With the rise of the Hollywood film industry in the 1920s and thereafter, the world came to recognize that fame, like American automobiles or hot dogs, could also be manufactured and successfully marketed. In a democratic, officially classless culture, where "personality" provided a vehicle for upward mobility, it came to be increasingly understood that personality required manufacturing and regular maintenance. As a mass movie audience, the anonymous public also began to recognize that many of the most notable people in the world were manufactured, like the movies featuring their close-up faces, in a semi-mythic place called Hollywood. Carefully crafted to complement the technical components of the entertainment industry, the "star system" focused attention of the public onto idealized "picture personalities" that simultaneously embodied familiar social types and represented privileged individuality for their fans.

While American show business, exemplified by early impresarios like P. T. Barnum, Florenz...