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Article: Hollywood's dilemma about posthumous releases: audience's reactions to films distributed after the death of their stars have reflected mixed results. (Entertainment).
- Article from:
- USA TODAY
- Article date:
- May 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Society for the Advancement of Education. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WHEN JAMES DEAN DIED with two movies yet to be released, Warner Bros. Pictures saw catastrophe. Jack Warner bluntly observed, "Nobody will come and see a corpse." He could not have been more wrong. Both Dean films--"Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) and "Giant" (1956)--turned out to be major critical and commercial hits. There is no set pattern as to how an audience will respond to a picture released after the death of its star.
During the first half of the 1930s, celebrated humorist Will Rogers was arguably the most-popular figure in the movies. In fact, he reigned supreme in every entertainment medium of the time, from a daily newspaper column widely syndicated ...