Why are there no more beautiful movie stars?

There are plenty of beauties. The ancient stars you mention were in films almost a century ago. For 30 years - 20s-40s - actors were shot and made up differently than today. Also there was alchemy in the technical knowledge of lensing, makeup, lighting, and emulsion. A fair amount of this has been abandoned and now they rarely shoot film at all.

By the way, Hepburn?! Sheesh - not a beauty.

Hepburn was quite striking on film, but she wore tons of heavy makeup to hide her freckles and splotchy skin. She was also rather flat chested.

But with the exception of a few, none of the screen divas from the Golden Age of Hollywood were what anyone would call beautiful. Attractive and photogenic but not beautiful.

Hey what about me?

[R2] which Hepburn? Weren’t both flat chested? I miss the glamour. Everyone is ordinary and , as you say, lacking charisma, mystery.

They have to be “relatable “. Yawn

I was referring to Kate..

There is far more importance and focus on "relatability" today, and actual glamour isn't really a big goal like it was during Hollywood's Golden Age.

[R7] yes , it’s true, but I still miss it.

i think feminism and the internet killed off traditional beauty, even in modeling, the top models are all very non traditional looking.

In another thread there was discussion about Rooney Mara and Jennifer Lawrence. They’re so ordinary, that their fame is odd. I don’t know who would truly be a fan of someone like them. The old stars had magic because they not only had unique looks, but strong, magnetic personalities. RM et al are as interesting as stale crackers.

We have left the era of the STAR and entered the era of the CELEBRITY.

Females now are titled ACTORS to signify the shift in the CRAFT.

Women no longer need to look like STARS when they are ACTORS.

Female CELEBRITIES now look like STARS.

We have been KARDASHIANED.

Actors now are lazy. They have 20 people around them. Don't have to do anything.

Perfectly stated R11.

Jennifer garner is one of the ones who keeps it way to real for me. There's literally no glamour there at all. She looks just like anyone else on the street.

You'd never know she was in showbiz.

Apparently, YOU'VE never seen "Our French Faun" TimOTay, OP, SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I think Jennifer Lopez is among a very small handful of STARS. LIke, you always stop to look when she's on TV.

A few years ago, there was that movie - my week with Marilyn, which was okay, but while Marilyn Monroe stopped traffic, Michelle Williams was just so... meh.

Too much plastic surgery. All beauty is slowly being homogenized.

[quote] Have people disintegrated in general?

Nope! There have been weird looking people in movies for awhile now!

Well if you're really beautiful, you usually go the model route. Then when you're established, you dabble in acting and find that it's too hard, or you really can't act. I don't know why, but there's a "modern" face for women these days, which borders on girlish- whenever I work on period films that take place before the 60's, it's interesting to see how many faces don't have the bone structure that people had back then, and looks completely inappropriate for the era(s).

There are still a lot of stunning beauty in Europe, apparently. In America, they just have a twisted taste of beauty, like that of the Kartrashians.

you have to be both thin and tall to be a model though

R19 I agree with everything you said. And I've noticed the very "girly " look as well. Men and women in general seem to have more childlike faces than they did 40 /50 years ago , particularly in the US. Sometimes I would like to see a more mature look represented on screen, the type that you would see in 60s/70s films . 40 years ago, you would see 35 year olds cast as teens. Now it's gone to far in the other direction. Many roles that might benefit from a more seasoned looking actor /actress are now played by 34 year olds who still look 19.

Because instead with have The Great Mediocrity, which has included the likes of Jennifer Lawrence and Brie Larsen.

'Relatable' is in. 'Unattainable' is out.

Ahem!

Agree Jennifer Lopez was one of the last true movie stars. She was gorgeous, could pretty much radiate any emotion you wanted, she was also hardworking and not afraid to push herself. Unfortunately not much of an actress with more ambition than talent. Just one of the better starlets who came chasing after Madonna's heels.

