(john waters) i mean, she just was publicity-crazed. she loved it, and she fed on it, and she needed more and more, it was like a drug, publicity, to jayne mansfield. she used to drop invitations to her wedding from helicopter. i mean, she was truly publicity insanity. ♪ your love gave me ♪ such a thrill ♪ she was so over the top about being a movie star that it drove her crazy. she got a taste of publicity, she wanted more and more, where every day she would just be running around in bikinis, she walked down hollywood blvd. in a bikini walking an ocelot, handing out signed pictures of her to startled passersby. she was insane. and so i respect that. (jazz music playing) (jeanine basinger) one thing that happens is accessibility to stars grows. as you move into the 50's, and the studios are collapsing, you have stars not being protected by the machinery of the studio any longer.

they're out on the streets, they're getting interviews that aren't controlled, television is picking them up and showing them to you, so they become more known for who they really are. their private life was another role they were playing. (narrator) when lana turner's daughter stabbed her mother's lover, the public was avid for the lurid details of a star career seemingly in trouble. what they saw televised was tour-de-force performance. i said, don't, don't ever touch me again... i'm... i'm absolutely finished, this is the end... and i want you to get out.

and after i said that, i was walking towards the door, and he was right behind me, and i opened it... (john waters) with a million photographers, and she's on the stand, she is lana turner. you can't not be lana turner when you're lana turner. it was effective testimony; cheryl got off. it was so fast... i, i truthfully thought she had hit him in the stomach. but lana also was a major star that let her public life, certainly, when it got out, she went along with it and used it. (narrator) public crucifixions were turned by superstars into resurrections of their star careers, recycled in star performances in movies. did your daughter ever tell you she saw lucas beating selina? no. now, don't you think if she had seen such incident, she would have mentioned it to you?

i don't know. well, wouldn't she? (john waters) rather than let it kill her, she, she kept it up, and, and used it. well, doesn't your daughter ever bring home her problems? how many times do i have to answer your questions? the public is really fickle, and can be vitriolic as far as their likes and dislikes with a movie star. that's why there are ups and downs in long careers. and they're the ones that survive it, that can survive a bad one, and then good. then bad, then good. the audience likes to see comebacks and all that stuff. the star system is dangerous, it takes a tremendous toll on the minds and the emotions of people. (henry rogers) we lost james dean that way; he couldn't handle it. i have never done anything right. i've been going around with my head in the sling. i dn't want to drag you in but i can't help it.

see, i think that you can't just go around proving things, pretending like you're tough. and you can't -- even though you look a certain way, you can't-- that's right, you're absolutely right. you're not listening to me! (henry rogers) clift was a perfect example. he was emotionally disturbed. he would have been better off running a grocery store in some little town in the midwest, where the public wouldn't pay any attention to him, than he would as a film star. (scary music playing) (henry rogers) he was a fine outstanding actor, but emotionally, he couldn't stand the strain. ♪ i wanna be ♪ loved by you

♪ just you and ♪ nobody else but you ♪ i wanna be ♪ loved by you alone ♪ (jane russell) marilyn was very fragile. god, if i'd lived in 7 different foster homes, i would have been a totally different person. do you think 3 sleeping pills are enough? three's quite a lot, that's pretty potent stuff. if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well. well, there were a lot of tragedies of people in, so involved in the business and not having the home life. there are still tragedies now, but it's, it's different, and i think it would be a terrible life to have to be in a cocoon as a star without... not having your life. does fame ruin people's lives, are you saying? well, maybe, but, why did they become actors? i don't understand that. people that don't want fame shouldn't go into the business. that's part of it, that's what you get... if it works.

if it doesn't work, you never get jobs; if it works, you get famous. so you have to sort of choose between the two. i had an agent once who always made me cry because he wanted me to do film after film after film. and he kept telling me, "you won't be a superstar unless you work constantly." i kept saying to him, "i don't want to be a star, i don't want to be a superstar, i'm a working actress." and he never really understood me. i had 2 children at the time, he didn't understand i was -- every time i got on a plane to go somewhere, i was torn. and i always took my children with me. when i made "exodus," i took my children, my husband, my mother-in-law and my parents. but that was my choice, so i worked about once a year. so "superstar"... i, i, i do not know what that would be like. i think the aspects of it that interferes with my life is people's inability to accept what i have to offer,

