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Scrapbooking Screencraft: Women Early Screen Acting and Performativity within the Archive

Scrapbooking Screencraft : le jeu d’actrice et sa performativité au sein des archives
Jennifer Voss

Résumés

Cet article examine des albums-souvenirs britanniques consacrés aux stars de cinéma des années 1910, 1920 et 1930, afin d’analyser les « persona performatives » des actrices du cinéma muet et des débuts du cinéma sonore. En se concentrant sur les performances de Malvina Longfellow et Barbara Stanwyck, cet article étudie les représentations du genre et de la performance dans ces albums-souvenirs à travers une approche interdisciplinaire, en examinant comment les images d’actrices qui y sont présentes offrent un éclairage unique sur le jeu des femmes à l’écran durant cette période de l’histoire du cinéma. Cela est particulièrement important pour reconnaître l’art de l’interprétation mobilisé dans les performances féminines, et pour proposer une compréhension plus nuancée et plus agentive des photographies posées et glamour qui remplissaient les magazines de cinéma et qui « illustraient la dépendance du cinéma à l’attrait exercé par les interprètes ». (Jeffers McDonald et Lanckman, 2019 : 3).

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Introduction

1Arching her spine with her head thrown backward, one leg bent as the other is used to keep balance on a chaise, Martha Eggerth’s sheer, pleated skirt drapes across her lower body like a fan. Above her, Joan Crawford stares into the middle distance, her lips slightly parted and her eyelids soft, as Clark Gable presses his mouth against her hair. In the corner, Kay Francis stands statuesque, her open-back dress flowing to the floor, her hands clasped under her chin, a look of longing on her face (Item 97715). These figures, cut from their original contexts, then carefully arranged on the page of a scrapbook, offer a reconsideration of film performance through a movie lover’s creative engagement with film magazine images. Moreover, through their unique composition, the pages of these scrapbooks offer a bespoke insight into ever-shifting representations of women and their personas on screen.

  • 1 It should be noted that the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Theatre and Performance Archive, one of th (...)
  • 2 The term “screencraft” is used within this article to refer to actresses’ skill, performativity, an (...)

2This article is born from an interdisciplinary research project I undertook in collaboration with De Montfort University’s (DMU) Archives and Special Collections. Using the film star scrapbooks held within the DMU collections, the project explored performativity in the archive, considering how the close analysis of women’s bodies and their presentation on the pages of the scrapbooks reveal how key female archetypes were constructed for the screen and subsequent media consumption, This article will continue to examine the film star scrapbooks of the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s that are held within the DMU Special Collections, and consider them alongside film star scrapbooks held in two of the primary UK-based repositories for film and performance scrapbooks: the British Film Institute (BFI) Archive and the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum (BDCM)1. Drawing on writings on silent film melodrama and glamour in 1930s Hollywood, this article will explore the ways in which the displays of women’s bodies within the scrapbooks enable analysis of dominant screen acting styles, and how they were used to construct women’s performances and the expectations around them. In doing so, this article will draw attention to the important impact of posing and gesture within women’s screencraft2, in an analysis of two distinctly differing performers: the now little-known, British-based actress Malvina Longfellow, and critically acclaimed, classical Hollywood star, Barbara Stanwyck. Consequently, this research will contribute to exciting and current scholarship surrounding scrapbooks in feminist film studies, film history and fan studies (Anselmo, 2023; Jeffers McDonald, Lanckman and Polley, 2023) through its unique, performance-centric perspective on the archive and film ephemera.

3Bringing together writings in women’s cultural studies and film studies, Diana W. Anselmo (2017; 2019; 2023) has set out crucial groundwork for the exploration of scrapbooks as they relate to American film audiences and fandoms in the early twentieth century. In her study into cultural representations of female adolescence in the 1910s, Anselmo uses scrapbooks to trace the development of a new “type” of film star, the “sweet-sixteener” (a type most notably embodied by Mary Pickford), and its subsequent impact on young female audiences. Anselmo’s article is particularly significant in its combined use of scrapbook material, film publications and contemporaneous psychology literature to trace the concept of “sweet sixteen” as a “societal marker and performative rite of passage” in relation to “how modern American culture represents, as well as codifies, female development” (2017: 252). In drawing attention to the multifaceted construction of the “sweet-sixteener” as an archetype of femininity on screen and in the press, this article will build upon Anselmo’s work to demonstrate the potential for a more specifically performance-centric consideration of scrapbooks. This is because the scrapbooks show how concepts, such as the “sweet-sixteener”, are constructed through distinctive performance styles and technique, from embodied poses to a performative engagement with costume.

