ABSTRACT
The 1950s was the last decade of studio stardom in Britain. It was the end of a system in which talented actors, or even those who just looked attractive, were given exclusive contracts by large film producers, such as the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, Associated British Production Company (ABPC), London Films and Warwick Films, and might then be loaned out to other producers to appear in their pictures “by permission.” The “contract artist” system was supposed to add value by transforming a mere actor into a “star property.” Operating largely in the shadow of Hollywood’s larger and more polished star-making machine, Britain’s modest but not entirely unsuccessful attempts to emulate its mechanisms were largely ignored by academics until Geoffrey Macnab (2000) drew attention to them as part of a millennial re-kindling of interest in the national cinema. Unlike Hollywood stars, their British equivalents traditionally gained entry to the heavens via media other than cinema: theatre, music hall, radio and, later, television. Film enhanced rather than created their fame. There was a brief period in the history of film-making in the UK, however, when one studio in particular believed that it could manufacture stars in its own laboratory. Its attempts may ultimately have been futile in sustaining its own ambitious film production programme, but they were nevertheless rather magnificent in their optimism.
