Photographer and Chicago native Steve Starr is known for his painstaking detail. Starr treats every photo like an elaborate portrait session, and it's no accident that he has long had a fascination for the glamorous movie stars of the early twentieth century, when film studios controlled their images. Starr, a photographer and columnist for Windy City Times, spoke recently about his latest book, Starrlight: Glamorous Latin Movie Stars of Early Hollywood (Minal Hajratwala, $30; First Flight Books; 74 pages), a set of illustrated biographies of Maria Montez, Rita Hayworth, Lupe Velez, Carmen Miranda and Dolores Del Rio.
Windy City Times: Your last book was a Rizzoli publication about Art Deco frames (Picture Perfect: Deco Photo Frames 1926-1946, published 1991). This new book is illustrated with photos of the stars in some really beautiful Deco frames. Could you explain your fascination with that style and period and how it's linked to your fascination with Latina Hollywood stars?
Steve Starr: I specialized in Art Deco for many, many years. When I redecorated one year, I put one frame on the wall. And I thought, "Well that looks good!" And then I put another and another and I had a thousand frames. Each one was more beautiful than the last. I had personal photos in them first, and then put stars in them, each one matched to the same time as I believed the frame was produced. Between 1926 and 1946, that 20-year period. Then I put the Rizzoli book together.
I decided to write about movie stars and the very first story I wrote, about Dolores Del Rio, was in Windy City Times. When people asked me to put together a book on the stars, I didn't want to do a comprehensive one because there are so many from the past. I wanted to concentrate on that era and I like Latin art and culture and music. I like Rita Hayworth, and I thought Dolores Del Rio was the most beautiful woman, so I thought I would pick Latin stars.
What fascinated me were two things. They were very, very famous at one time, just as famous as anyone you can think of today. And today people don't know who they are. I find that amazing because they would be known worldwide just as Madonna is known today. Most people know who Rita Hayworth or Carmen Miranda is, but for various reasons, while the others were equally well-known, they are pretty much forgotten.
WCT: Why do you think that is?
Steve Starr: Well, that generation is dying out, and if you're really not into films [you won't know who they are]. Rita Hayworth's famous but most people don't know she was from Spain. I think it's because some movies live on, like Gilda [Hayworth's most famous film]. Carmen Miranda became a costume thing with the basket and the fruit but she was really very talented.
WCT: It also seems that cultural references keep them alive. I'm thinking of that line from Hayworth, quoted by Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, which appears in your book as well: "Every man I have ever known has fallen in love with Gilda, and awakened with me."
Steve Starr: Yes, and it's kind of a sad quote too. She was a very sad person. The only time she overcame her sadness and was confident was when she was dancing.
WCT: What does your book provide that's new and different?
Steve Starr: I write stories that are fun to read. I go through from the beginning through to the end and it takes you on a ride, but it's always as fact-based as I can make it because I hate misinformation. I also didn't want some clinical thing. I remember buying a book about Bette Davis which was just, "She did this and then she did that." It wasn't very interesting as a story. So I try to make mine a story that you're intrigued by. I tried to make it a glamorous collectible thing. I bound it in silver linen [with a dust jacket] and, to me, it's an art piece.
WCT: You have a fondness for the glamour of that period. Was there more glamour then or do we have more media now?
Steve Starr: We have more media now, which ruins a lot of things. In person and in screen life, if you tell too much, it dispels the myth. [The studios] tried to keep their stars as gods and goddesses, so people saw them as ethereal things.
They didn't have television projecting every single moment of their lives. Years ago, when you'd go to downtown Chicago, you'd dress up. People would never go in an airplane not dressed up. There's nothing glamorous about airlines today. That kind of excitement was just different.
WCT: Does your fascination for that time period and the glamour influence your photographic aesthetic?
Steve Starr: Yes, they took such time with the angles of the photos and only published the good ones. They only took the best. They took care with different types of photography, and they didn't produce hundreds of pictures of one sitting. They put out the best they could and they were presenting an image to people.
I collected those images and looked at them every day for 30 years, on my walls. Before that I would paint faces and I'd exhibit in art shows. I'd always drawn faces, even as a little kid; I don't know why, I still do. So I have a very, very good eye for angles and proportions.
Proportions are the whole thing. Someone might be good-looking but you turn their head just a little bit and they look even better. Even if it's just a snapshot, I make everybody look as good as I possibly can. I don't want anyone complaining. And it's really helped me in that field, too. [My subjects] always say, "That's the best picture of me!" It's easier for me because I am good at proportioning how to get the best. Also, they have fun with me. I don't just walk by and snap them.
WCT: These days, with Facebook and all the technology, everybody's a photographer. Is there a place for that kind of portraiture today?
Steve Starr: Everybody wants a good picture. Everybody can be attractive, if they had a choice, and everyone wants to look good. It's in the cropping. And there is a place for that.