R23 - but even back in the Golden Age of Hollywood - there were plenty of fairly ordinary looking ‘stars’ - whose big thing was that they were ordinary boy and girl next door types who were relatable.

Betty Grable was a huge star - but she wasn’t beautiful. Great body and legs - and she scrubbed up well and with the full hair and makeup treatment - she could look pretty glamorous - but she wasn’t beautiful. Betty Hutton and Judy Garland could sing and perform - but just average looks. Jean Arthur, Kay Frances, Miriam Hopkins - they all had personality and style - but they weren’t beautiful. Van Johnston. John Garfield. Bogart, Spencer Tracey - lots and lots of others - careers were driven by their personalities and acting chops.

And yeah - there were some real knockouts - both male and female - but they weren’t always the biggest stars, nor did they have necessarily have the best acting ability.

I think it’s not that dissimilar from now. But the studios had some of the best hair and makeup people on the planet on tap back then - and access to the best photographers and cinematographers - of course with that treatment those people looked great! You think they were going to let the public see pictures of their huge investments look anything other than their best? There’s a reason. There are so many beautiful, iconic shots from back then.

If anything - I think today’s actors tend to be fitter and healthier looking for longer!

Cameron Diaz also. She did the "actressy" thing for a while in her early-mid career, before going back to the cute girlie parts. And when she saw the writing on the wall that she could not progress into decent roles after 45 like Michelle Pfeiffer, she left the biz. Good for her and she can still do the occasional character role if she ever needed the money.

The old Hollywood films had stunning people like Hedy Lamar and Gene Tierney. I I can't think of any actresses that are that beautiful today. I think beauty was enough back then and acting talent was secondary.

Jennifer Lopez? A movie star????

Charlize Theron, Angelina Jolie are/were movie star beautiful.

I would say Angelina Jolie is beautiful

Funny OP, I had the same thought yesterday. There was a promo that had that actress named Rebel somebody. She's a big girl but it that wasn't it. She just seemed so ordinary and uninteresting. It just made me think that (by and large) actors today are so unspectacular looking. I mean, we used to have Vivien Leigh and Cary Grant for goodness sake and now ...? Not that there aren't some gorgeous people here and there. But mostly it's hum drum city.

They still exist, but they're on the BBC. If you watch the period pieces, you'll see them.

So much of old Hollywood was northern European trying desperately to pass as WASP. And look at how many of the old stars were lily-white skinned red heads: Lucille, Shearer, Sullivan, Myrna Loy, etc. You don't really see that ethnic background in film anymore.

Also, for the ones who came from the theatre--the kind of theatre that didn't have microphones--they could project their personalities--I mean, they had to.

Hollywood can't glamorize attractive white people at the same time they want to breed attractive white people out of existence. So we are stuck looking at a bunch of politically correct fuggos instead.

R33... I agree that some of the actresses/actors on the BBC period pieces are absolutely beautiful. Because of the set period of the series, many don't wear much makeup.. and they're still gorgeous.

...because deconstruction-glam has taken over Hollywood. The more "falling apart" you look, the better, seems to be the current philosophy. Messy hair, messy clothes, messy face, messy demeanor. Work really hard trying to erase the natural beauty y'all showed up with.

Have naturally gorgeous hair? Shave or fry it. Clothes don't look like they've been washed and worn for the past 30 years straight? Run over your pants with a lawnmower. Have any flush of life left in your cheeks? Work overtime and apply really, weird makeup to look worn out or non-human. It's the anti-'80s look, where everyone looked clean-scrubbed, strapping and vital.

We now have to pretend strapping virility is unappealing.

We have to pretend athletic vigor is not attractive.

And for the lesbians of DL, you've backed into a cultural corner, too.

I completely agree. They all look so plain. The last real beauty was maybe Michelle Pfeiffer.

R34 I would say it's more cultural Alpha-shaming, turning away from showcasing White beauties is probably more about trying to sell to newly affluent societies without a lot of White people in them because people like to fantasize about filling film roles and see themselves in a hero character.

