From Theda Bara to Mary Pickford to Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep, women stars have dominated films and thereby the popular imagination of America. By the sheer force of their presence or talent, they helped create American film - as well as our enduring images of womanhood. With wit, intelligence, and panache, Ethan Mordden follows the history of the female movie star from the days before there was a Hollywood up to the present: the images they projected (and often painstakingly created), their conflicts with the public and industry moguls, and what happened to them as both acresses and women. Mordden describes the range of options and roles open to women in a business run by men and shows us how strong-willed acresses helped invent American film. Here is Hollywood stardom in its rise and fall, its PR schemes and its scandals, its discovery, glory, and - perhaps - eclipse. -- from dust jacket.