Movie Star - Music Hall Antecedents

Music Hall Antecedents

Before the advent of movies, the term "star" was already in use in the milieu of the Music Halls, at the time the most popular form of entertainment. "Star" already meant much the same as it came to mean in the context of films – i.e. entertainers who were well-known and highly popular, and who were therefore paid incomparably better than fellow performers. The term "Star" was for example used extensively during the 1907 strike in Britain which came to be known as "The Music Hall War", when Stars were praised for standing by their lesser-paid fellows and actively participating in the strike (see Music hall#'Music Hall War' of 1907).

Although such were the terms most immediate antecedents, the use of the term "star" to refer to "an actor, singer, etc. of exceptional celebrity" (OED, s.v. "star") can be traced as far back as the eighteenth century, when its earliest usage is cited with reference—quite appropriately—to the most famous and feted actor of the day in England, David Garrick."The little stars, who hid their diminished rays in his presence," J. Warner noted in 1779, "begin to abuse him". The term soon became part of the language of the theatre, as another, slightly later citation of its use in a publication such as the Edinburgh Weekly Journal makes clear ("He had hitherto been speaking of what, in theatrical language, was called stars"). The term was first used in 1924 to coin a phrase for Rudolph Valentino; it was further used in news publications, demo reels, and print covers for the likes of Elvis Pressley, Grace Kelly, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Monique Alexander.