When Lola Burns wakes up on an average day in ‘Bombshell’ (1933), you’re made aware of three things. She’s rich, she’s fabulous, and she’s extremely busy. Nestled amongst her pillows in last night’s glam, her hair set into fried platinum waves, she is the movie star personified. This is Jean Harlow at both her most dazzling and her most human. The scene is pure Hollywood magic, through a funhouse mirror.
Lola is probably the da jour example of early Hollywood’s light-hearted myth-making within its own system. This isn’t some grand story of adversity and the world of glamour – it’s a silly screwball romantic comedy about a star and a PR man. But within it, you get a series of little nods to remind the audience that Hollywood is both a place of magic, and of labour. She’s rich beyond her wildest dreams, but is both the lady of the house and the sole breadwinner. Harlow is literally filming ‘Red Dust’ (1932) as Lola Burns within the world of the movie.
It's potent propaganda, but it’s also a lot of fun.
I’ve written before about Hollywood’s insistence on retelling its own history through the lens of fiction. Whether that be ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950)’s attempts to grapple with the silent era titans, or ‘Mommie Dearest’ (1981)’s perversion of both child abuse and one of its great stars, they can’t help but nibble at the truth. But there’s something extra special about Hollywood’s snake-eating-its-own-tail obsession with itself. Like a baby discovering a mirror, the current Hollywood century (plus a decade or so) is saturated in the purest ego. Even as the public has rejected these films, they keep getting made.
They have such stock in their own stock. It’s cute.
Nobody is particularly interested in how the sausage gets made anymore, but seemingly as penance, we will always have movies about movies. No matter how often this trope fails to yield box office, it’s something that you can guarantee will show up in a theatre near you. They write what they know, and they all know their industry. But deeper within that, they all know the women of Hollywood who have been set used, abused, put out wet, and eventually set aside when it’s not fun to torture them anymore.
‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (1952) is the ultimate film on Hollywood, because it manages to be so much fun while telling a story that repeatedly emphasises it’s about exploitation. But within that, we get the two starlets: Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen). Good and evil personified, at least within the world of the movie.
Lina is a pop culture figure that fascinates to this day. Clearly modelled on both Jean Harlow and her portrayal as Lola Burns, she’s a bleached blonde flapper with the voice of an…angel. While Harlow was never a creature of the silent screen, her persona of the “Platinum Blonde” is definitely baked into this character. A more malicious version of the Harlow front, but definitely in the same mould.
Kathy, meanwhile, is one in a long string of ingenues. Golden where Lina is strikingly white, sweet where she is sour. This is the girl as old as time, so much promise, paired with a healthy dose of sass and spunk. Often overlooked in retrospect is how sly and fun this performance is, and how you can easily track the line from the ingenue to the type of star that Lina represents. Nerve becomes conceit, confidence becomes arrogance. Lina is still the villain, but it’s not an impossible fate that Kathy could become one too.
The most interesting filmmaking within these tropes doesn’t really pop up until the new millennium. There’s a lot of films about Hollywood that feature starlets in their vein, but so much of it feels inconsequential to this specific strain of character. The end of the studio system led to the end of a certain kind of propaganda, and a lack of interest in what it represented. But one film that stands out is ‘Valley of the Dolls’ (1967), a frenzied tale of women in Hollywood, all brought down by pill addiction and the industry itself.
The film wasn’t particularly well reviewed at the time (an understatement), but it was a hit. In all honesty, it’s a messy film with a frought production, but the end result is a wonderful mix of camp and scandal. So much of the film’s drive is around the ultimate corruption of these young women who exist mostly as accessories to fame itself. Neely (Patty Duke) and Jennifer (Sharon Tate) might be “stars”, but neither are towering figures. Neither can rival the presence of Helen (Susan Hayward), because that’s not what they get to be. They are, in fact, the perfect representatives of what a starlet is. Pretty, maybe talented, and disposable.
It's a film that represents a turning point. It isn’t enough for stars to come and go, they need to die. Jennifer was modelled on Marilyn Monroe, and by the 1960s, the tragic blonde was already a trope it itself. This is where it’s cemented. A glamorous star either dies a victim, or lives long enough to victimise. But while that’s interesting, it’s another trope entirely. We’re talking about the tragedy of youth, not time.
John Waters’ ‘Cecil B. Demented’ (2000) is yet another example of the flighty, unloved former ingenue. The fate of someone like Kathy Selden if left unchecked. But unlike its predecessors, it attempts to provide a pathway to redemption via a Patricia Hearst inspired kidnapping plot. It’s not a film I particularly enjoy, but it is so interesting in how a former Hollywood outcast is allowed to interact within the system. It’s just as blunt about the falseness of the system as ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ was half a century prior, and just as in love with its own style.
It really is an enigma of its own making. A film about guerrilla filmmaking, by the auteur to reign supreme over them all, made to look somewhere between ‘Josie and the Pussycats’ (2001) and ‘Hannah Montana’ (2006-2011). The film wants to nod to Warhol and that extremely meta art-about-art that Waters himself always seems to be inspired by.
Then there’s Melanie Griffith.
