Word: actore
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...voluntary suspension to make his point, returning each time for a higher salary and a tad more creative input. He left Warners again in 1936 and put himself on the open market. Though Cagney was a major star, the big studios stayed away from him, fearful that if one actor could dent the system, anarchy would ensue. He made one picture for tiny Grand National, but it was unable to secure bookings with the major theater chains - which were owned by the studios! He went back to Warners and stayed there well into...
...late '40s, hardened by the war, exposed to the fatalism of film noir, American moviegoers learned to be a little indulgent to their stars - if the indiscretion fit the actor's on-screen personality. Robert Mitchum was convicted on a marijuana charge in 1948, and did some time for the crime. But since his appeal was a sleepy, surly sexuality (which he radiated brilliantly, by the way), audiences mostly shrugged, as if the police-blotter notes were just the scenario for some unfilmed Mitchum movie. The actor coasted on that reputation for decades. "The only difference between...
...Mitchum was an early exponent of the actor as outlaw, more interested in getting a role than being a role model. Brando sanctified that posture - the insolent slouch - which over the last half-century has been assumed by a hefty plurality of actors and musicians (mostly male, but there are exceptions). If a star doesn't crash his car, trash his hotel room or smash in a photographer's face, he's not being true to his art, you know what I mean...
...again, she wanted to expand her range. When Warners kept casting her in all-sugar, no-spice roles, de Havilland balked and was suspended. She then challenged the studio in court, arguing that since the period of suspension was routinely added to the length of the contract, an actor was in danger of permanent involuntary servitude. Miracle of miracles, she won, in what became known as the de Havilland Law of 1945. A year later, she left for Paramount, where she won a Best Actress Oscar for To Each His Own. Two years after that, the Supreme Court ruled...
...dominate the world market, Hollywood doesn't need comedy stars. It needs action stars, movie stars. Somebody like Tom Cruise. For ages, that somebody has been Tom Cruise. Beyond him, what is there? Tom Hanks - a movie star, but not an action star. Johnny Depp - a wonderfully eccentric actor, but a star only as Jack Sparrow. Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe - they are, relatively speaking, minority tastes. Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood - together, they're 140 years...