which is, i, i make movies, and i make movies for you. so i make a movie and i give you heart, soul, blood and guts, the whole nine yards, as much as i can do, the best that i can do it; and that's a lot. (narrator) in hollywood today, the stars, make the major decisions. stars are no longer employees, but independent artists operating through powerful agencies. asta la vista, baby. (shattering glass) everything now is a package, it has to be a package, and very often that package will start with a star that commands an incredible salary. (machine gun firing)

aaaahhhhh! knock this s--- off! i have been having a very bad day. i just got out of jail today, already i have been shot at, i was on a bus that flippedver 17 times, been stabbed in the bathroom, and somebody blew up my porsche. i am in a bad d--- mood. when the studios broke down, they lost their power and gave it to the artists, as independent contractors, so then the artists, in turn, gave it to the agents by enabling them to do it. (orchestra song using touch-tone phone sounds) okay, so monday we get a script and an offer, meaning it's his.

(rick nicita) all the agents in town are scrambling to get an offer for their client. have you read it? it's not bad. it's not bad. but first-time director is gonna be the big problem. hello. yeah. (rick nicita) the most difficult thing is advising the client, "you've got these to pick from, here's the one to pick." yes, yeah, be -- yeah, yeah, let's, yes. (rick nicita) that's the difference between agents. when you're representing stars, there are many opportunities. bye. it's my, you know, it's ultimately my choice. it doesn't matter how many people say, "do it, you should do it, it's perfect, it's great." if i don't want to do it i'm not gonna do it, no matter how many people are telling me to. i think the key is the agents don't have power in themselves, their power is ceded to them by who they represent. when the actor has that much control, then he really now is taking o; he's taking on the whole load.

and i think all too often that can affect the performance because he's carrying this massive thing, there's this, there's that, or whatever. it very often can lead to his having control beyond that, way beyond that of the producer or the director or the writer about what happens to a film: the writing, the rewriting, how it's directed, et cetera. the studios have no security, there's nobody to count on; they're just, they're just waiting in line. whatever their relationship really was with a given star, in the absence of a contract it's at ground zero again. "here's our script, please take a look." i certainly read scripts and i make my choices, and all the choices have been "no," but i think that they will agree with me that i say to people who say, "why haven't you worked in two years?" well, show me a movie in the last year and a half

i should have been in? in my opinion, the agent's role isn't making the most money. i'm not a business manager, i'm not a financial advisor, i'm not their banker -- i'm giving them the choices. because i really love acting, you want to be able to do as many different parts as -- and be challenged by roles and different types of movies as you can. as soon as the studios see you in a certain way, that doesn't enable you to do the different types of roles that you would like do. (shattering glass) hi, charlie. ray. ray has made a real strong mark in a certain kind of part; edgy, violent, or near violent or capable of violence. and he, he's doing great and very well respected, the movies are, are, are doing well. he is so much more than that, in terms of the guy he is,

and the performance that he can deliver. you were born first. 12 minutes later i was born. you're the big brother. and our mother died when we were born. there's a few projects now i want to do that aren't edgy. it's just gettinin the room with these people. "out osight, out of mind, they don't rember some of the softer things, they remember the successes so thas where they stay. i would tand wants to doame as ansomething more serious (lip scing to woman's voice) ♪ if i should wake ♪ and find your arms ♪ around me

♪ i know i'll never ♪ have to dream again ♪ if i should wake ♪ and feel your lips ♪ surrender to mine ♪ i'd just be ♪ wasting time ♪ in dreaming ♪ all the pressure in this business on actors is to put them into as small a box as possible, and absolutely caged in, where they only do one thing. i don't think that i'm playing the same character over again, that would be boring, i hope i'm not doing that. but i think that there, there is truth in that, and i think that that has as much to do with it's what i think is the best of what's there.