4While the positioning of film scrapbooks as a valuable resource has been evidenced within cultural and star studies, there has been considerably less focus on scrapbooks within the context of performance and theatre studies. Addressing the scarcity of research on the subject, Sharon Marcus’ “The Theatrical Scrapbook” (2013) stands out as a key source on interpreting scrapbooks and their contents from a performance perspective. Marcus’ reflection on the role theatre audiences play in the documentation and preservation of theatre history illustrates just how big an impact scrapbook makers have on shaping perspectives and meaning-making. This is particularly apparent in terms of how the images of actors and actresses used within the scrapbooks allow for close analysis of dominant theatrical performance styles, offering pertinent historical perspectives on performativity. Marcus writes:

The most interesting and gifted scrapbook compilers had compositional skills that imbued static images with kinetic energy […], cutting around the outlines of the performers’ bodies lends an already dynamic image an additional level of simulated motion. Some compilers accentuated that dynamism by singling out images that appear to be bursting out of the page. Often compilers carefully juxtaposed figures with frontal, right profile, and left profile orientations so that one appears to gaze at another across the page or to look beyond the page into the space adjacent to the book or coincident with the viewer holding it.
(Marcus, 2013: 301)

5This idea that scrapbook makers brought images to life, that the movement of bodies can be realised on the page, attests to the validity of using these archival repositories to further explore women’s screen performances. This is because the way in which the images are positioned on the page can be seen as being representative of the way in which they moved and used their bodies on screen. Within the scrapbooks, there is a sense in which different stars are not just posing, rather, they are being captured in motion, using their bodies within the space. As Laura Mulvey’s “Cinematic Gestures: The Ghost in the Machine” (2015) theorises, cinematic gestures frozen in time reveal “aesthetic of ‘in between-ness’ that underpins the gesture’s relation to meaning” (2015: 7). Therefore, the images that have been selected and the way in which they have been displayed on the page can be viewed as offering mediated manifestations of this “tension between movement and stillness” (Mulvey, 2015: 11), drawing attention to different actresses’ ways of moving, either in character or in relation to their star persona, as perceived by the scrapbook creator. This article will, therefore, offer an analysis of the actress’s performance styles as they are manifest through images within the scrapbooks, situating them in context with the other images on the page and acknowledging the influence that the design and layout of magazine images has on the codification of the performance. As Marcus suggests, “each clipping or photograph in an album is contextualized by the hundreds of others that the compiler placed alongside it, thus adding layers of meaning that each item would lack if encountered in its original source or in isolation” (2013: 285). As such, the fragmented and composite nature of scrapbooks means that they can offer unique perspectives on an individual star’s persona, as well as provide broader insights into dominant trends of a particular period, through the bringing together of a wider variety of contemporaneous materials and sources.

6In addition to a concentration on images displaying key moments of performance, scrapbooks also offer a strong insight into costuming, hair, and make-up: all of which contribute to the construction of a star’s persona. Therefore, in conjunction with the scrapbooks and star performances, this article will draw on germinal texts on glamour, costuming and women’s bodies. Yet, rather than offering a critique of the styling of costumes, I am interested in how performers engaged with, posed in, and manipulated costume as part of their screencraft and curation of their overall performance. This is particularly important in terms of recognising the skill involved within women’s performances, offering a more nuanced and agentive understanding of the posed, glamourous photographs that filled movie magazines and which “illustrated cinema’s reliance on performer appeal” (Jeffers McDonald and Lanckman, 2019: 3). In doing so, I will demonstrate how scrapbooks can be used as a tool not only to engage with women’s historical screen performances, but to also unpack what these images reveal about stars’ individual, and carefully crafted performative personas.

