Fan Magazines
Although many fields of endeavor such as sports, auto racing, radio, and music have all spawned "interest magazines" that provide inside information for devotees of a particular subject or pursuit, it is to the motion picture industry that America owes the long-established concept of the fan magazine. Conceived to promote, popularize, and trade off the fledgling art of film in early Hollywood, the publication of fan magazines dates back to 1911 when Motion Picture Story magazine and Photoplay first appeared. These magazines provided readers with an illusion of intimacy with the stars, and fed into their fantasies of the opulent lifestyles and sometimes scandal-ridden private lives of the famous. At the same time, they purported to reveal the mechanics of the star making process, allowing the average reader—an outsider looking in—to claim spurious knowledge and form a personal judgment as to a player's screen image, talent, off-screen personality and character, and to hold opinions about the best career moves for their favorites.
Initially, fan magazines relied on a formula that packaged a gallery of movie star portraits and illustrated stories of popular motion pictures, together with a few specialized features such as reader inquiries. Each issue was rounded off with short fictional pieces.
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