The Star System

The "star system" became a critical aspect of the Hollywood business model in the 1910s.

Florence Lawrence

Florence Lawrence was arguably the first star, first anonymously as "The Biograph Girl" and then, with help from Carl Laemmle, under her own name.

Theda BaraTheodosia Burr Goodman was another early star. She was promoted by William Fox as Theda Bara (which he publicized as an anagram of 'Arab Death.').  Fox claimed that she was the daughter of an Arabian Sheik, but she was actually the daughter of a tailor from Cincinnati. 

Bara was the first movie "vamp," a dangerous woman irresistible to men. After 1919 she left Fox because she no longer wanted to play this role... and afterwards rarely appeared in film. Few of her films have survived. Her most famous, Cleopatra, is lost (except for 17 seconds that you can see by clicking here).

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Top picture, Florence Lawrence. Bottom, Theda Bara.

More Details symbolIn 1910, Laemmle lured Lawrence from Biograph to his company, IMP (Laemmle was soon to found Universal).  Laemmle spread a rumor that Lawrence was dead and then a counter-rumor that her death had been faked. When Laemmle's short movie, The Broken Oath, starring Lawrence opened in St. Louis, a publicity event drew more people than President Taft had a week earlier.

Lawrence's tale is tragic. She was badly burned in 1915 when a stunt fire on the set of The Pawns of Destiny went out of control. She spent months in recovery. Neither her personal life nor her career fully recovered. She blamed her husband, Harry Solter, who was directing the film, for the accident and they divorced. Lawrence continued to take bit parts in movies but was plagued by bad financial decisions and ill health. She committed suicide in 1938.

Clapper symbolThe Broken Oath like so many movies of its era, is lost. However, it was an 18 minute short film set in Italy and about a mafioso. The gangster main character is ordered to murder a merchant who has not cooperated with the mafia. His girlfriend (played by Lawrence) convinces him not to commit the murder. However, he is then hunted by the mafia and saved twice by the girlfriend. In the second rescue, the mafia chiefdom is killed, thus providing a happy ending for the story.