Robert Taylor: Male Beauty, Masculinity, and Stardom in Hollywood

by Gillian Kelly

Because of his lengthy screen resume that includes almost eighty appearances in such movies as Camille and Waterloo Bridge, as well as a marriage and divorce to actress Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor was a central figure of Hollywood's classical era. Despite this, he can be regarded as a "lost" star, an interesting contradiction given the continued success he enjoyed during his lifetime.

In Robert Taylor: Male Beauty, Masculinity, and Stardom in Hollywood, author Gillian Kelly investigates the initial construction and subsequent developments of Taylor's star persona across his thirty-five-year career. By examining concepts of male beauty, men as object of the erotic gaze, white American masculinity, and the unusual longevity of a career initially based on looks, Kelly highlights how gender, masculinity, and male stars and the ageing process affected Taylor's career. Placing Taylor within the histories of both Hollywood's classical era and mid-twentieth-century America, this study positions him firmly within the wider industrial, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which he worked.

Kelly examines Taylor's film and television work as well as ephemeral material, such as fan magazines, to assess how his on- and off-screen personas were created and developed over time. Taking a mostly chronological approach, Kelly places Taylor's persona within specific historical moments in order to show the complex paradox of his image remaining consistently recognizable while also shifting seamlessly within the Hollywood industry. Furthermore, she explores Taylor's importance to Hollywood cinema by demonstrating how a star persona like his can "fit" so well, and for so long, that it almost becomes invisible and, eventually, almost forgotten.

218 pages, Hardcover

Published June 27, 2019

About the author

Gillian Kelly is a film and media scholar specialising in the anthropological history of film, particularly the constructed star personae and career trajectories of male performers of classical Hollywood cinema (1930s-1960s).

Her first monograph 'Robert Taylor: Male Beauty, Masculinity and Stardom in Hollywood' (2019) was shortlisted for Best Monograph at the prestigious BAFTSS Awards 2020. An academic investigation of Taylor's constructed star persona and the actor's performance skills, the book explores his filmic and extrafilmic careers within their industrial and socio-historical timeframes. The book is also concerned with wider issues facing America during this time period, for example, changing ideas concerning masculinity in the pre- and post-World War II years. Her second monograph 'Tyrone Power: Gender, Genre and Image in Classical Hollywood Cinema' was released by Edinburgh University Press in 2021 as part of their International Film Stars series.

Dr Kelly holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Literature from The University of Glasgow, as well as a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from The University of Paisley. She has published scholarly papers and book reviews in a number of academic journals. Her chapter 'Robert Taylor: The 'Lost' Star with the Long Career' is included in 'Lasting Screen Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), which won Best Edited Collection at the BAFTSS Awards 2017. Her most recent book chapter is 'Hank and Jesus: The Integral Roles of Religion and the History of Country Music in the Lives and Careers of Contemporary Country Artists' in 'Exploring the Spiritual in Popular Music: Beatified Beats' (Bloomsbury, 2021) and she has just published an academic article called 'Dial M for Markham, McNutley and the Milland Show: Remaking and Reimagining Ray Milland's Established Cinematic Image for 1950s Television' in the journal TV/Series (2022).