Stars and Hollywood Part II

When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun. ~ Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet 3.2

God makes stars. I just produce them. ~ Samuel Goldwyn



In Part I of Stars and Hollywood, we began to look at how the term "star" became associated with performers, the motion picture industry, and fame. Just as Juliet projects her lover's face upon the heavens expressing her undying love, so too does the movie industry create an illusion of reality by projecting beautiful faces across the silver screen for the world to worship and adore.



Nothing exemplifies our culture's fascination with fame and celebrity as well as the garish stellar motifs embedded in The Hollywood Walk of Fame at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The grand opening of this Hollywood icon in 1927 was the most spectacular theatre opening in motion picture history. Thousands of people lined Hollywood Boulevard and riots broke out as fans tried to catch a glimpse of the movie stars and other celebrities as they arrived for the opening. The film being premiered that night: Cecil B. DeMille's epic The King of Kings, the legendary story of Jesus Christ, arguably the world's first superstar.

Today Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is still a sought-after theatre in Hollywood for movie premieres. Enthusiastic and obsessive fans continue to flock to these events to see the celebrities arrive and walk up the red carpet. The Chinese theatre immortalizes the brightest stars with its cement handprints and footprints in the forecourt, and with embedded stars in the Walk of Fame. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were the first actors to imprint their handprints, footprints, and signatures in the concrete of the Chinese Theatre's Forecourt of the Stars.



Legend has it that Joanne Woodward was the first celebrity to receive an embedded "star" on the Walk of Fame, when in fact the first star to be installed was that of director Stanley Kramer in 1960 who is most associated with Columbia Pictures. As revealed in my previous post, from its inception Columbia Pictures appropriated Masonic imagery of stars, in particular Sirius, under the disguise of national symbolism.



Just as the Founding Fathers of the United States before them, the Founding Fathers of the entertainment industry (including film, radio and television) used specific Masonic themes and images associated with esoteric stars to align themselves with destiny and perhaps reveal a hidden agenda or plan in plain view. By examining Hollywood's "a star is born" metaphor, it is possible to understand what that hidden agenda may be.

A Star is Born
One of the earliest associations of the term "star" being associated with performers appears to originate in the British Music Halls of 19th Century Europe as seen in this 1907 poster.



Music Halls presented a variety of entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and specialty acts such as Vaudeville and Burlesque. The first commercially exhibited movies were shown at Kinetoscope Parlors in amusement arcades and sideshows. These attractions featured mundane modern images and representations of modern life. The technology "wowed" viewers more than the stories. These films were made in the world's first film production studio called the "Black Maria," and affectionately nicknamed the "doghouse" by Edison. It is uncanny that veiled references to Sirius, the "dog star" would be used by the inventor/creator god of artificial light. "Black Maria" alludes to the "Black Madonna" whose iconography associates her with the Egyptian goddess Isis, represented by the dog star Sirius and purportedly protected by the Knights Templar, the suspected Fathers of Freemasonry.

By the early 1900s, motion pictures ("flickers") were no longer innovative experiments, but soon became an escapist entertainment medium for the working-class masses. Kinetoscope parlors, lecture halls, and storefronts were converted into Nickelodeons, the first real movie theatres.



The normal admission charge was a nickel - hence the name Nickelodeon. Well guess whose head was on the U.S. 5 cent piece back in 1900: Liberty surrounded by thirteen six-pointed stars. (As we shall see later the numbers 5 and 6 have an intriguing meaning.)



The Nickelodeons primarily attracted working-class, urban and often immigrant audiences who loved this cheap form of entertainment. The demand for films increased the volume of films being produced and raised profits for their producers. Soon Nickelodeons were being transformed into lavish movie palaces which brought in more profit. According to Tim Dirks:

Businessmen soon became interested in the burgeoning movie industry. Some of the biggest names in the film business got their start as proprietors, investors, exhibitors, or distributors in nickelodeons. They realized that further profits could be derived from new systems of distribution, and by expanding the film audience to the middle-class, women, and children. At first, films (and the necessary projection machinery and equipment) were sold, not rented, to exhibitors. As film production increased, cinema owner William Fox was one of the first (in 1904) to form a distribution company (a regional rental exchange), that bought shorts and then rented them to exhibitors at lower rates. Carl Laemmle opened his first nickelodeon in Chicago in 1906.

It turns out that Carl Laemmle might be the source of identifying performers with the term "star." Laemmle was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of Independent Moving Pictures (IMP) which later evolved into one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal Pictures. He began buying Nickelodeons, eventually expanding into a film distribution service, and movie studios. In 1910 Florence Lawrence was was the first actor to be associated with the label of "star" when Laemmle promoted her as "America's foremost moving picture star" in the Independent Moving Pictures Company literature -- "A Star is Born."