Articulating Women’s Screencraft

7In terms of articulating performance styles that reflected the shifting representations of women on screen, Roberta Pearson’s Eloquent Gestures (1992) offers useful terminology to support the analysis of the scrapbooks. Stemming from traditions in late nineteenth-century melodramatic stage performance, histrionic styles of performance translated into screen performance through the practice of “registering emotions”; the process by which performers recalled and displayed on-demand, repeatable manifestations of culturally codified emotions (Gledhill, 2003: 64). Conversely, the verisimilar style is described as a performance style that refers to a “particular culture’s coded expectations about the artistic representation of reality” (Pearson, 1992: 28). Pearson argues that unlike histrionic acting, “verisimilarly coded acting had no standard repertoire of gestures”, and that those engaging with the verisimilar style of acting, would adapt their performances according to the individual circumstances and requirements of the characters (1992: 37). However, while Pearson uses these terms to distinguish between specific periods of film history, it is more effective to remove the binary. This is because not only can these codes be used to aid the articulation and analysis of silent film performers, but they can also be employed to usefully articulate the performances of those working beyond the silent period where connections can be drawn between a variety of performance styles in order to fully understand these performances. This is particularly necessary when considering actresses, such as Stanwyck, whose long and varied career saw her perform in musical stage revues, silent film and sound film—as well as television and radio—and who can be seen to draw on a full repertoire of techniques throughout her performances. Moreover, the wider influences of revue performances as it relates to the impact of costuming on embodied performance, further highlights the need to address the multiple and overlap of influences at play. The need to identify and clearly articulate specific performative elements on display is even greater when considering the performances of those who’s performances are also bound up with the concept of “stardom”. As such, the term screencraft has been employed to refer to the culmination of skills employed by performers, that extends beyond acting, and includes wider performative elements utilised within screen performance. In her article on the stardom of silent film actress Lilian Gish, Annie Berke argues that “in the realm of cultural studies, scholars like Richard Dyer have defined the star as a symbol or text, removing the actor’s craft from the discussion entirely” (2016: 179). Berke’s paper, which draws directly from the New York Public Library’s Lilian Gish Papers, argues that the consequences of placing a higher value on the direction and editing, than on the performer, “discounts the actresses” contributions as artists’, and credits the director “as the true author of their performances” (2016: 178). As such, Cynthia Baron and Sharon Carnicke’s Reframing Screen Performance (2008) offers an important shift in analytical approaches, placing the focus of screen performance back onto the performer. Baron and Carnicke state, “the simple, straightforward proposal that the actor’s gestures and expression are on par with other filmic elements challenges the influential view that screen performances are created in the editing room” (2008: 1). Therefore, when analysing the images of stars present within the scrapbooks, it is important to acknowledge that while the images originate from magazine photographs that functioned as a component of studio promotion, it is still possible to consider the work of the actress as a separate entity. This will be achieved by drawing on the terminology of theatre and performance, as well as making those direct references to schools of theatre training and other modes of acting and movement training.

8The following case studies will now examine the distinctive and varied ways in which the performative personas of Longfellow and Stanwyck are presented within different archival scrapbook collections. Drawing on key performative elements such as melodramatic posing and an embodied engagement with screen acting and costuming, the case studies will be used to unpick the gendered constructions of women’s screencraft, through the analysis of image and text on the page, identifying new and enlightening perspectives on performativity within the archive.

Malvina Longfellow

9Held within the British Film Institute (BFI) National Archive in Berkhamsted is a collection of scrapbooks, photographs and publicity material pertaining to silent film actress, Malvina Longfellow. While the exact provenance of the three scrapbooks within the collection is unknown, they have been dated c.1920s and contain a mixture of newspaper clippings, drawings, and photographs featuring Longfellow. Longfellow, whose career spanned between 1917 and 1929, is an example of an actress who, having appeared almost exclusively in British silent films, has disappeared into obscurity. These small archival collections, therefore, offer an invaluable opportunity to access and study an actress who, despite appearing in over 20 films and gaining considerable attention in the popular press throughout her career, has received little to no scholarly attention. Indeed, women’s performances in pre-1920s British cinema is an area of academic study that has been largely overlooked. Moreover, by exploring Longfellow’s persona through the medium of scrapbooks, as opposed to analysing widely dispersed clippings in their original contexts, it is possible to view Longfellow’s performances through a more concentrated lens. This in turn allows for an examination of her career and performance style with a distilled and distinct focus. Therefore, having access to the range of material presented within these scrapbooks means that this repository allows for a unique close analysis of the multifaced construction of female film performance in early British cinema. This case study will explore the distinctive images used within the scrapbooks to analyse Longfellow’s performative persona, identifying and challenging the specific gendered underpinnings associated the dominant performance style of the period, melodrama.

10Within one of the scrapbooks, there is a full-page magazine clipping of an article titled, “Malvina Longfellow’s Sweet Expressions” (MLO/1). The article, an instalment of the recurring “Expressions of…” feature from the British fan magazine Picture Show, invites the reader to engage with the actress through a combination of images and text. The images capture moments of performance on screen, with the accompanying article detailing anecdotes about Longfellow’s private life, as well as career advice. Consisting of a line of still images positioned across the top of the page, the first image shows Longfellow displaying “Reverie”, her face angled towards the right, chin tilted down slightly, gazing beyond the camera as though deep in thought. In the second image, “Doubts”, Longfellow is facing the camera, resting her chin on her hand, her brows slightly furrowed, her eyes looking to the right, indicating suspicion. In the third photograph, “Inquiry”, Longfellow’s chin is tilted upwards, her eyes lifted in the same direction, as though looking up for answers. In the fourth image, “The Dawn of a Smile”, Longfellow is looking downward and to the side, a hat partly shielding her eyes, her lips parted in a faint smile. Lastly, ’Pensive’, the only side profile image, Longfellow’s eyes and mouth are relaxed, her eyes looking slightly upwards, her expression almost neutral. Here, despite the images on display in these examples primarily consisting of relaxed, unstrained features, it is clear to see that attention to detail in terms of the angling of the chin and eyes is enough to demarcate distinct emotive expressions. In this particular article clipping, the accompanying captions also play a key role in the way in which Longfellow’s performative persona is presented on the page; an element that is both representative of the “Expressions of…” series, as well as feature portraits used throughout fan magazines during this period. Indeed, in terms of the representation of women’s emotions within magazine captions, words such as “pensive”, “fear”, as well as those associated with grief and sadness, were often ascribed to female stars (Voss, 2023: 208). Male actors, however, who were also shown in states of deep thought and pensiveness, were often labelled as displaying emotions such as “anger, suspicion, determination, and being ‘ready for a fight’” (Voss, 2023: 208). The distinction in the language used to describe the images on display are indicative that Longfellow’s persona was strongly rooted in a brooding pathos.

