Book description
In the history of cinema, many film genres have gained and lost
popularity with the changing times, but one has maintained its supreme
reign-the royal biopic. In Royal Portraits in Hollywood: Filming the
Lives of Queens, authors Elizabeth A. Ford and Deborah C. Mitchell
follow the lives of historical queens as depicted on film from the 1930s
to the present. Women as diverse as Catherine the Great, Cleopatra, Mary
Stuart, and Marie Antoinette have been represented on the silver screen,
dominating the masculine world of politics while maintaining their
femininity. During the golden age of American film, these roles gave
Hollywood a means of portraying powerful women without threatening the
patriarchal social order. Depictions of the lives of queens have
progressed from idealized and romanticized portraits to the more
personal, complex portrayals of modern Hollywood. By walking the line
between fact and fiction, these royal portraits of queens reveal just as
much our society as they do about the historical periods they represent.
Audiences are drawn to the theaters year after year because the lives of
queens promise good drama and attract some of the most talented
actresses. The success of Hollywood's leading ladies in playing queens
further solidifies the link between Hollywood royalty and authentic
royalty. Actresses such as Bette Davis, Judy Dench, Helen Mirren,
Elizabeth Taylor, and Greta Garbo have done more than influence the way
we imagine historical queens-they also have changed how we perceive
women in powerful positions today. Royal Portraits in Hollywood analyzes
seventy-five years of films about queens as well as the lives of the
actresses who starred in them. Combining biographical sketches and
excerpts from letters and journals, Ford and Mitchell show how
filmmaking and our society's perceptions of gender have changed. The
authors compare Hollywood's on-screen portrayals to the historical
records, often drawing connections to the actresses' careers and
personal lives. This comprehensive analysis provides a more complete
picture of the lives that take place behind the thrones-both real and
fictional. The spectacle of a woman dressed in the full regalia of power
remains a compelling image in our society. Hollywood actresses and the
queens they portray are women who wield power, and by examining the
lives of these women, the authors reveal not only society's perceptions
about female power but also how those perceptions continue to evolve.
Elizabeth Ford, professor emeritus of English at Westminster College, is
coauthor, along with Deborah Mitchell, of The Makeover in Movies: Before
and After in Hollywood Films, 1941-2002. Deborah Mitchell, associate
professor of English at Westminster College, is author of Diane Keaton:
Artist and Icon.