Promotion in advertising led to the release of stories about movie personalities to newspapers and fan magazines as part of a strategy to build brand loyalty for each movie company. It all began with what today might be called a "false flag" story planted in the press by a film producer named Carl Laemmle, whose Independent Moving Pictures Company were located across the street from Christie-Nector Studios in Hollywood -- and would later morph into Universal Pictures. According to The Pop History Dig:

In February 1910, Laemmle planted a fictitious news story that the actress had been killed in a street-car accident. Newspapers and magazines were the only real “media” then, and key to spreading a story of the kind Laemmle had created. After Laemmle gained press attention for his false story, he then placed ads in newspapers and the movie trade press that the story about Lawrence’s death was, in fact, a lie. In the March 12, 1910 edition of Moving Picture World, a full-page announcement appeared explaining that Biograph — angry over losing its “Biograph girl,” Lawrence, to Laemmle — had created the false story. This announcement also included a small photo of Lawrence and explained, by the way, that she was making a new movie for Laemmle’s IMP called, The Broken Oath, and that “very shortly, some of the best work of her career” would be released (in the ad, the film’s title was misspelled as “The Broken Bath”).

Notice the cat-like devil in this ad on the Florence Lawrence incident.



Ironically the name Laemmle means "little lamb," but as history shows he was more like a cunning and sly fox. Laemmle also arranged for the first personal appearance of his newborn star. According to historian Robin Cross the actress “[Florence Lawrence] was mobbed by a huge crowd of fans, who tore the buttons off her coat.” By the 1920s, Hollywood film company promoters had developed a massive industrial enterprise that peddled a new intangible -- fame of the newly born film stars on Earth. Thus from its inception, Hollywood used lies and deception to promote its stars and cash in from the fame business.

The Silver Screen of Cinema Heaven



Hollywood's appropriation of star imagery to cast a honorary light on actors and associate the movie industry with specific constellations linked to mythic gods and heroes is all part of this original sin, ie deception. Just as ancient story-tellers transfigured the gods, heroes and mythical animals of legend onto the night sky earning immortality, the movie industry has transformed mere mortals into "stars" who are projected through magic and light across the silver screen. And yes, the original screens did contain silver. The term "silver screen" comes from the actual silver content embedded in the material that made up the screen's highly reflective surface; and later became synonymous for motion picture industry.

Silver is one of the seven metals used in alchemy. It is one of the three base metals often used as prima matera, prime matter, at the inception of a work. Silver is associated with the moon, and thus expresses traits of the divine feminine such as intuition, inner wisdom, and contemplation. Profound artistic expression can be harnessed by using silver. Thus the early motion picture industry developed an alchemical simulacrum of the night sky using the prima materia in its lenticular screens. The goal of alchemy is often described as process of the transmutation of metals, ie turning lead into gold, or in the case of movies, turning silver into gold using the artful magic of light and sound manipulated by creator-god movie-makers.

Thus it is no surprise that we find more alchemical and Masonic symbols such as the rising sun, all seeing eye, and five-pointed star, or pentagram. Have you ever wondered why the star associated with fame is a five pointed one and not a six-pointed one (especially if the stereotyped belief that the Jews invented Hollywood were actually true)? It seems that the roots of Hollywood are actually entwined with Freemasonry.

Stars, Pentagrams and Alchemy
Alchemy has always been closely aligned with, if not the roots of, Freemasonry. In alchemy the pentagram represent Spirit and the four basic elements: earth, water, air, and fire as depicted below.



To Masons the pentagram is also an emblem of the five points of felicity: The Five-pointed Star reminds us of the five points of felicity, which are to walk with, to intercede for, to love, to assist, and to pray for our Brethren, so as to be united with them in heart and mind. Zelator ritual of Society of Rosicusians.



According to Albert Pike, the pentagram is synonymous with the Blazing Star of Masonic Lodges.

The Blazing Star in our Lodges, we have already said, represents Sirius, Anubis, or Mercury, Guardian and Guide of Souls. Our Ancient English brethren also considered it an emblem of the Sun. In the old Lectures they said: ‘The Blazing Star or Glory in the centre refers us to that Grand Luminary the Sun, which enlightens the Earth, and by its genial influence dispenses blessings to mankind. It is also said in those lectures to be an emblem of Prudence. The word Prudentia means, in its original and fullest signification, Foresight: and accordingly the Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience, or the All-Seeing Eye, which to the Ancients was the Sun.