11The images used in the above example, and throughout Longfellow’s collection, are reminiscent of Victorian narrative painting, whereby the “emotional impact of the ‘painting is judged by the expressions on the depicted figures’ faces, and on the variety and contrast of emotions represented and evoked” (Fletcher 2009: 462). Interestingly, within the main body of text that accompanied the above images, Longfellow is quoted as saying, “it was as an artist’s model that I learned the elements of posing, and also, strange to say, it was something in that very posing that set me longing to be an actress” (clipping). The connection made here between posing and acting illustrates the significance of gesture and posing within early silent film performance. Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobs’ Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film (1997) offers a detailed exploration into the development of the pictorial style of acting synonymous with stage melodrama, and its usage in cinematic performance. Highlighting the prevalence of pictorial acting styles across centuries of stage performance, they write:

The frequency with which eighteenth-and nineteenth-century actors were enjoined to study statues and paintings to practice poses, and consistent use of illustrative drawings in manuals on acting and oratory… help to signal the degree to which acting was conceived along pictorial lines.
(Brewster and Jacobs, 1997: 85)

12Indeed, as evidenced by the work of scholars of early silent film, such as Roberta Pearson, the significance of gesture and poses deriving from theatrical melodrama was foundational to early screen performance. In the case of Longfellow, her performance style points towards an embodiment of melodrama that is reflective of this longstanding association with histrionic and pictorial posing. Clear examples of this style of performance can be seen in the promotional images used for Longfellow’s performance in the silent drama Mary Latimer, Nun (Bert Haldane, 1920).

13The largest and most striking image present within the scrapbook, is a full-page advert depicting Longfellow cradling a baby in her arms, a veil over her head, half her face on display as she gazes down towards the small child (MLO/1). As with the majority of the images described in the “Expressions of…” feature, Longfellow’s facial expression is soft, relaxed, unstrained: a further example of pensiveness. Below the image, the caption reads “The Miracle of Motherhood”. In the image, Longfellow evokes the iconography of divine maternity. Addressing this stylistic composition of Christian imagery and its use within pictorial performance on stage, Brewster and Jacobs offer a dissection of posing and attitudes by referencing the painting “Lady Hamilton at Prayer” by George Romney: a role also performed by Longfellow. Brewster and Jacobs’ analysis notes that:

…the eyes look upward to express devotion, but the face is gracefully tilted to the model’s right and down, to contrast with the rest of the body and to provide the spectator with a good view of the features; the little fingers have been bent to differentiate the fingers of hands in prayer, and give the impression of lightness and repose. (1997: 79)

14In the magazine image, Longfellow is clearly demonstrating this very particular use of gestural performance that is illustrative of religious imagery being used within pictorial stage performance and the broader histrionic melodramatic style. Furthermore, her codified performance is indicative of her understanding of artistic composition, making use of a repertoire of poses and expression that had become foundational to her screencraft. Elsewhere within the scrapbooks, Longfellow’s performance of divinity on screen is attested to, with her performance as the deeply religious Dina Morris in the film adaptation of George Eliot’s Adam Bede (Maurice Elvey, 1918) being repeatedly praised (MLO/1). Moreover, Longfellow’s performances of Lady Hamilton, a role she appeared in twice, further adds to a performative persona that is bound up themes of beauty and adoration. Indeed, the scrapbooks contain frequent references to Longfellow’s beauty, with one clipping likening her to the Mona Lisa, and commenting on her “beautiful, pale skin”, “great dark eyes”, and “black vibrant hair” (MLO/1). Within one of the scrapbooks, there is a clipping that features a brief interview with Longfellow on her preparation for the role of Lady Hamilton. In a clipping titled “Nelson’s Life: National Picture which Throbs with Emotion”, Longfellow is reported as saying:

I think I’ve read every life of both Lady Hamilton and Nelson. I think I can safely say that I’ve thought nothing but Lady Hamilton for the last year. When I had read everything I could, relating to the part… I surrounded myself with things I think Emma would have loved. I designed my dresses and hats of the period, and I was careful, while not exactly copying her paintings, to give the public the Emma that Romey and historians have made so well known.
(MLO/1)

