“The Elegance … Is Almost Overwhelming”: Glamour and Discursive Struggles over Female Stardom in Early Television

This chapter examines the case study of former silent film star Gloria Swanson’s move into her own television talk show in 1948 within the context of the television industry’s vested interest in recycling formerly popular film stars as models for television stardom. Swanson’s case illuminates how female stars who had been groomed by the film industry entered television in the 1940s and 1950s through a renegotiation of their glamorous film personas. The chapter also looks at a group of female African American performers who constructed their personas out of reaction to the vehicles for stardom that Hollywood film studios designated for their race. In their television programs, they rejected racially inflected film studio casting through cultivation of manner and attire that projected performing versatility and glamour. Like Swanson and other white female film stars entering television, they used glamour to create an image of authority in the new medium.