These days, it seems name creative talent like Aaron Sorkin and Matthew Weiner are as famous as the actors on their shows. Who were the first writers/directors/producers to become famous among the general public, both in movies and on TV? (Let’s exclude people who acted besides doing behind the scenes stuff).
Off the top of my head - Quinn Martin?
George Melies for a start. He did appear in some of his films, but he was never really a star and many of his films did not feature him.
Heck, the Lumiere Brothers may have beaten him.
I’m not sure how famous Edwin S. Porter was in his time, but certainly D.W. Griffith qualifies.
D. W. Griffith was the first name that came to me, as well – in other words, pretty much as soon as the medium developed.
In the early days of TV there were people like Pat Weaver, who invented both the Today and Tonight shows (among other things) and Fred Friendly, who invented ways to get stuff on the air, who were pretty well known by the general public.
There was that William Shakespeare guy.
Wasn’t Frank Capra pretty well-known back in the days of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU and MEET JOHN DOE and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and MISTER SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON and MISTER DEEDS GOES TO TOWN and so on?
Didn’t it take time for the actors to pass the creators in notoriety? A better question might be who was the first actor to surpass the creator’s celebrity.
The internet is when this really surged, at least to me.
Joss Whedon, Chris Carter, Ronald Moore. These were show-runners and creators of shows and all the sudden, people discussed them online.
Irwin Allen? He was famous for such TV shows as The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, Lost In Space, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He also produced the films The Swarm, The Towering Inferno, and The Poseidon Adventure. He was famous for producing cheesy sci-fi fare and his name was synonymous with the term “disaster flick”.
Piss off, I work for Mel Brooks.
Florence Lawrence. She was the first film actor/actress to be given public credit.
I’m not sure if Broncho Billy Anderson was credited before her (and he was also a producer), but Lawrence certainly was the first to be promoted as a star.
No mention of Alfred Hitchcock?
Augustin Daly. Playwright and theater manager, and the creator of the cliche of tying someone to the railroad tracks.
Phil Spector?
There were Dickens, Handel, Mozart, Vivaldi, and many many more.
Cecil B. DeMille arguably had broad name-recognition, even among people who hadn’t seen his films. I gather his name became somewhat synonymous with big epic productions.
Samuel Goldwyn picked up a measure of fame in his own right, and more by dint of getting name-checked whenever The Goldwyn Girls got touted.
Hal Roach, director of Our Gang and a bunch of silents. He’s the only person I know of who has met both Mark Twain and David Letterman.
Alfred Hitchcock was probably the first director who could be recognized on the street by average citizens.
It was long before them. Irwin Allen and Quinn Martin have been mentioned. But you also had others like Steve Bochco, Norman Lear, Gene Roddenberry, Aaron Spelling. These people didn’t appear on camera but you recognized that their shows had a distinctive style. And the networks promoted the fact that these creators were behind a new series.
Not to mention Sophocles, Euripides, etc.