Invention Of Dolores Del Rio

by Joanne Hershfield

Overview

Dolores del Río first came to Hollywood from Mexico in 1925 and within a year had become an international star for her role in Raoul Walsh's 1926 film What Price Glory. She would go on to work with Hollywood’s top directors, including John Ford and King Vidor, and star opposite such leading men as Henry Fonda, Fred Astaire, Orson Welles (with whom she had a scandalous affair), and Elvis Presley. Voted by Photoplay magazine in 1933 as having "the most perfect feminine figure in Hollywood," del Río was billed as one of cinema’s most "exotic" and "aristocratic" beauties. This image-carefully crafted by her producers, her studio publicists, and by del Río herself-reveals many fascinating insights into Hollywood’s evolving attitudes toward race and femininity.

In The Invention of Dolores del Río, Joanne Hershfield explores the intersection of ethnicity, gender, and stardom in American popular culture through the lens of del Río’s successful and unusually lengthy career, which lasted until the 1960s. Hershfield offers close readings of del Río’s films—discussing in detail the roles she played, her costumes and makeup, the music and mise-en-scène, advertising, publicity, and reviews—that provide a nuanced understanding of how Hollywood constructed del Río as an exotic commodity and blunted the inherent challenge her sexual and ethnic image posed to both prevailing standards of white femininity and widespread injunctions against miscegenation. Throughout this astute and imaginative case study, Hershfield looks at del Río’s Hollywood films in relation to shifting ideologies about nationality, gender, and race between the 1920s and 1960s, offering an important contribution to the debate surrounding Hollywood’s ability to both reflect the nation’s racial and sexual obsessions and influence its perceptions about ethnic and gender identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816634095
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	05/16/2000
Edition description:	First edition
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	5.88(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Joanne Hershfield is associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of Mexican Cinema/Mexican Woman, 1940-1950 (1996).

Editorial Reviews

Hershfield (communication studies, Univ. of North Carolina; Mexican Cinema/Mexican Woman 1940-1950) uses Mexican actress del R o as a case study to illustrate Hollywood's inherent racism and the selling of a "star" as a commodity. In the 1930s, del R o was touted over popular Anglo stars as "the most perfect feminine figure in Hollywood," a curious selection given the racial climate of the times. Hershfield asks, "What was Hollywood's place in defining sexuality and race?" She argues that though del R o's origins branded her as an "other" in U.S. culture, the Hollywood industry was able to mold her into the "contemporary conceptions of female beauty through its promotional machinery. Because of her celebrity status del R o became an acceptable other while Mexicans in general were relegated to a lower status on the ladder of U.S. racial hierarchy." This scholarly look at how Hollywood was able to both reflect the nation's racial and sexual obsessions and influence public perceptions of ethnic and gender identity is recommended for comprehensive academic libraries.--Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Free Libs., Salinas, CA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal