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July 1999, Week 1

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Tue, 6 Jul 1999 12:44:17 EDT
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Gene,

You are on to something with your "short with big head" observation.  I'd add
Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet and Al Pacino to that list of "Cabbage Patch
Stars" -- I've seen Sweet and Pacino myself, so can vouch for that personally.
I recall William Everson pointing this out as a common characteristic of
silent film stars.  He speculated that the larger heads made their facial
expressions more apparent on screen, and contributed to their prominence
in the profession.  Of course, that doesn't account for the stardom of Zip
the Pinhead, but undoubtedly, there is a crack team of theorists working
on that exception to the rule.

But beyond that, I have observed in myself and others surprise when a
celebrity turns out to be munchkin-sized.  For example, my strongest
impression after passing John and Yoko on a Manhattan street many years
ago was how tiny John Lennon was.  It seems to me that in the minds of
many, celebrity = height.  Obviously, my ramblings are induced by the
record heat here, but does anyone have any thoughts on this association?

Mark Langer

Eugene Walz writes:
>
> In Toronto in the early 1960s I got on a hotel elevator with Liz Taylor and
> Richard Burton (he was doing Hamlet onstage at the time). I was stunned
> into speechlessness not only by their seemingly miraculous presence but
> also by
> (a) how short they both were, and (b) how large their heads seemed to be in
> proportion to their bodies. This second quality may be something that
> (cinematic) anthropologists can speculate about.
>
> Gene Walz
> University of Manitoba
>
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Mark Langer

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