Gods Like Us by Ty Burr

Gods Like Us by Ty Burr

With 8 Pages of Black-and-White Photographs

In this captivating history of stardom, Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr traces our obsession with fame from the dawn of cinema through the age of the Internet. Why do we obsess over the individuals we come to call stars? How has both the image of stardom and our stars' images changed over the past hundred years? What does celebrity mean if people can now become famous simply for being famous? With brilliant insight and entertaining examples, Burr reveals the blessings and the curses of celebrity for the star and the stargazer alike. From Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, to Archie Leach (a.k.a. Cary Grant), Tom Cruise, and Julia Roberts, to such no-cal stars of today as the Kardashians and the new online celebrity, Gods Like Us is a journey through the fame game at its flashiest, most indulgent, occasionally most tragic, and ultimately it's most culturally revealing.

The Boston Globe's film critic is Ty Burr. He worked in HBO's film acquisitions department and wrote about movies for Entertainment Weekly for more than a decade. After thirty years of serious moviegoing, he believes that he has watched around 10,680 films. He can recall 7,000 of them on a good day.