This book provides an industrial history that examines how and why makeup and hairdressing evolved as crafts in the studio era. Readers will never again watch Hollywood films without thinking about the roles of makeup and hairdressing in creating not just fictional characters but stars as emblems of an idealized and undeniably mesmerizing visual perfection.

 

ADRIENNE L. McLEAN is a professor of film studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and the author or editor of multiple books including Dying Swans and Madmen: Ballet, the Body, and Narrative Cinema and Being Rita Hayworth: Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom (both Rutgers University Press).
 

Introduction: Art and Science in the Service of Loveliness
1. Makeup and Hairdressing as Studio Crafts: The Silent Period
2. The Classical Period: Craft Identity and the Labor Force
3. The Classical Period: Department Practices and the Commerce of Expertise
4. Cosmetics, Coiffures, and Characterization
Epilogue: Trophy Faces
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index