Typecasting
It’s crazy to think about how much control studios had over the public image of their actors and actresses. It’s like they were creating these perfect, plastic personas for people to idolize, and the stars themselves had to conform to those expectations. And it wasn’t just limited to the women either – men were also pigeonholed into certain roles and personas.
I wonder what careers some of these actors and actresses could have had if they were free to be themselves and play a wider variety of characters instead of being typecast. But I guess that’s just the nature of Old Hollywood – a place where illusion and fantasy reigned supreme above everything else.