It's not like we're seeing lots of healthy, strapping non-White people onscreen anymore, too.

Damn, what has happened to Hollywood? THIS is what I want to see onscreen. Not shrinking, whimpering whiners.

There actually was a time in the recent past where actresses didn't have to wilt their hair, to have a career.

Laura Elena Harring is stunning.

Hollywood, what happened to you?! Why did you let it happen?

R44 Vital and healthy looking. What lesbian or straight man would want to see that?

Everything sucks, now.

Add Emma Stone to the absolutely average looking list. None of the ginger actresses today are anything special—Amy Adams, Jessica Chastain, etc. Lucille Ball was gorgeous.

Being undeniably gorgeous in film and modeling was once socially acceptable.

Golden age hollywood was more about star power. Today, its more about the craft of acting.

Actors in all actuality, are supposed to be more mysterious and have a mystic to them. If your a "STAR" than maybe the public knows to much about you. When you watch a movie your only supposed to see a character and not a star. That's how its really supposed to be.

We're not supposed to know much about the lives of these people. That's what "reality stars" are for. I think film stars have a little more privacy today than they did way back when. Its probably a good thing we don't know a whole lot about whats going on in their personal lives.

We should be able to see them get lost in characters on the silver screen. That's how it was meant to be.

This isn't the era of Joan Crawford and marilyn Monroe anymore.

You can trace the cultural change by watching the progression of Jennifer Connelly's look.

She started off rosy-cheeked, fluffy haired, perky turned-up nose and round in the typically female places.

Over time, she seemed to be under pressure to deflate everything that looked vital about her. Natural boobs? Must get rid of them. Flatten already straight here until it was as close to your head as possible. Draw everything in about your look, make everything look weak and small, inverted.

Jennifer Connelly is still very beautiful and yes, people age. That's are not what's being challenged, here. I think she's probably the most beautiful actress in her age group. My issue is with the visuals of retreat and submission.

R51 "...already straight [hair]..."

R50 "...Today, its more about the craft of acting..."

Where? Only about two modern era performances have stuck with me. The lack of human vulnerability commonly shown onscreen these days is not relatable.

It's like the dynamic has been flipped: Before, you'd have actors who look larger than life on the outside but delivered performances of small, typically human moments vulnerability. Now, every character looks weak and vulnerable on the outside but are hard and unrelatable on the "inside".

R53 "...[looked] larger than life..."

Gary Cooper. That beautiful face. How can someone look so strong, yet vulnerable at the same time?

R55 Kevin Costner has this screen quality.

R51 And to be perfectly clear, I was not picking on Jennifer Connelly. I purposely picked one of the big beauties to make a point: She seemed pressured -- by culture or by workers in the industry -- to present as small and slight, as possible. To pull everything inward: To retreat.

Jacki Weaver in the "Poms' trailer looks more vital than half of "Young Hollywood".

I like the fact that everyone on the screen is no longer beautiful, not in an "all hail diversity" way, but for believability.

I'm just not going to buy a stunningly beautiful woman in some roles. I'd prefer a plainer or less glamorous person. True, as Charlize Theron did in Monster, you can make be made uglier.

But, I'd rather have people who look the part - whether by makeup or reality.

r30, I believe you have reverse engineered STAR quality for me.

STAR quality is when an actor is deemed beautiful enough to do commercials for Chanel and Dior.

The audience has changed as well. Their tastes, likes, dislikes. All of the above. What do y’all want? I can find fault with the Golden Age film stars as much as I can with contemporary artists. For one, diversity was sorely lacking back then. They wouldn’t even allow nonwhite actors to play nonwhite roles at times. Or have you forgotten about yellowface and blackface? Native American parts were played by white people in brown makeup. As for the glamour, they invented airbrushing then you know...George Hurrell built a career on it. Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford stood over his shoulders, telling him what to enhance or downplay. Jean Harlow was quite plain without his shadows and light. Bogie wore lifts (so does Tom Cruise, FWIW)...What are y’all remembering?

