Movie Actresses

Female movie stars! Now there's a topic that can get a good heated discussion going in almost any crowd. We love 'em! We hate 'em! We really believe that movie actresses' career choice gives all of us the right to know every detail of their private lives, from what brand of shoes they wear to who they are sleeping with — or WANT to sleep with. We feel that the entertainment provided by movie actresses doesn't end when the credits roll at the end of a movie they starred in.

That's really always been the case even during the early years of silent films. What's changed is the movie studio's take on negative publicity.

In the early days of film, the girls and women who made movies were expected to live lives that were "above reproach." They were expected to behave like perfect ladies according to the standards of the day. They were NOT to drink, they were NOT to smoke, they were NOT to have premarital OR extramarital affairs, and they most certainly were NOT to have babies unless they had been married (happily, of course) for the requisite nine months — AT LEAST!

The standards expected of movie actresses changed with the times. But, movie actresses were NOT expected to push the envelope of acceptable moral standards of the day — whatever those standards happened to be. Censors still had full-time jobs at movie studios, and censorship of behavior was just as stringent especially for movie actresses. The fairy tale of perfect beauty and perfect moral behavior continued off screen as well as on screen.

Movie actresses played weak and clinging women who didn't have a brain in their collective heads in the early days of film. But times did change. Movie actresses today portray strong and successful women. The moral code no longer exists, and "pushing the envelope" of propriety is expected. We have to take the good with the bad!