The introduction of sound extended the actor's range of tools beyond the visual. It enabled performers to use nuances of speech to express character and eliminated the dependence on gestural exaggeration. Film acting today can be characterized as naturalistic. In the 1940's and 1950's, movie actors trained in the theater, such as Marlon Brando and James Dean, introduced film audiences to a naturalistic style known as the Method. The glamorous aura that surrounds movie stars is surprisingly dependent on the still photograph.
Photographs are perhaps the most effective way to keep the star's image in the public eye.
William Walling, staff photographer at Paramount, estimated that over a period of three years he shot an average of 500 portraits a day, six days a week. Today, the studio photographer has been replaced by freelance celebrity photographers, who are sometimes celebrities themselves, like Annie Liebovitz and Steven Meisel. Their portraits, published in magazines such as Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and Vogue, are more personal and less conventional than those of their predecessors.