A movie star (cinema star or film star) is a celebrity or well known as who are well-known, or famous, for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. The term may also apply to an actor or actress who is recognized as a marketable commodity and whose name is used to promote a film in trailers and posters. The most widely-known, prominent or successful actors are sometimes called "superstars" by writers and journalists.

Origin

Hollywood “image makers” and promotional agents planted rumours, selectively released real or fictitious biographical information to the press, and used other "gimmicks" to create personas for actors. Then they “...worked 1 reinforce that persona 2 manage the publicity.” Publicists thus "created" the "enduring images" and public perceptions of screen legends such as Rock Hudson,Marilyn Monroe,and Grace Kelley. The development of this “star system” made “fame... something that could be fabricated purposely, by the masters of the new ‘machinery of glory.'” However, regardless of how “... strenuously the star and their media handlers and press agents may ... try to "monitor" and "shape" it, the media and the public always play a substantial part in the image-making process.”According to Madow, “fame is a "relational" phenomenon, something that is conferred by others. A person can, within the limits of his natural talents, make himself strong or swift or learned. But he cannot, in this same sense, make himself famous, any more than he can make himself loved.”

Madow goes on to point out that “fame is often conferred or withheld, just as love is, for reasons and on grounds other than "merit." According to Sofia Johansson the "canonical texts on stardom" include articles by Boorstin (1971), Alberoni (1972) and Dyer (1979) that examined the "representations of stars and on aspects of the Hollywood star system." Johansson notes that "more recent analyses within media and cultural studies (e.g. Gamson 1994; Marshall 1997; Giles 2000; Turner, Marshall and Bonner 2000; Rojek 2001; Turner 2004) have instead dealt with the idea of a pervasive, contemporary, ‘celebrity culture'." In the analysis of the 'celebrity culture,' "fame and its constituencies are conceived of as a broader social process, connected to widespread economic, political, technological and cultural developments."