Hollywood Celebrates Christmas By Mary Mallory
Hollywood Celebrates Christmas
By Mary Mallory
It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and Hollywood’s still photography proves the point. Combining glamour, sensuality, playfulness, beauty, and every day charm, these stunning publicity images sold Hollywood stars and movies to film fans for decades through their use in magazines and newspapers.
Grace Bradely
Film studios created still photography departments in the 1920s to shoot portraits, scene stills, and publicity images meant to entice moviegoers to buy film tickets. These eye-catching photos covered all types of subjects, all the better to help illustrate biographical sketches, human interest stories, every day events, or even advertorials. Studios provided them free to publications in exchange for credit for the star or upcoming movie, a quid pro quo arrangement which benefited both parties.
Joan Crawford
Publicity photos of stars posing for holidays were particularly popular. Featuring elaborate production and lighting design and sometimes even costumes, these images covered the gamut in capturing holiday moods, from pious to efferverscent to naughty.
Claudette Colbert
Holiday stills act as a great time machine in revealing products, decoration, and evolving attitudes over the decades. They served as much as a selling tool for holiday decorating as they did for movies and film stars.
Deanna Durbin
Early studio Christmas images reflect a homier and more simple type of decorating, with live trees festooned with tinsel, stringed popcorn, candles, and glass ornaments. Photos reflect stars preparing for the holiday, wrapping presents, and even decorating. Even then, most focused on the general atmosphere of the holiday, not its spiritual origins or connotations.
Rita Hayworth
Betty Grable
By the 1930s, a little sensuality begins to appear, with starlets often wearing leoards, short skirts, and even lingerie, revealing plenty of leg as they wait for Santa or decorate their tree. Playfulness takes hold as well; the Our Gang kids fill oversize stockings and Deanna Durbin is adorned like a Christmas tree. Documentary shots often appear too, with many starlets posing with the Santa Claus Lane Christmas decorations along Hollywood Boulevard.
Lorre Greenstreet
In the 1940s, color pops up occasionally for holiday photos, vivid and bright hues accentuating the joyous family time. Dark humor makes an appearance, such as in the photo of Peter Lorre holding a baseball bat ready to strike Sydney Greenstreet dressed up as a jolly Santa. Decorated trees appear more lush and glamorous, Hollywood perfect.
Jayne Mansfield
During the next couple of decades, photos become more about cross promoting other products that could serve as gifts and not just movie selling tools. Many are employed as tie-ins for products. With the rise of television, studios spend less time with fancy production and lighting design, focusing on quick and easy poses in front of a giant wreath, tree, or even winter accoutrements. They also begin employing artificial trees composed of tinsel, aluminum, and other metals, midcentury at its finest.
Esther Williams
Whatever the decade, Hollywood Christmas photos encourage buying and giving gifts, counting down the number of days until Christmas. Then as now, they promote “Avoid this hurly burly, and do your shopping early.” Merry Christmas!
Mary Mallory is a historian, archivist, and writer specializing in Los Angeles and Hollywood history. She serves as Secretary for Hollywood Heritage's Board of Directors and gives presentations to a variety of organizations and museums. Mary has written four books, including Hollywoodland, and blogs for the LA Daily Mirror.
https://www.hollywoodheritage.org/online-store/Images-of-America-Hollywoodland-p133327975