15Here, Longfellow directly reinforces the connection between art and pictorial performance, of a screencraft developed through carefully constructed distinct poses, informed by research, skill and dedication to her craft. Yet, while is not possible to ascertain the veracity of the comments made within fan magazines, the content of the interview has an impact on the shaping of the star’s image. As such, the content of magazine text is a valuable source in examining the cultivation of Longfellow’s performative persona and how she was presented within the popular press. Moreover, this perception of Longfellow as an actress engaging with emotion and melodrama in a way which foregrounds control and training challenges the idea of the woman’s “unruly” body. Furthermore, these representations of Longfellow suggest that she is well-read and takes a thoughtful approach to her roles through rigorous study: both of which are also bound up with ideas around intellectualism, status, and class.

16Through the combination of film reviews and featured articles detailing audience responses to Longfellow’s screen performances and her approaches to screen acting, alongside a wealth of images, both film stills and publicity images, it is possible to begin identifying how she made use of dominant screen acting styles, to carve out a distinctive performative persona. The scrapbooks reveal Longfellow to have curated a performative persona that displayed a traditionally pictorial style of performance, underpinned by a strong sense of authority over her characterisation. This directly challenges pejorative perceptions of melodrama as “unnecessary”, “excessive” or “too much” (Grodal, 1997; Bell and Williams, 2010) and stands in direct contrast to the body/mind dichotomy. Rather, examples of her carefully crafted poses within these archival collections create a star image that illustrates an embodied engagement melodrama that was framed as intentional and drew heavily on training.

Barbara Stanwyck

17Having considered how scrapbooks focusing on an individual star can be fruitfully examined to build a picture of a specific actress’s performative persona, the following section will trace the performative persona of a single actress through appearances in a range of more generalised fan-made film star scrapbooks. This contrasting case study will consider the impact of different scrapbook compositions, while demonstrating how shifts in screen acting styles are reflected through scrapbooks of a later period. In contrast to the Malvina Longfellow scrapbooks, the collections that will be discussed in this section are much more focused on the isolated image of the screen performer. The pages contain clippings of hundreds of different actors and actresses from the 1920s and 1930s, with most of the large sections of original text removed, and the actors and actresses bodies having been cut around more closely. There is also more information about the provenance of the collections held within the DMU Special Collections and the BDCM. At DMU, there are two film star scrapbook holdings: one collection containing five scrapbooks compiled by a film enthusiast, Phyllis Owen, during her teenage years throughout the 1930s, and one collection of four scrapbooks that were acquired by the university during the 1970s as a fashion teaching resource, dated c.1925-1945. From the BDCM archives, I consulted a collection that was comparable in terms of size, scope, and design: a collection of four scrapbooks compiled by film fan, Ellen Houlridge, during the 1930s. Notable faces which feature throughout these collections include Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Robert Montgomery, Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, and Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck’s prominence within both collections positions her as ideal subject for close examination of how these much more diversely populated scrapbooks can still offer detailed insight into specific stars’ performative personas. Moreover, the contextualisation offered through the surrounding images on the page allows for a wider commentary to be made in relation to the construction of the female star image during this period, especially as it relates to connections and overlaps between performances of glamour and stars’ on-screen “type”.

18Draped in a knee-length, white fur coat, a clipping shows Stanwyck standing against a Grecian-style column, with her arms, gloved in black satin, crossing her body, gripping on to the fur (F/028). Next to this image, is a clipping of American actress Virginia Bruce, reclining on a chaise, wearing a velvet dress—the plunging neckline enhanced as the fabric sleeves are positioned to reveal both shoulders, and most of her chest. In the bottom left- hand corner, British star Nova Pilbeam stands against a marble fireplace, her floor-length gown lit to showcase the extravagant design. As Sarah Berry attests, fashion played a significant role in “women’s negotiation of modernity” during the 1930s, adding that while male identity and status was “defined primarily in relation to work… women have long been associated with the more symbolic values of beauty, style and… ‘physical capital’” (2000: 13). Moreover, the backdrops against which these women are shown imitate the lavish set designs of popular musical revue performances: known for showcasing glamorous chorus girls on stage among “vast folds of hanging drapery”, and making use of Art Deco accoutrements including columns, vases, statuettes, and chandeliers (Herzog, 1990: 137-8). Placed together on the page, the composition of images within the scrapbook captures the aesthetic of luxury and glamour used within 1930s film fan magazines, evidencing the importance of these visual themes within the construction of certain actresses’ star image. The presentation of glamour as it is displayed within the scrapbook images offers a useful avenue through which these symbolic values can be analysed, especially in examples in which the actresses are engaging performatively with costume and set.

