The Star Machine

An immensely entertaining and lively look into Hollywood’s “star machine,” examining how, at the height of the studio system, from the 1930s to the 50s, the studios worked to manufacture movie stars. VINTAGE PAPERBACK.

ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’S100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME.From one of our most distinguished film scholars, comes a rich, penetrating, amusing book about the golden age of movies and how the studios worked to manufacture stars.

With revelatory insights and delightful asides, Jeanine Basinger shows us how the studio “star machine” worked when it worked, how it failed when it didn’t, and how irrelevant it could sometimes be. She gives us case studies focusing on big stars groomed into the system- the “awesomely beautiful” (and disillusioned) Tyrone Power; the seductive, disobedient Lana Turner; and a dazzling cast of others. She anatomizes their careers, showing how their fame happened, and what happened to them as a result. Deeply engrossing, full of energy, wit, and wisdom, The Star Machine is destined to become an classic of the film canon.

Author Biography

Jeanine Basinger is the chair of film studies at Wesleyan University and the curator of the cinema archives there. She has written nine other books on film, including A Woman’s View- How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960; Silent Stars, winner of the William K. Everson Award for Film History; The World War II Combat Film- Anatomy of a Genre; and American Cinema- 100 Years of Filmmaking, the companion book for a ten-part PBS series. She lives with her husband in Middletown, Connecticut.