Do looks matter when an actor's name can't sell a movie these days? If their name alone can't sell a movie, their looks won't. Today's Hollywood is different. These big budget movies aren't making money because of who's in them. They make money because of nostalgia. Captain Marvel isn't going to be known as a "Brie Larson Picture." Wonder Woman isn't going to be known as "A Gal Gadot Picture."

Movie stars don't really exist anymore. Everyone is now a working actor. Sometimes they get big breaks and sometimes they don't. Name alone does not hold up a career.

The last time I set foot in a movie theater was 2014. Now I wait for stuff to come out on cable. Nothing is worth spending $10.00USD plus snacks on. Digital effects and bad acting.

I'm not a huge fan of either but I think both Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill are stunning men. But I think they are probably too pretty to be taken seriously.

Jennifer Lopez?

Yes r43, you can watch a curly haired actresses'/actors career projection on the straightness of her hair and the weight loss (which I think is due to stylists today telling them to lose weight so they can wear key couture pieces): Carol Kane , Sandra Oh and Bernadette Peters do not count, because they're more character actresses.

Nicole Kidman

Keri Russell (as pictured)

Julianna Margulies

julia Louis-Dreyfus

James Franco

Salma Heyek (but now that she's married well and not working, is wearing her hair curly again)

Julia Roberts

Shia LaBouf

They all died

It all started in the 1970s with grit and grime being favored in film.

Please tell me that R41 - R47 isn't serious about those being representations of old Hollywood glamour and beauty?

R61 Why can't we have the glamour without the "brownface" and "yellowface", then? Why do we have to get rid of something culturally crappy and replace it with something else that's culturally crappy? Why can't we just keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad stuff?

Same here R63.. The last time I've been in a theater was to see "Gone Girl". I wait for On Demand, and pay far less.. on the comfort of my sofa. It's been a while, but I think theater tickets are over $15.00? That's insane...plus, it's all comic strip/superhero bullshit.

Cinema is a visual art, therefore it can use visual effects (“airbrushing”) and lighting to create the desired image. Same with height enhancers, etc. Jean Gabin would step into cold water to get his eyes to look more intense. Now it seems the actors are expected to have exactly the same characteristics and life experiences as the characters they portray.

Hayley Atwell is one of the few stars of "today" who actually looks like a movie star. And why wasn't she cast as "Wonder Woman"? I'm betting it's because she doesn't look wan enough.

The rule of today is that stars have to look unhealthy: Anemic, anorexic, looking like their hair is falling out or that they're shooting up in between scenes or morbidly obese and in a state of hormonal disruption. There's no in-between.

Hayley Atwell is so ridiculously beautiful and she's one of those stars who doesn't overshare a whole bunch. She should be A list honestly.

R68 I was talking about vigor, looking healthy. The Silver Screen looks like a parade of cryogenic pod dwellers, now.

Wow, Haley has that lushness that Monica Bellucci and Salma Hayek has.

Yes, r71. Casting is all about the appearance- they can't imagine that hair/makeup/wardrobe can transform someone.

And regarding Jennifer Connelly, very few people will take an actress with a giant rack as a serious actress- as soon as she lost weight and possibly reduced them, she got serious meaty roles- I think Requiem was the first one.

Hayley Atwell has the same problem as Amber Heard - gorgeous, but generic looking. If I were to choose from a lineup of Amber Heard, Margot Robbie and Emma Stone, I would probably pick Emma, because the other two are totally interchangeable.

We had faces then.

hayley atwell is basic looking to me

Bette Davis said the movies should be filled with theatrics and that the audience should know that your acting. The movies aren't always supposed to be realistic, its about escapism and fantasy and glamour and fun and excitement it's also supposed to be dramatic.

The movies of today have lost touch with cinematic creativity and magic. Everything is so realistic now. One of the main reasons I'm grateful for TCM.

