11 - Context, Content and Form in 1940s British Film Star Fan Club Publications

Summary

‘I was very disappointed’, says Jean Kent, in the July/August 1949 issue of her fan club magazine, ‘to miss the Film Garden Party, and I’m afraid some of you must have been disappointed too. I had been looking forward to meeting our Club Members there’. This is one of many ‘I’m sorry’s, ‘I hope we can’s’ and ‘I’ll see you when’s’ that pepper these magazines, which are not only couched in the friendly but formal vernacular of correspondence and appointment-making, but which also form a regular dialogue between stars and fans, and fans and stars, within their pages. In this discourse with her filmgoing fans, the fact that Kent was derailed from the said appointment by last-minute filming responsibilities is secondary to the primary relationship she has with her followers, which is conducted not through the public screen but through the personal missives of the club. This edition of the section ‘Jean's Letter to You’ ends with ‘I must toddle off and post this to the printers’, underlining the imperative of catching the post, which ended so much correspondence of the pre-digital age.

This column, and Kent's club more broadly, are indicative of a distinctive film star fan club culture that emerged in Britain in the mid-to-late 1940s. This was a culture in which the fan club functioned as a form of social life both real and imaginary, including appointments with the stars both figurative and literal, which can be traced through the magazines which formed the organs of these clubs (Figure 11.1). Just as the design, form and function of these magazines shaped their central star's image and fandom, so the material, social and economic conditions of their production shaped the content and physical formats of this unique collection of studio-sanctioned bulletins. Reciprocally, the design of these fan- or star-produced magazines provided new and distinctive opportunities for agency on the part of stars and fans alike, including for Rank studio actors such as Jean Kent, Patricia Roc, Anne Crawford and Richard Attenborough.