do i look okay? something's missing. well, nothing else is going to fit into this dress, i'll tell you that. maybe something in this box. don't get too excited, it's only a loan. julia roberts is someone who has played a similar role. i mean, there are some obvious differences between "pretty woman" and "sleeping with the enemy," but netheless ere's this continuity of character. look, at this point, every character that i play is gonna be sort of a young, nice, whatever, white, they're all gonna have certain, things that are gonna be there,

that just is inevitable, you know. and it's my job to make it different and more interesting. did i mention that my leg is 44 inches from hip to toe? we're talking about 88 inches of therapy wrapped around you for the bargain price of -- $3000.00. yeah. julia, of course we want her to be sexy and beautiful, but we don't want her to be naughty. you know, i mean, the only virgin prostitute in, not in american films, there are dozens but the latest version of that is julia in "pretty woman." and it works and works and works and works. (playing upbeat music) (richard dyer) society has lots of ideas about what it is to be a person what it is to be a male, a female, and so on, and stars are simply giving a kind of twist to that, which is either finding a new dimension to it, humanizing it, individualizing it, but very often in a sense affirming it.

hollywood wants the sure thing, the star, the genre and so on. but, the sure thing -- not exactly the same thi. they want the same, ly different and that's the really, really difficult thing to do. come quickly. i've just killed an intrud. (multiple gunshots fired) (gunsh) (dramatic music playing) (gunshots) david! david! david! david! here you are, making your 74th picture,

a picture that will be seen by millions all over the world, many of the people that you have worked with, talented as they have been, have not survived. it's interesting, i think, to consider why you have, what it is you have, what quality for the public, that makes it go on wanting to see your pictures? first of all, i'm stagestruck and i think they all know that. secondly, i try to get a film with audience identification. some stars, like joan crawford, did develop an awareness that because she had learned the business, that she had to keep reinventing herself to a degree as she aged, and as times changed, without losing what it was that appealed to people. joan crawford, at the time i represented her in 1945, had just had her contract dropped by mgm. l.b. mayer, the head of mgm, had just branded her

as one of a number of actresses who was box-office poison. and she was at a turning point in her film career. just at that time, a man named jerry wald, who was a producer at the warner brothers studio decided that despite what l.b. mayer had said, he was going to put her in the starring role of a movie called "mildred pierce." mildred. (announder) "mildred." a name gasped in the night. the one last word of a dying man. but one word that tells a thousand stories of a woman who left her mark on every man she met. (henry rogers) the morning of the awards, she called me and said, "henry, i have a terrible cold, i'm in bed... i won't be able to go to the awards." and sure enough, she was announced the winner,

a half-hour later this horde of photographers and reporters were all walking into her house and up to hebedroom, where there she was, the queen, holding her oscar. (stephen schiff) in terms of career management, the joan crawford story is a great shining example, at every stage of her career, as she grew older, as what she was doing faltered and the next thing took over, she could be the woman scorned in "mildred pierce" and come back and win the oscar. she could adjust her morality in a way, to her looks, to her image. you know, that face changed more than any face in movie history. she knew how to keep an audience going madonna-like. we think of madonna as being kind of immortally in touch with the public pulse; not like joan crawford, that was decades. i think once the public has embraced you,

unless you're a momentary fad or you physically change a lot, or you've done something ... loathsome, that will forever turn them off -- one of those three, which are all rare. other than that, once a star, you can probably be one again. you're just orbiting around the dark side of the moon. you just have to find the intersection between what you want to do and what the public accepts. (jeanine basinger) at a certain point the public wanted her to be gargoyle. (crashing of dishes) what their image becomes gets very complicated because it's also drawing on what they used to be.

please try to dersta. i married u because i was knocked silly, and... (jeanine basinger) when you get out to whatever happened to baby jane, you have a movie in ich joan sits in a wheelchai looking at herself playing in her old movies. oh, he should haveeld that shot longer. i told him that when we were rehearsing also when we shot it. he wouldn't listen. (stephen schiff) that sense of the changing is important in star images. they're not just one thing for all time. star images themselves have a history. a successful star career was finding a new reflection to their image. something that was the same yet different enough to be interesting.

(julia roberts) i don't look for any particular character. i don't look for something that's funny or dramatic. it's just what appeals me. i read it and i know that's what i want. nobody ever goes, "i've got it all, i want to stay right here." it's not human nature. this business is human nature exponentially amplified. (rick nicita) they all are looking for something. critical acceptance. public acclaim. industry respect. they're all looking for respect. that will always be there. it's not going to disappear.

annenberg media ♪

and: with additional funding from these foundations and individuals: and by: and the annual financial support of: for information about this and other annenberg media programs call 1-800-learner and visit us at www.learner.org.