This coming from a millennial. I know great cinematic art when I see it. And a lot of what comes out today, isn't it.

[80] exactly! I want magic. I haven’t seen any on the big screen for years. Then the local theatre showed “Casablanca” a few months ago and when it ended I was embarrassed because I was sobbing. The movie was like a fog around my head for a few days.

Well when the studio system went the way of all flesh, so did their industry of manufacturing glamor and stars - they took diamonds in the rough and honed them into bankable commodies..... No one takes that kind of interest or effort anymore - even with themselves - and so few people dress up often enough to carry it off - like at the Oscars - it looks like a prom, uncomfortable and clumsy for most - and the hair!!!! Ugh!

Isn't all this just a reflection of changes in society at large? When was the last time you saw IRL a woman under 40 who was beautifully dressed, coiffed and made up, and who wanted to look like a grownup, not a teenager?

When was the last time you saw a straight man (and most actors - like most men - are straight) who dressed nicely, wore his hair in a flattering and age-appropriate style and shaved his face every day? All the while behaving like an educated, civilized adult, not a fratboy, thug or hillbilly without having his virility questioned?

It's no surprise that movies reflect the adolescent tastes and fantasies of their audience.

My theory- women started younger then, and youth has its own beauty. People were considered adults in their teens, and were styled as adults, but still had the glow and symmetry of youth.

Anyone here knows what happened with the thread: I work and work till I'm half-dead and hear people saying She looks like a trans and what do I get? It was about Armie, one of the best

[quote] Everything is so realistic now.

Everything now is fake-- CGI stunt effects.

Charlize Theron, Rachel Weitz, Eva Green Immediately spring to mind.

What's missing isn't beauty so much as class.

r83, in London and Paris. Sure they have their share of common looking people, but there are far more people who look presentable there than here in the U.S. At least in Paris women look like women, and not girls.

[89] , They don’t wear patterned leggings all over the place like fourth graders.

R89 There is certainly a fetish surrounding looking very very young in this country. Not just youthful but adolescent. And I've seen this weird idea that anyone who doesn't have an adolescent /pubescent face looks haggard. I'll see comments about 32 year old actors and actresses bemoaning how aged they look and how they must not be taking care of themselves. When truthfully they don't look bad, they just don't look 16.Not everyone has Kewpie doll features (or finds them desirable ).

Today's stars just don't seem to have much interest in maintaining their brand, so to speak. Instead, everything is left up to a team of stylists/makeup artists etc. The result is a generic blandness that starts to creep in and a photograph that's basically a crapshoot on whether it's going to be great or underwhelming If you want to be a star, and not simply an actor or actress, then you should know your shit. You should know what angles work best for you, what lighting gives you the best effect. What colors stand out for you the most. Your most flattering hairstyles. The two who seem to understand this today are Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie. I'd even say that Aniston knows her shit somewhat. But there are just so many who are clearly puppets of others, and it doesn't work.

The legends even up until the 80's were aware of this. Crawford, Taylor, Welch, Dunaway, to name a few. Streisand gets knocked for her looks but there really isn't one bad picture of her out there. But she studied herself and knew what worked. Compare that with Sarah Jessica Parker, who clearly thinks she can do no wrong. The result is a hodgepodge of mediocrity. The poor girl still doesn't know a thing,

[quote] You should know what angles work best for you, what lighting gives you the best effect.

There's an interview of Joan Rivers that I love--she's being interviewed by some guy from the Wall Street Journal. And at the end, he says, "You're so professional. You came here and moved all our lights around"--to more flattering angles for her. But the older ones were pros.

While this doesn't exactly relate to beauty, one thing that I find striking about today's stars vs classic Hollywood's is that they generally come from comfortable middle class backgrounds. 50 or 60 years ago, many stars seem to come from poorer and less privileged backgrounds and proceeded to claw and work their way to the top. Today they often seem to come from reasonably middle class or even affluent backgrounds.

r92, what is interesting is that this Instagram generation knows EXACTLY what their best angles and lighting are.

