Tyrone Power: Gender, Genre and Image in Classical Hollywood Cinema - Paperback

by Gillian Kelly (Author)

One of the most popular actors of the Classical Hollywood period, Tyrone Power's appeal was initially based around his outstanding beauty, his looks remaining key to his star persona throughout his 25-year career and almost 50 films. This book presents the first substantial academic study of Power and employs a range of approaches, including stardom and genre theory, to reappraise his career from various angles including gender, genre and image. Textual analysis coincides with discussions of Power's multi-layered performances in a variety of genres while engaging with industry systems, specifically Twentieth Century-Fox, his home studio for almost two decades, and situates Power's performances within the contexts of industry regulations, such as the Production Code, and industry technological advances, such as CinemaScope.

Author Biography

Gillian Kelly was awarded a PhD from the University of Glasgow in 2015 and her areas of academic interest include constructions of stardom and celebrity in the media, with a strong focus on male performers and American masculinity. Her first monograph, Robert Taylor: Male Beauty, Masculinity and Stardom in Hollywood (University Press of Mississippi, 2019) was shortlisted for the prestigious BAFTSS (British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies) Award for Best Monograph in 2020. Her chapter 'Robert Taylor: The 'Lost' Star with the Long Career' is included in the edited collection Lasting Screen Stars: Personas that Endure and Images that Fade (Palgrave McMillan, 2016), and she has contributed to several journals including Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Celebrity Studies and Alphaville.