Unlucky Star: The Melodramatic Sacrafice in A Star is Born

“You are my lucky star,” actor Don Lockwood croons in the 1952 musical Singin’ in the Rain, as he gazes into the eyes of his true love, the woman he made a star. Typical of most Hollywood musicals of the era, the film provided pure feel-good escapism, while playing show-business turmoil for laughs, and depicting love as giddily effortless. Then came George Cukor’s 1954 musical A Star is Born, the second remake of Cukor’s own 1932 comedy What Price, Hollywood?. The film irrevocably turned the tables on the sugar-coated image Hollywood had painted for itself in previous American cinema. The puddles Lockwood splashed in to profess his love for Kathy Selden become, in Star, the endless sea that an alcoholic actor silently allows to envelop him, along with the troubles he would inflict on his wife, the woman he made a star. A Star is Born proves that, in order to achieve success and love, one must ultimately sacrifice the era’s social constructs. For cinema, and for women, Cukor’s film ushered in, as the ‘star’ herself would sing, “a new world.”

1954 was a year that truly reflected the social dichotomy of the nation. In the exact same year, the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” schools were in fact unequal, and the U.S. Senate finally censured Senator McCarthy (Young xviii). While these were both considerable victories for human rights, women were still treated like secondary citizens. Feminist Phyllis Chesler referred to the era as “a fundamentalist country” in which women were “physically, psychologically, [and] sexually” veiled (Salamone 5). Women were taught to seek the majority of their lives pleasure in the happiness they gave to their husband and children, while rarely venturing outside of the home (Young 10). Television itself offered two enduring images of married women: either they were the cheery, glamorously dressed housewives (as seen in shows such as Leave It To Beaver) who had no personal ambitions of their own, or they were the adorable klutzes who were comically punished for their attempts to enter the work force (as Lucille Ball repeatedly was on I Love Lucy). Contrary to the media’s relentless message, however, about 50% of women worked outside the home by the close of the decade (Salamone 5).

Unfortunately, women were having trouble prospering outside the comfort of their kitchens. Only a third of the women who attended college actually graduated, and just over 10% of American women succeeded in entering a profession (Young 11). Some housewives avoided the workplace simply by giving in to the expectations society had set for them; they learned to never jeopardize their husband’s dignity, and to always hide their own intellectualism (Salamone 6). In Hollywood, things fared no better for women.

At a time when emerging movie stars were breaking taboos (Monroe, Mansfield), and introducing new levels of realism to the multiplexes (Brando, Dean), women still couldn’t escape being objectified by the studios. No one understood this process more than the star of Star herself, Judy Garland, who as a young contract player in the late 30’s, had her “teeth capped, nose restructured, thick waist held in by corsets, and body reshaped as well as possible by diet and massage” (Harmetz 107). In the nation’s living rooms, as well as the studio back lots, conformity was never an option for women; it was a fact. Yet the studio system itself was beginning to collapse, due to plummeting theater attendance (caused by the emergence of television). Studios scrambled to lure audiences back with visual gimmickry, resulting in Warners halting the shooting of A Star Is Born, so it could be re-shot in the widescreen CinemaScope (Lloyd 43). While director Cukor revolutionized this visual process (by allowing free movement within the frame, and refusing to center shots on the action), he also succeeded in defying the social conformity of the era, within what was at the time regarded the “cheeriest” of genres, the musical (Young 191).

There is a specific scene in Cukor’s film in which all of the social commentary and melodramatic plot mechanics that have been built up throughout the film reach their boiling point. Film star Esther Blodgett (Judy Garland) has just put her husband, alcoholic has-been Norman Maine (James Mason), to bed, after gaining his custody when he was arrested for drug charges. She walks to her outdoor patio, where studio boss Oscar Niles (Charles Bickford) is waiting for her. A gust of wind sends a nearby napkin flying, like an airborne handkerchief, toward the window just outside Norman’s bedroom. He awakens, and with growing horror, silently listens to the conversation that develops between Esther and Oscar.

All throughout the scene, Esther affirms what the audience has suspected all along; she, like many women of the time, seeks comfort in her social subordination. By revealing to Oliver that she plans to stop making pictures, she establishes her devotion to her husband as being vastly more important than any personal work-related successes. When Oliver argues that quitting at the peak of her success would be disastrous, Esther attempts to justify her decision by stating, “I’m just giving back the gift [Norman] gave me.” With this single exchange, Esther completely denies any fragment of her own self-worth, by giving Norman full credit for her abilities (much like how the spiritually devout credit God for all their achievements). Following the tradition of the housewives who struggled to suppress their intellect, Esther chooses to live in denial of the talent she displayed (while singing “The Man That Got Away”) before Norman ever became an influence to her. Thus, Esther accurately mirrors the women of her time whose chief task was to “nurture the bruised egos” of their men, and whose ambition only stretched as far as their men would allow them (Young 90).

Esther’s tearful denial grows fierce once Oliver reveals to her the depths of Norman’s illness. “20 years of steady drinking can destroy a man,” Oliver replies (eerily foreshadowing the effects of Garland’s own drug addiction), “Before it showed in his face, it showed in his acting…he’s just an empty shell of what he once was.” Yet even upon learning that Norman was doomed long before she first met him, Esther refuses to face the truth. “Can’t I at least try [to help him recover]?” she wails; a request that Oliver simply can’t refuse. It is at this moment when Norman’s face begins to speak volumes.