19In her chapter on the prevalence of women’s fashion shows within 1930s film, Charlotte Herzog analyses the way in which female models are shown to engage with costume on screen. She writes:

[the model’s] gestures accentuate certain features of garments—thrusting a hand into the side of a jacket to indicate convenience and location of a pocket, extending an arm to show a certain cut of sleeve, twirling to show the fullness of a skirt, and turning climactically while removing a coat or jacket to reveal a sensational backless dress.
(1990: 138)

20Herzog’s analysis of the model’s movement demonstrates an astute performative awareness of how to effectively showcase the garment, particularly in terms of how fashion shows “taught women how to look and act like mannequins” (1990: 150). Herzog also points out that “high fashion clothes” require women to adopt very specific behaviours, from the slung- out hip and the tilted-back head: comportments clearly seen in Stanwyck’s fashion photography within the scrapbooks.

21Within the holdings of DMU Special Collections there is a series of scrapbooks that suggest that the compiler’s focus was on clothing, hair and beauty. Most references to the films within which the stars appear has been removed, with fashion focused publicity images and close-up portraits showcasing popular hairstyles having been selected for display. On one of the pages, an image of Stanwyck has been carefully cut around, removing all of the background (F/010/1/18). The image shows Stanwyck in a floor-length, black dress, reaching down and pulling her dress to the side to reveal one of her legs. The leg on display is angled to the side, with the knee slightly bent, so that her foot has slipped out the back of her heel. Stanwyck’s stare is directed off-camera, her expression portrays a slight smirk, and her waved fringe is covering one of her eyes. Her pose appears deliberately seductive. The scrapbook’s compiler has enhanced the image by isolating Stanwyck from the background, and carefully cutting around the edge of the dress, so that each fold of the flowing skirt stands out as it is draped across the floor. While it is not clear where the image has been taken from, there is a suggestion of movement in the way in which the image appears to capture Stanwyck in a moment of slowly and deliberately lifting her foot out of her shoe, to reveal her leg. It is an image that not only presents Stanwyck’s performativity as it relates a performance of seduction, but also indicates a high level of skill and technique in gestural posing, strength, and balance.

22Throughout both the DMU Special Collections and BDCM scrapbook collections, clippings featuring Stanwyck posing in a range of glamourous costumes highlight her use of an embodied screen acting style that frequently made use of fashion modelling. In one example, Stanwyck is shown standing next to a column and vase, wearing a white floor-length gown, with a full-length, sheer white cape (F/028). The slim-fitting dress emphasises Stanwyck’s upright and statuesque posture. Stanwyck adds dimension to her silhouette by slightly bending her knee and angling it inwards. With her arms by her side, Stanwyck’s left hand is softened into a slight curve as she appears to gently touch the edge of the cape with her fingers. While the image is not a film still, the costume is similar to that worn by Stanwyck in the film The Miracle Woman (Frank Capra, 1931), in which she portrays an evangelist preacher—a role in which Stanwyck frequently used extended and fluid arm movements to emphasise the sheer, flowing fabric of her dresses. Stanwyck’s emphasis of her costume in these moments creates a spiritual, mystical image, combined with a confidence in the way in which she is openly displaying herself to the crowds. On the page, her ethereal image also conveys this sense of confidence. This example provides a direct connection between her on-screen roles and her engagement with fashion as part of her overall performative persona. Furthermore, as with the previous example, the precision in the detail of the pose suggests an awareness of how to effectively engage with costume through performative gesture. Indeed, much like the emphasis on theatrical melodrama and pictorial posing explored in the clippings of Malvina Longfellow in late 1910s and early 1920s, the influence of theatrical tableau on film fashion posing is clearly evident within these scrapbook examples. As Sarah Berry explains, “Hollywood’s use of fashion as spectacle has its roots in entertainment forms like the theatrical tableau, night club revue, beauty contest and fashion show” (2000: 47). Moreover, as Charlotte Herzog suggests, within live musical revue clothes were orientated “to enhance […] the beauty of the models”, with a number of famous fashion designers starting their careers through modelling their clothes on dancers as they performed for Broadway revues such as the Ziegfeld Follies (1990: 137). Moreover, the training involved in performing as part of theatrical revues such as the Follies had a significant influence on early film acting, due to the large number of performers who transferred from the stage to the screen, including Stanwyck. As such, it is possible to view Stanwyck’s use of posing and gesture as drawing on her extensive experience as a dancer, with the knowledge of how to effectively use her body to display and engage with costume.