That's true, too.

But I also think that 50 or 60 (or more years ago), if you lived in a big city (NYC) and were poor, but had a daughter who could dance and was pretty--and the prospect of college didn't appear for people in your social class--getting them on-stage in their teens could be more lucrative than any kind of work the mother could do.

I think that before TV, the demands for live entertainers was huge. I remember--even living in Miami where I am--that a guy from a music school was saying that up til 70s/80s, students from the music school were in demand all over the city in the hotels every night to play in the hotel orchestras--and they made a great side living. Just one hotel--the Foutainbleu--needed 60 or 70 orchestra players every night--and there were dozens of hotels with dance floors and orchestras, plus all the theatres.

Now, look at the same city. Miami cannot support a single symphony or orchestra of professional players.

R43. Keri Russell was and still is beautiful. And more so in motion.

On subject, there aren't a lot of movie stars today who command the cameras attention. TBH, I see more beautiful actresses on a casual viewing of daytime TV than I do in the movies.

I

That is sad and true. :( Plus young gigolos could just dance with the ladies. I remember in the 80's there were still ballrooms in some European cities where old couples of just old ladies would go dance with the local boys, often "ethnic". There was on the Reeperbahn. There was a little bar on a side street in Geneva with picture windows and sexy Portuguese and Spanish guys would dance with women of a certain age to live music.

[quote] I remember in the 80's there were still ballrooms in some European cities where old couples of just old ladies would go dance with the local boys, often "ethnic".

The world used to be more interesting, for sure.

R26 But everyday people now, are low-class. So relatable has to be low-class. Back in the day, average people had more finesse, so even 'relatable' and average looking stars, had a degree of 'class'.

R100, not just that, but movies, TV and mass-market magazines like Life saw it as part of their duty (or just good business sense) to raise the standards of ordinary people in terms of appearance and behavior.

Today, serious movies try to reflect a warts-and-all reality that inevitably slides toward the ever-lower lowest common denominator. Mass entertainment strives only to sell the public on the need for more and more consumer goodies, which they do by being as coarse as possible.

Even into the '90s, you heard the word "fuck" more often in real life than on the screen. Today, movies and non-network TV exhibit much worse language (especially among women) than happens in real life, at least among middle-class people.

R94, maybe that's related to cost of living in NY and LA. It's just not possible to show up in the entertainment capitals and find a super-cheap shared apartment while you try to make it unless you're willing to live in a dangerous slum, and maybe not even then. Also, some of jobs people used to do while waiting to make it - casual blue collar work for men and salesclerk for women - have been disappearing. Without parental help, it's almost impossible to hang around, doing odd jobs and waiting for your big break.

Meanwhile, parents are more tolerant than they used to be of their children choosing creative but usually non-lucrative careers. And upper-middle-class people are richer by far than they've ever been, making support for artistically inclined children easier. This leads to a job pool for young actors that is dominated by children of the affluent.

R102 your post reminds me of this kid that lives in the town next to me. He played Ryan Gosling's son in First Man. When he was seven he decided he wanted to be an actor. His stay at home mom did all the research on auditions, took him to classes, and would help talk through the taped auditions he had to do.

Having a father with a great six figure income and a dedicated stay at home mom putting all her energy into research is something many many talented lower income kids will never have.

Gable wasn't more attractive than any of the leading men today. I'd take Brad Pitt or Clooney or Gable any day. Garbo looked like a drag queen with crazy eyebrows.

"What are y’all remembering?"

Nothing. It's all dog whistle MAGA crap by a bunch of old people who are afraid of dying.

I'm 57, not afraid of dying and pretty liberal. There's nothing wrong with nostalgia. People's tastes and looks have changed. It's ok to compare and contrast. Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwich were not beautiful but they were STARS. Contemporary actors lack glamour and style. Maybe Isabelle Huppert, Monica Bellucci and Michelle Yeoh fit the bill.