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Hollywood Glamour in Postwar Italy
among the lower-middle classes, although the lower-class element was also important.
Accounts of the day in the newspapers identified schoolgirls, old women, and
young workers among those present. 14 It gave the press something to talk about
and helped fuel the development of a new type of celebrity photo-journalism. In
addition, it had certain political ramifications, in that it was exploited by the elite
for use against the Communist opposition. Power had featured on a Christian
Democratic poster in the sharply fought 1948 election that proclaimed “Even
Hollywood stars are against Communism” and a number of government ministers
attended the wedding. Prime minister De Gasperi appeared on the cover of Oggi
on January 16, 1949 in the company of Linda Christian.
Hollywood stars had enjoyed great social cachet in Europe and their arrival in
significant numbers after World War II had the effect of opening up to some extent
the closed and stuffy world of the aristocracy. Indeed their prominence in the press
and dominance in such areas of traditional aristocratic prerogative as beauty and
style led to a displacement of the former. This was especially marked in Italy,
where the aristocracy was in any case much less strong than in Britain or even
France. 15 The arrival of a new, more attractive, and more public “aristocracy” in
Rome created new centers of prestige and exclusivity, new rituals which drew in
younger aristocrats, creating a new more visible, open hierarchy of status. The old
scenarios and palaces continued to serve a role, but the elite was more open and
accessible, it served as a focus not of deference or resentment but of imitation,
emulation, and dreams.
In the United States class images of European provenance were extremely
useful in the 1950s. European refinement and sophistication could be marketed to
a middle class that was seeking history and taste. Although the US government
had overridden film industry objections to Italian restrictions on the export of
movie profits in order to help the economic recovery of an ally, films set in Rome
or Venice (or Paris or London) in fact proved highly marketable at home. They
possessed enormous cachet, especially if they were big budget, featured lavish
scenery, beautiful people, elegant objects, and big stars. Hollywood studios proved
adept not merely at representing European heritage but at appropriating it and
remodeling it in their own terms. Roman Holiday’s fairytale story of “Princess
Anne” (Audrey Hepburn)’s temporary escape from the prison of protocol has been
seen as a bold attempt to annexe the image of royalty. The Grace Kelly–Prince
Ranier wedding in Monaco in 1956 was the climax of this. But, although nothing
staged subsequently would eclipse this, there were other significant marriages too,
including Rita Hayworth’s to Ali Khan and that of Dawn Addams to Prince Vittorio
Massimo in Rome. Such formal liaisons were proof that some parts of the
aristocracy and even royalty were reinventing themselves through the language
of glamour of Hollywood and that Hollywood could absorb older images of luxury
and splendor. 16
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