A short history of celebrity

322 Pages·2010·2.58 MB·English

by  Fred Inglis

A Short History of Celebrity
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Copyright © 2010 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Inglis, Fred.
A short history of celebrity / Fred Inglis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-13562-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Celebrities—History. 2. Celebrities—Biography. 3. Fame—
Social aspects—History. 4. Fame—Psychological aspects—
History. 5. History, Modern. 6. Popular culture—History.
7. Civilization, Modern. I. Title.
D210.I525 2010
305.5’2—dc22 2009050143
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Adobe Garamond and
ITC Golden Cockeral
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Jessie and Abby
Guardians of the Middle Station
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
part i Fame and Feeling
1. The Performance of Celebrity 3
2. A Very Short History of the Feelings 19
part ii The Rise of Celebrity:
A Three-Part Invention
3. The London–Brighton Road, 1760–1820 37
4. Paris: Haute Couture and the Painting of Modern Life 74
5. New York and Chicago: Robber Barons and the
Gossip Column, 1880–1910 108
part iii The Past in the Present
6. The Geography of Recognition: Celebrity on
Its Holidays 135
7. The Great Dictators 158
8. The Stars Look Down: The Democratisation
of Celebrity 187
9. From Each According to His Ability: Sport, Rock,
Fashion, and the Self 217
10. Stories We Tell Ourselves about Ourselves 247
Envoi: Cherishing Citizens 270
Notes 289
List of Illustrations 303
Index 305
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Acknowledgements
This book was first conceived while I was Visiting Fellow at the Institute
for the Humanities at the University of Connecticut, and I am exceed-
ingly grateful to its director, Dick Brown, and to my co-fellow, Ross Miller
(Arthur’s nephew), for their encouragement and suggestive criticisms; in
particular I would also like to thank the institute’s admirable administra-
tor, JoAnn Waid, for all her kindness and energetic thoughtfulness during
my stay.
In the event, I later put this book aside to work on my biography of R.
G. Collingwood, History Man, and it was during that period that I came so
happily under the attentive care of my present editor at Princeton Univer-
sity Press, Ian Malcolm, and he was readily persuaded to take my proposal
to his colleagues and return with a contract.
I then wrote the thing headlong, for some of the time while occupy-
ing a Visiting Fellowship in the handsome surroundings of the Humani-
ties Research Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra to
whose director, Debjani Ganguly, I owe repeated thanks for her intellec-
tual hospitality. I also aired some of these thoughts at Massey University,
New Zealand, at the invitation of my old and cherished friend, Joe Grixti,
as well as at the University of Warwick, thanks to two other such patrons
and honoured friends, Joe Winston and Jonothan Neelands, as a result
of whose good offices I am now an honorary professor at their university.
Mostly, however, the writing of this book was done at home in my study
in Somerset, and its large, indistinct, and protean subject matter came and
went according to the rhythms of domestic life and the great happiness
of scholarly retirement. A useful hand was early loaned by Richard How-
ells, and the manuscript was much exhilarated as well as improved by the
readers’ reports written by Dr. Howells and by Professor Tara Brabazon at
a later stage. As usual, a difficult and handwritten manuscript was regu-
larly dispatched to Carol Marks and punctually returned in perfect elec-