Hollywood star system

The studio-era method of selling films through actors’ cultivated public images and exclusive contracts. Studios shaped stars’ roles, publicity, and public behavior to make performers a central attraction.

Studio contract system: A system in which film studios employed actors under long-term contracts and controlled their work assignments. Exclusive contracts gave studios leverage over stars’ roles, schedules, and public presentation.
MGM: An American film studio founded in 1924 and known for lavish productions and a large roster of contracted stars. MGM’s publicity campaigns made its roster a prominent example of studio-managed stardom.
Louis B. Mayer: An American film producer who led Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as its chief executive for much of the studio era. Mayer oversaw MGM’s organization of stars as part of its commercial strategy.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.: A 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision that required major film studios to divest their theater holdings and restricted block booking. The ruling disrupted the integrated studio business that had supported centralized star promotion.
Independent film: Film produced outside the major studio system or without its full financial and distribution control. Independent production offered actors and filmmakers routes beyond major studios’ contract structures.
Studio publicity: Promotional work produced or managed by a film studio to shape attention around its films and personnel. Publicists circulated carefully chosen stories that made actors’ images familiar and marketable.
Greta Garbo: A Swedish-American film actor whose screen roles and deliberate privacy made her a major Hollywood star. Her carefully maintained mystique shows how distance itself could become a marketable image.
Harry Cohn: An American film producer who headed Columbia Pictures from its early years until 1958. Cohn’s leadership offers a contrasting studio case of centralized star management.
Paramount consent decrees: Federal court orders that forced major Hollywood studios to separate film production and distribution from theater ownership. Their enforcement weakened studios’ control over the full commercial route from star vehicle to cinema.
New Hollywood: A period of American filmmaking, principally from the late 1960s through the 1970s, marked by director-led films and changing studio practices. Its project-based careers and auteur emphasis differed from the earlier studio-centered star machinery.

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