23Feminist film historians in the 1990s began looking in detail at the role of costume throughout film history, particularly in relation to women’s representation on screen, dissecting the “clotheshorse” star; a term used to describe film stars whose prominent promotion of key fashion designers through the glamorous costumes they wore on screen was seen as foundational to their star appeal. More specifically, in terms of the association of exaggerated glamour and fashion with stars’ bodies, Karen Hollinger uses the term “clotheshorse” stars to refer to actresses such as Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, whose promotion of prominent fashion designers both on and off-screen was key to their star image (Hollinger, 2006: 57). For example, according to Mary Desjardins, Stanwyck’s close working-relationship with costume designer Edith Head, “advanced [her] to the ranks of best-dressed Hollywood star”, while ensuring that within the context of her film performances, her costuming suited the particularities of her characters (Desjardins, 2017: 56-7). However, for actresses who were synonymous with the excess of 1930s glamour and fashion, much of the discourse surrounding them focuses on the construction and dissection of their star image (Carr, 1970; Tapert, 1998), as opposed to their profession as film actresses and the skill and labour that it entailed. As Hollinger argues, “the focus has been placed so much on ideological criticism of star images […] that the study of stars as actors has been pushed to the side” (2006: 47). This points towards the benefits of exploring performativity within scrapbooks to reveal the expert screencraft demonstrated by actresses offering a complex layering of characterisation through their use of costume and gesture.

24In addition to this, film historians have also analysed the significance of costume as an extension of the actress, identifying how costume is used to tell a story on screen. As Jane Gaines writes, “while the body was used in acting to express emotional complexities, costume was expected to simplify” (1990: 187), meaning that costume designers needed to ensure that an outfit expressed meaning to audiences and indicated characterization the moment it appeared on screen. But it’s not just the designers who were actively thinking about how different styles, textures and fabrics tell a story—actors and actresses were also encouraged to develop their own awareness of the specificities of their costuming, hair and make-up, and how to use it to their advantage in performance. In an acting training manual published in 1921, silent film actress Mary Pickford is quoted as saying that “at most big studios, instructions are given on the way the hair should be treated for each scene, but it often happens that the star knows herself what suits her best, and the use of that knowledge may save ‘re-shooting’ the whole set” (1921: 8). Another manual published in 1930, states that while studios would provide more elaborate costumes for films such as period dramas, it was not uncommon for the actress to be expected to supply their own “modern” clothing’ (Bamburg, 1930; 98). These manuals, which were popular throughout the 1910s, 20s and 30s, contained “practical advice about seeking employment, acquiring costume and ‘making-up’ for the screen” (O’Rourke, 2017: 50) and are indicative of routes into the film industry which relied on aspiring stars teaching and advocating for themselves. For her performance in the romance western Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937), it was reported that Stanwyck applied her own make-up on set (Desjardins, 2017: 58), supporting this idea of women taking ownership of their own looks.

25Coincidentally, one of the most striking images within the scrapbooks from the BDCM collection is a film still publicizing Stella Dallas. A large photograph glued to the centre of the page features Stanwyck wearing a loose, floral robe, her body angled towards the left, with her face turned towards her right-hand side (Item 97713). Her chin is tucked into her shoulder, as though she is hiding or avoiding someone or something. Stanwyck’s curled fringe is slightly blurred, suggesting that her angled face is the result of a swift and sudden movement. Her dark, bold lips and shadow cast over her eyes by tousled hair, adds an intensity to the composition. This image is noticeably different to the fashion images discussed so far, in that it shows a film still of Stanwyck engaging with a distinctly dramatic style, with her hair and costume styled in a simpler, less polished, fashion, thus aligning with the working-class roles she frequently performed. While a lack of access to extant films in the previous case study prohibited a direct comparison to Longfellow’s films, the longevity and recognition of Stanwyck’s career makes it possible to make direct links with her films. In Stella Dallas, Stanwyck plays a working-class girl who aspires to enter high society. At the climax of the film, there is a “make-over” scene, in which Stanwyck is shown shopping for clothes, having facial treatments, and getting her hair bleached and curled; a popular trope of self-improvement within 1930s women’s films being the “depiction of young women’s well-earned rise from the working class to a more glamourous existence” (Berry, 2000: 27). Towards the end of the film, Stanwyck’s bleached curls become loose and knotted, and her costumes become plainer. Stanwyck’s performance shifts from being confident, assured and determined, to a more frantic, hurried, tense style; a performative display that highlights how Stanwyck’s engagement with costume and hair can be viewed as emphasising her embodied screen acting style.

