and she was the first real movie star.  Pickford did not lag
her by much, and was stolen from Biograph by IMP in much the same way.
(She was known, at Biograph, as "Little Mary", not "The Biograph Girl".
Florence Lawrence was the original Biograph Girl.  After her departure,
I believe Biograph chose another "girl".)  But Lawrence was first.

All of this happened about 1910.  Films had been around for a good
while, and I am fairly sure that some of, for instance, Sarah Bernhard's
films were made before this.  Certainly Buffalo Bill Cody's films were
earlier.  These films were cinematically primitive, but they were films, 
and they were sold by the fame of their star.  Of course, that fame was not 
built by the films, so there's a reasonable argument that they weren't 
really movie stars.

Note, also, that we are parochially discussing only American films.  In
certain ways, the silent cinema of some European countries, notably
France and Italy, was more developed, at this stage of cinema's history.
I don't know enough to be sure, but it would suprise me little if there
weren't some well known French or Italian performer who was billed by
name before either Pickford or Lawrence.

>She was in on the beginning with D.W Griffith.  By
>the late Teens, she was making ten thousand dollars a week at Lasky's
>Players.  There was no other actress of remotely comparable fame 
>until Gloria Swanson and, of course, Gee Gee.

Depending on how you want to define "remotely comparable fame", this
statement is either incorrect because Gloria Swanson wasn't nearly as famous
as Pickford (which is certainly the case), or incorrect because there were 
other actress before Swanson who were just as famous as Swanson.  Clara Bow,
Theda Bara, and Mable Normand are just a few examples.  Pickford was
beyond any shadow of a doubt the most famous actress of her day, and
probably the best known figure during the silent era.  But it's not like she
completely displaced all other female performers of the era.

-- 
		Peter Reiher
		reiher@wells.cs.ucla.edu