Being a once-respected man in the 50’s, whose last remnants of dignity have crumbled under the weight of his wife’s stardom, Norman has thus become a target of mockery for everyone including his own press agent (who sneers, “you can live off your wife now”). Yet Norman is fully aware that his failings were caused by his own addiction, which makes his love for Esther (who’s referred to as a “living monument” to Norman’s success) never falter. So when Norman overhears his wife giving up the stardom he had discovered in her, his eyes turn from darkly hollow to deeply anguished, as he comes to the realization that the only way to preserve his wife’s success is to die, thus eliminating her entrapment in aiding his incurable state. He then weeps while gasping for air, as if he is already drowning.

With this one scene, Cukor proves his genius as a social commentator by at first presenting the audience with a protagonist (Esther) who seems to be mirroring the social truths of the day (in this case, the belief that women should sacrifice everything – including their promising careers – for their husbands). It is only when one looks under the surface that the contradictions to the era’s popular beliefs come into focus. Everything Norman has done to launch Esther’s star has been to simply display her abilities. From getting Esther her first lead role by secretly forcing Oliver to overhear her singing, to relieving Esther of the atrocious makeup-job given to her by the studio (which is portrayed in all its raw, dehumanizing form), Norman makes Esther a star by simply exposing her exemplary attributes (her voice, face, etc) to a worldwide audience. Therefore, the film’s message becomes one of female empowerment, which was quite atypical for a 50’s musical. As the film’s restoration leader Ronald Haver put it, Esther’s star truly is born once “she overcomes her insecurities, her need for Norman as the mainspring of her life” (Haver 57).

As a female archetype, Esther Blodgett (named Vicki Lester, by the studio) has echoes of the “noble sufferer”, a character who was greatly popular in the melodramas of the 30’s. Cut off from her loved ones, while being thrust into a difficult situation, this female character attracted viewers because of her nobility, not her suffering. This appeal is reflected in historian David Grimsted’s argument that “Virtue and the heroine stood almost indistinguishable at the center of the melodrama, the one a personification of the other” (Seiter 17). On first glance, Esther seems to be among the most virtuous of all film heroines. Not only does she do everything in her power to support Norman, even as he begins “to crumble away”, she also “keeps herself firmly rooted in reality while caught up in the fantasy world” of film (Philips 152). As the studio’s star-making process is revealed to be “a demented and impersonal set of actions that dehumanize a woman… [and] destroy her individuality”, the sympathy for Esther is generated not by her mistreatment, but by her noble ability to accept and weather her predicament (Basinger 142). For the majority of the film’s three-hour running time, Esther emerges as the ideal role model for women of that era, who were praised for being humble and selfless in society, as well as practical ‘mother-figures’ to their ‘child-like’ husbands. Esther demonstrates her mother-quality most amusingly during a scene after she comes home from a long day at the studio, and attempts to cheer up her unemployed husband with an elaborate song-and-dance routine that would exhaust even Donald O’ Connor. Ultimately, however, the film turns the archetypical tables on this “role model” archetype in its final, extraordinary moments.

After Norman’s suicide, Esther nobly mourns her husband by staying holed up in her darkened mansion, much like a female Citizen Kane. She is then visited by an old friend, piano player Danny (Tommy Noonan), who reminds her that she’s due at a benefit that night. When Esther violently refuses to leave, Danny firmly reminds her that Norman’s belief in her was the main reason she truly found success, and if she throws it away now, it would be like “there wasn’t a Norman Maine at all.” This scene’s cautionary statement for all women rings loud and clear; the belief in oneself is an essential ingredient to success, and if a woman’s self-esteem relies solely on the “man that got away”, it could prove fatal for her ability to discover her own self-worth. While this scene doesn’t completely undermine the positive nature of her nobility, it also cautions women to not suppress their own abilities, especially in honor of men who could never offer them anything but suffering. Ultimately, Esther attends the nationally broadcast benefit, and proudly announces in front of a packed auditorium, “Hello, everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine.” The line conveys a beautiful compromise between an ever-lasting loyalty to the deceased husband who believed in her, as well as a blatant proclamation that her newfound belief in herself will now keep her success (and therefore her husband’s success) alive. This causes a standing ovation to erupt in the audience, as thousands cheer for the bittersweet triumph of a woman’s success and a man’s love over the conforming social constructs of the day. Cukor concludes that a woman can find success in her work, escape the conformity of household kitchens and studio contracts, and sustain her self-esteem even in the absence of her own husband.

In the end, however, Esther is certainly an “unluckier star” than the majority of characters in 50’s showbiz musicals. She certainly fits the description of a tragic hero; a person who is “characterized by division” between “two conflicting alternatives” that are equally unsatisfactory, thus making triumph “impossible” (Seiter 13). Esther’s success comes with a great price, the death of her husband, and yet the alternative to this fate would have been far worse; the loss of her success and the devotion to a man whose future was doomed regardless. What truly makes A Star Is Born a masterpiece of tragic melodrama is its love story between two people willing to sacrifice everything for one another. In the film’s closing shot, it is Norman’s love and his wife’s self-acknowledged dignity that makes Esther’s star truly shine with conviction.


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A Star Is Born. Dir. George Cukor. Perf. Judy Garland, James Mason, Charles
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