26Elsewhere in the DMU scrapbooks, variations of stills taken from unspecified films present Stanwyck engaging in a different style of posing, with a focus on displays of heightened emotion and a lower social status, rather than being primarily displays of high fashion. Addressing the relationship between fashion and class in the 1930s, Berry explains the contradictory nature of “high society and stardom” by using Joan Crawford as an actress who, like Stanwyck, “was both highly paid and a notorious clothes horse, yet her film roles maintained her working- and middle-class affiliation” (Berry, 2000: 32). In one example, Stanwyck is shown sitting in a field, as her co-star is laying in the grass in front of her (F/028). Stanwyck is sitting with an upright posture, her hands clasped together, her fingers interlocked tightly. The image connotes a sense of concern and longing, evidenced by Stanwyck’s raised brow—her mouth parted as she looks off-camera, into the distance. In this still, Stanwyck’s facial expression is similar to that displayed by Longfellow in the image denoting “Inquiry”, with her raised hands gripped together offering a tableau that can be viewed as a histrionic performance of emotion. In terms of costume, Stanwyck is wearing a puff-sleeved dress, and her hair is set in curls, providing an overlap between dramatic performance and a more accessible style of fashion. The image depicts Stanwyck as a multi-layered embodiment of a working-class woman and a dramatic actress, which simultaneously point towards her role as a “clotheshorse” star. Indeed, the overlapping strands of Stanwyck’s performative persona—her working-class status, her relationship to high-fashion and glamour, and her gestural performance style—not only evidence the complexity in Stanwyck’s unique screencraft but are illustrative of her particular typecasting. Much like Anselmo’s work on “sweet-sixteener”, the images of Stanwyck within these scrapbooks allow for the multifaceted nature of the working-class/clotheshorse stars to also be explored, not only in terms of their prominence within 1930s Hollywood, but with regards to how performance styles can be interpreted as a result.

Conclusion

27This article demonstrates how scrapbooks can be used to mine pertinent details about the screencraft and construction of well-known and well-researched female stars, as well as stars who, despite their prominence at the time, have since faded from cultural memory. It has shown how scrapbooks focusing on an individual actress can provide a detailed insight into a particular star’s performance style and how this contributed to the media’s portrayal of a specific actress’s performative persona. As a result, it has been possible to use the contents of the scrapbooks to challenge pejorative considerations of melodramatic performance, by highlighting the long-established traditions of training and preparation engaged in by actresses and drawing attention to the detail involved in certain melodramatic performance styles. Moreover, in terms of the construction of the actresses’ star image, the scrapbooks themselves provide a detailed repository of the various elements that went in to building these distinctive performative personas: from film stills and promotional artworks, to reviews and star interviews.

28Drawing on complementary strands of academic research into scrapbooks, film history and performance, this article has evidenced how research into screen performance history can effectively reveal performativity within the archive. Considering dominant contemporaneous tropes, style, and influences, it has been possible to draw attention to the rich examples offered within the scrapbooks that highlight the typecasting of stars. Unpicking the complexity of actresses’ performative personas through the analysis of their presentation within the scrapbooks, this article has identified the various elements that blur together and overlap to construct a particular star image. Through a consideration of the way images are positioned on the page, the way they are isolated and extracted from their original context, and how the context provided by other images on the page creates new meanings, the close analysis of women’s bodies on the page has illustrated how key female archetypes were constructed for the screen.

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Bibliographie

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Archival Material

F/010/1/18, Film Star Scrapbook, 1930s, De Montfort University Special Collections, Leicester, UK.

F/028, Film Star Scrapbooks of Phyllis Owen, 1930s, De Montfort University Special Collections, Leicester, UK.

Item 97713, Scrapbooks from the 1900s of Famous Film Stars by Ellen Houldridge, Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter, UK.

Item 97715, Scrapbooks from the 1900s of Famous Film Stars by Ellen Houldridge, Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter, UK.

MLO/1, “Scrapbook”, Malvina Longfellow Collection, British Film Institute National Archives, Berkhamsted, UK.

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Notes

1 It should be noted that the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Theatre and Performance Archive, one of the key repositories for performance scrapbooks, was closed between 2021 and 2024, and was therefore not consulted as part of this study.

2 The term “screencraft” is used within this article to refer to actresses’ skill, performativity, and awareness of how they were presenting themselves on screen.

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Référence électronique

Jennifer Voss, « Scrapbooking Screencraft: Women Early Screen Acting and Performativity within the Archive »Genre en séries [En ligne], 18 | 2025, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2025, consulté le 13 avril 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ges/5337 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15r9t

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Auteur

Jennifer Voss

Jennifer Voss has a PhD in Drama and Film History and has recently completed an AHRC and Midlands 4 Cities funded Postdoctoral Research Project titled “Scrapbooking Screencraft: Exploring Performativity, Agency, and Women’s Screen Acting in the Archive”. Jennifer’s postdoctoral research was a collaborative project with De Montfort University’s (DMU) Institute of Dance, Drama and Performance Studies and the DMU Archives and Special Collections. Jennifer’s work uses close performance analysis alongside archival research to offer an interdisciplinary investigation into acting training practices and women’s experiences of screen acting. Jennifer also works as a Drama Tutor and Creative Arts Co-ordinator.

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