10 - A Performance Studies Perspective On Fan Magazine Images And Silent Film Acting

Summary

In her autobiography Silent Star (1968), American silent and early sound film actress Colleen Moore reminisces about her earliest experiences and aspirations of learning to act for the screen. She writes

I read one time in Photoplay magazine that Norma Talmadge had said an actress must be able to weep spontaneously, so I thought the sooner I learned to cry, the better off I’d be. (Moore 1968, 12)

This story of fan magazine engagement is one echoed by many actresses. Clara Bow reportedly spent her weekends ‘surrounded by movie magazines … fantasizing about how someday she would appear in them’ (Stenn 2000, 13). Similarly, Norma Shearer was said to have been an ‘avid reader of movie magazines’ from a young age, devouring ‘the Cinderella stories of girls who were picture stars … [imagining] herself in their place’ (Ramsey 1931, 111). As such, we might connect them to the ‘movie struck’ or ‘screen struck girls’ written about by Shelley Stamp (2000) and Diana Anselmo Sequeira (2015), as well as those addressed by American fan magazines in the early teens (Fuller 1996). However, Moore's particular reference to the magazine's emphasis on developing screen acting skills, especially the practice of crying, challenges the pejorative framing of young women engaging with movie fandom as purely ‘vapid’ consumers. Throughout her autobiography, Moore frequently references the ways in which she trained herself and worked hard to continue improving her skills, by observing, and taking advice from other actresses – particularly in relation to emotional expression. Indeed, her memoir returns to the matter of crying, asking ‘I could cry now whenever I had to, but what about technique?’ (1968, 27).

This chapter incorporates a performance studies perspective with fan magazine analysis to explore how fan magazines readers, such as Moore, were presented with visually engaging and instructional texts through which they could learn about their favourite stars, while simultaneously developing a knowledge of screen acting styles and appreciation of specific performances. It is possible to identify a feedback loop whereby fan magazines were teaching aspiring (and even established) performers how to perform.