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With apologies for cross-posting
Female Stars of British Cinema: The Women in Question
Melanie Williams
Edinburgh University Press
Paperback: 9781474405645
£19.99
https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-female-stars-of-british-cinema-13744.html
“This book’s sharp analysis of seven carefully-chosen British female stars is fully attendant to issues of class, celebrity, femininity and nation. Concentrating on women
with long careers as well as those which were cut short by prevalent difficulties and obstacles, the book develops many pertinent insights about the formulation and impact of diverse star personae in a British context. It is essential reading for those interested
in British cinema and in film stardom more generally.”
Professor Sarah Street, University of Bristol
Film stars are often seen as a Hollywood creation, but this book explores how British cinema developed its own culture of stardom, creating female stars who were not only
loved by British audiences but also internationally admired. It uses case studies of seven female stars whose careers span the period from the 1940s to the present day - Jean Kent, Diana Dors, Rita Tushingham, Glenda
Jackson, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Lloyd, and Judi Dench – as a way of exploring how British star femininities have developed over time, and how the image of the British female star has responded to broader social and cultural changes.
These ‘women in question’ offer a way into the complexities of British cinema’s distinctive variant of female stardom, which has sometimes espoused glamour and sometimes rejected it, and which is profoundly
entangled with issues of regional, national and ethnic identity, as well as class, sexuality and age. Exploring and investigating the variety of female stars produced by British cinema over the last seventy-five years, this book also interrogates some of the
ongoing omissions and absences from that same cinematic firmament.
Contents:
1. Introduction: questions of female stardom in British cinema
2. ‘A girl appears in camiknickers’: Jean Kent’s austerity stardom
3. ‘Blonde glamour machine’: Diana Dors in the 1950s and beyond
4. British new waif: Rita Tushingham and sixties female stardom
5. ‘A constant threat’: Glenda Jackson and the challenges of seventies stardom
6. ‘From schoolgirl to stardom’: the discovery and development of Helena Bonham Carter and Emily Lloyd in the 1980s and 1990s
7. National treasure: Judi Dench and older female stardom into the 2000s
8. Conclusion: the unbearable whiteness of being (a female British star)
Dr Melanie Williams
Reader in Film and Television Studies,
School of Art, Media and American Studies,
University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, NR4 7TJ
Tel: 01603 593351
Twitter: @BritFilmMelanie
Co-investigator on AHRC-funded project, ‘Transformation and Tradition in British Cinema of the 1960s: Industry, Creativity, and National Branding’
http://60sbritishcinema.wordpress.com/about/