I cannot think of a more unique figure to use for the role of Honey Whitlock than Griffith, a movie star Hollywood never seemed to respect for the majority of her career. Despite earning an Academy Award for ‘Working Girl’ (1988), Griffith’s career by the year 2000 sat somewhere between semi-retired sex kitten and a bad actress with too much history to be phased out. That wasn’t fair, she’s a fine performer with an oft underappreciated sensitivity to her performance. But reading reviews for films like ‘Shining Through’ (1991), you get the impression that nobody liked or respected her.
In ‘Cecil B. Demented’, you can feel that Griffith was incredibly game for what’s going on. But more than that, the movie clearly respects her for the very choice to take on this role. Whitlock in the film is disliked and on the precipice of being thrown away. But the film they’re making, and the film we’re watching, both want to give her the chance to establish herself outside of a system that’s ready to spit her out. She’s more than this, but at least it takes her seriously and respects her presence. It’s the one meta element that really resonates almost a quarter of a century later.
Honey is someone still pretending to be an ingenue, and her career keeps chugging along, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Demented gives her that catharsis, and only then can her fame come to an end. Much like how Griffith herself lets loose via the film, the character is going through an extreme personal and professional transformation. Red to blonde. Warm to cool. Fake to real. She becomes the trope, and in the process, destroys herself. It’s a happier take on the tragedy.
In this vein, ‘Mulholland Drive’ (2001) presents the duality of the starlet, both Kathy and Lina, in one character across multiple…threads in a way that explores these tropes of women and fame as a motivator. Naomi Watts as Betty Elms arrives to Las Angeles as a clean, Grace Kelly-esque beauty with dreams in her eyes and a heart full of hope. When the truth of her life starts breaking the fantasy, it’s tears apart the Betty fantasy, leaving us with only Diane Selwyn. The film isn’t really about Hollywood per se, but the tropes of the ingenue, the good and bad girl, the hope and whimsy, they all play a part in David Lynch’s storytelling.
It's telling that the story that Diane tells herself is one of a Betty. While her reality is one of hardness, there is a light and easy quality to a Betty. A Betty is a Betty Grable or a Betty Cooper, the blonde girl next door. Not a Marilyn Monroe or a Jean Harlow, but somebody for whom life comes easy. Diane is high contrast in dark tones and red lipstick, but a Betty is pastels and warmth.
That is the fundamental difference and connection between Waters and Lynch. Both their stories trade a soft fantasy for a harder authenticity, but whereas one sees that truth as freeing, the other makes it clear how hard it is. Griffith with a bad dye job and graphic makeup is more alive than ever before. Watts is drained, broken, and dying.
Speaking of death, we come to Nellie LaRoy.
‘Babylon’ (2022) has been written about more than it’s been seen, but something that everyone agrees upon is that Margot Robbie’s Nellie is imminently fascinating. She’s Clara Bow meets Gia Carangi, vitality without limits. Her short life within the film is not just tragic, it’s inevitable. It’s also a full circle moment from what something like ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ represented 70 years prior.
Nellie walks off into the night, having accepted that she is giving up on her dream. She’s happy to do so, but she cannot. Partially because the film cannot let her grow old – she’s the flapper personified and thus needs to die – but also because of who she is and isn’t. Every time Nellie has had anything good happen outside of her control, she sabotages it. The more she has to trust, the less things go well for her. Her first scene in sound is just as vulnerable as her agreeing to marriage. This is a creature of instinct, not preservation. Yes, she is in love, but handing herself to another is dangerous for her.
At least, that’s one read of it. But as I’ve already stated, she cannot live. It’s thematically more important for the beautiful blonde who represents the liveliness of silent era Hollywood to die than it is for her to have a happy ending. No matter what she wanted, she was doomed. If Babylon had remained a story about the real life Clara Bow, she’d have driven off into the sunset. But she’s not Clara, she’s…everything. Much like Lina Lamont’s career, the starlet’s role is now that she must die. The logical conclusion is a much harsher tragedy. Because she is not a Betty.
She’s a Diane.
The story is over, not beginning.
Returning to ‘Bombshell’, what is the end result of Lola Burns’ ambitions? What did she want out of life? Why did she come to Hollywood, and why did she stay?
Lola Burns is who Hollywood wanted us to believe Jean Harlow was, but the real Jean Harlow was a tragic woman who died young and never got to follow through on the life and career she was promised. A sex symbol at 19, a legend gone and buried at 26. It isn’t Lola that the tragic blonde pulls from, but it is she who Hollywood wanted you to think about. The woman they needed you to believe, until they realised it was easier to keep her dead.
Hollywood’s myth gave up on the starlet the moment they realised people will consume her alive or dead. That there’s a fetish for the dead blonde. We venerate the tragic woman to the point of infantilisation, and rage when she lives on to disappoint us. But rarely does that happen, because once they’re old, they’re gone. It’s like a split.
Helen in ‘Valley of the Dolls’ used to be Neely. She never will be again. Lola, however, will always be Jean Harlow. Kathy will always replace Lina. Betty will always return to Diane.
And Nellie will always be dead.
"Neely (Patty Duke) and Jennifer (Sharon Stone) might be “stars”, but neither are towering figures."???
Sharon Stone? Have you happened to see the film?