When did "behind the scenes" people become famous?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Lemur866

Sure, he was an actor. But he wasn’t famous as an actor, he was famous as a writer/director/producer/dramatist/whatever-they-called-it-in-1599. People didn’t go to see his plays because he was starring in them, as far as we can tell he played small parts in his own plays.

He was known as actor and writer. I think this summarizes his level very well:

Supporting actors often played multiple roles in a single performance, while a leading man like Edward Alleyn could expect to deliver more than 4,000 lines of verse each and every week.

As a matter of reputation, Shakespeare the actor fell somewhere between these poles. While there is no indication that he was ever a box-office draw—that responsibility was left to the clownish antics of Will Kemp and the brooding heroics of Richard Burbage—he was always classed among the principal players of the company that eventually became The King’s Men, so named for their final patron. Apparently, the royal affinity suited Shakespeare, for he was said to favor “kingly parts,” with legend having Hamlet’s father as his farewell role.

[Death_of_Rats]

Sherwood Schwartzwas another example of a showrunner/writer/producer getting as well know as his stars.

[burpo_the_wonder_mutt]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

Stephen J. Cannell had his own theme music; you’d watch the end of an A-TEAM episode, or 21 JUMP STREET, or THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, or whatever, and suddenly there he was, typing with gusto before throwing the latest page on the stack.

<snip>

Kinda like this?

[Cartoonacy]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

Piss off, I work for Mel Brooks.

The year was 1990. I was visiting the Disney-MGM theme park, which was only a year old. I was waiting on line in the hot sun for a park tour bus, and there were video screens on which Mel Brooks was describing the tour we were about to take.

There was a teenage couple on line in front of me.

The girl said “Who’s Mel Brooks?”

Her boyfriend answered, “Don’t you remember? He’s the guy who died last year, who used to do the voice of Bugs Bunny.”

She replied, “Ohhhh, yeah. That was so sad.”

[terentii]

@Cartoonacy

There was a teenage couple on line in front of me.

The girl said “Who’s Mel Brooks?”

Her boyfriend answered, “Don’t you remember? He’s the guy who died last year, who used to do the voice of Bugs Bunny.”

She replied, “Ohhhh, yeah. That was so sad.”

How quickly we forget…

Of course, it helps if you have a three-digit IQ … which they probably did (~100). :smack:

[Hershele_Ostropoler]

When was the rise of the auteur in film? '60s-'70s or so?

[Disgruntled_Penguin]

@terentii

Kind of like inviting Jessica Fletcher to your reception.

Or the Harts inviting you to a party. Someone is going to die.

[Sr_Siete]

@Hershele_Ostropoler

When was the rise of the auteur in film? '60s-'70s or so?

There’s always been the occasional director, special effects master or even writer whose name was used as part of the marketing- the D.W Griffiths, the Capras, the movies based off John Steinbeck books…

But the, to call it something, the fetishization of the Auteur, when their personal lives and ideas became part of the conversation, Cahiers du cinema style, yeah, that started in the late sixties. And it even reached back to people from previous generations, like John Ford or Orson Welles.