When stars were born

They don't make celebrities like they used to. The studio system has not cultivated superstars since the rise of the paparazzi.

The actress Lauren Bacall in 1945, when Hollywood superstardom was much different than it is today.

When Lauren Bacall cut off a British journalist, mid-sentence, for referring to her Birth co-star Nicole Kidman as a legend in 2004, she touched upon a topic that remains sensitive for Hollywood's old-timers: What makes a movie star? More specifically, does anyone from the present generation have what it takes?

The studio system used to cultivate superstars such as Greta Garbo, Robert Mitchum and Bette Davis. Seen as commodities, the personalities were kept under contract for the factory-like production of the 52 films that studios would churn out each cycle. The stars were managed down to the finest detail, taught how to walk, talk, dance, act and dress. "The people that ran the studio saw a certain quality and groomed it," explains the veteran publicist Dale Olson. "Rock Hudson was a very good looking truck driver, but he had no talent at all. He was the first to say: 'The star system made me and taught me how to sing and to dance, how to walk and to talk'."

Olson and his fellow publicists were also careful to control the story, the character and their portrayal of the perfect image. "Those were the days you wouldn't let a star go out without being perfectly groomed, dressed, and coiffed," he says. "We were selling glamour. Now stars are independent contractors. No one is developed by the studios, and everyone has to scramble." Call it the demise of the studio system or the rise of the paparazzi - or something in between - but things are not as they once were.

"Being a star back then was about mystique," says Hilary Clark, a publicist at 20th Century Fox. "The nature of stars has become irrevocably altered. There aren't any because no one has an ounce of privacy. Any idiot can photograph a star buying dental floss with a cellphone camera. No wonder Garbo said: 'I want to be alone'." What audiences want from stars today, and what they stand to get, has since changed so much that veterans of Tinseltown can identify only a few key acts that make the cut. "The people I represented were all superstars," says Olson. "These days there are maybe half a dozen superstars in total."

For Olson, that roster includes Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Kate Winslet, Mark Damon and George Clooney. "Clooney is the perfect reincarnation of a star from that era. He is Cary Grant of today." Olson also considers Winslet to be the Bette Davis of her time. "She is the most exquisite actor in motion pictures today," he says. For the veteran producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr, who was instrumental in the launch of Roberts's career, identifying what makes a star is not something one can put one's finger on.

"With Julia, that first day of shooting you just knew that there was something there," he says. "But if anyone tells you they know what makes a star, don't believe it. It is electric and amazing when you see one. Something happens. For Sean Connery it was Bond. It was James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. I hear that Clive Owen is coming into it now with Duplicity. If you look at most people, there were defining roles and defining moments."

Veterans say the problem today is not so much about the players but the system. The studios, they say, aren't invested in the actors' careers, while the system is more managed by greed than long-term development. And nobody these days has the power to make a star. In the old days, such was the all-powerful nature of stars that movies were thought of in terms of these larger-than-life personalities, and theatres talked up their summer schedules based upon the names.

"It was about how many Garbos or Gables would play that summer, but nobody knew what the film was about," Goldwyn recalls. With the media amounting to the two rival columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, the studio system was also able to rely upon the manufacturing of certain types, such as the siren, the brainy schoolteacher or the girl next door. But with Hopper and Parsons replaced by ubiquitous internet gossip royalty such as Perez Hilton and TMZ, maintaining such character types is nearly impossible today, destroying part of the age-old charm of cinema.

"Because of the paparazzi, no star now could ever be a CinemaScope glamour queen around the clock," says Lynn Mooney of the Los Angeles-based Eclectic Media Group. "We want to be able to relate to the stars today and hear how they take their kids to the park as much as we want them to be part of our escape or fantasy world." The actors, too, have changed their style. "In the past, stars were always expected to look their best and to express the glamour of old Hollywood," says the former Universal executive Jason Resnick, who is now an independent producer. "They were contract players for the studios and they were always expected to be 'on'. Today, they often would rather be themselves than express an unwavering glamorous image."