As legendary artist Leonardo Da Vinci, the reputed Grand Master of the Masonic secret society the Priory of Sion, revealed to the world, the pentagram is the symbol of the Divine design in man. The five-pointed star with a single point upward represents the Divine. It also symbolizes man for its five points allude to the five senses, the five members (head, arms and legs) and his five fingers on each hand (also reflected in the hand and foot prints at on the Hollywood Walk of Fame). Thanks to Dan Brown, the author of the book and blockbuster movie The Da Vinci Code (produced by Columbia Pictures), the veil of secrecy surrounding this symbol has been lifted for the masses to consume. The question is how accurate is this information?



In chapter six of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's character, Robert Langdon, was amazed to learn that the planet Venus traces a perfect pentagram in the sky over a four-year period. This isn't quite correct. It is a half-truth, a ploy used by Masonic initiates to give the illusion of revelation while keeping the real truth hidden. In reality, Venus traces an imperfect pentacle every eight years, or six consecutive synodic appearances. In numerology the number 6 is considered the mystical number for Venus. Most astrologers would agree that the planet Venus represents love, the arts, and attraction. It is a perfect planet to represent to glamor of the movie industry.



During a Venus cycle the planet undergoes five retrogrades forming a path that appears from our perspective on the Earth as a five-pointed star or pentagram. Thus this ancient symbol of alchemy and the divine feminine originated from astronomical observation of this cycle. Historically this phenomenon was observed by ancient sky-watchers and mystics, and became the basis of many myths involving death and resurrection. The Babylonians called Venus the double-phased Ishtar -- the Morning Star of War and the Evening Star of love. Greek astrologers called the morning phase of Venus Lucifer meaning "the light bearer" and the evening phase Hesperus meaning "setting in the West".

The planet Venus has been referred to as the Morning Star or Evening Star for thousands of years. Because it is closer to the Sun than the Earth is, it can never appear very far from the Sun in our twilight skies. In other words, when the Sun sets Venus may be rising in the west as the Evening Star; or it may appear in the pre-dawn sky before sunrise as the Morning Star. According to Babylonian mythology Ishtar (Sumerian Ianna) as the Evening Star of love, travels down to the underworld to bring back her lover Tammuz. After a terrifying ordeal, she is returned to the land of the living because the other gods cannot abide even their utopian existence without a goddess of love. Ishtar returns to reign as the Queen of Heaven, though without her lover, Tammuz. This story is believed to be another version of the Isis and Osiris myth.

The Morning Star, Venus-Lucifer or "light-bearer" has been misinterpreted as actually being the Biblical devil by modern fundamentalists. The Bible does not name the devil as Lucifer. The use of this name in reference to the devil stems from an interpretation of Isaiah 14:3-20, a passage that describes the defeat of a particular Babylonian King. As the essential message of Freemasonry teaches that man is becoming a god, Lucifer, the light-bearer, then is an activator of that process. Thus the pentagram becomes a symbol for Venus, the light-bearer, who illuminates man's true destiny of becoming a god through his creative acts.





Another pentagram that reveals how this process may work is illustrated in the Chinese Wu Xing, or five elements that stems from the alchemical tradition of Taoism. The word xing may translate as elements, phases, transitions or movements. Although a different character, another word sounding like xing translates as "star." Yep! Although it is a Chinese Theatre, I still find it fascinating that the designers of Grauman's stars also have incorporated 5 separate emblems representing 5 elements of the entertainment industry into its own pentagram:

A Classic film camera representing motion pictures



A Television set representing broadcast television




A Phonograph record representing audio recording or music



A Radio microphone representing broadcast radio



A Comedy/tragedy masks representing theatre/live performance



In five element theory each element engenders the next in a circular pattern or cycle, the interaction of the elements, or transition of energy, occur under control or rebelling cycles. (Sound/Water, Film/Wood, Radio/Fire, TV/Earth, Tragedy/Metal.) Makes one wonder about the power play within the entertainment and fame business. Like a martial artist or acupuncturist, if you know the pattern, you know how to control it.

Thus it appears from looking at the birth of the modern concept of "star" and even "superstar" the the Founding Fathers of the entertainment industry may indeed have had a Masonic game plan: the revelation that we are becoming gods. In particular, the light-bearer creator gods of the movie industry have changed our perception of the world and ourselves. With the advent of reality TV stars we are indeed beginning to see in a perverted way that "Everybody is a Star" and has the opportunity to be immortalized. As we shall see in Part III of Stars and Hollywood, the "devil" is literally in the details.

To be continued. . .