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The Changing Media Representation of T. E. Lawrence and Celebrity Culture in Britain, 1919–1935

2015; Routledge; Volume: 12; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14780038.2015.1088261

1478-0046

Edward Owens,

Cinema and Media Studies

AbstractThis article presents a new analysis of representations of T. E. Lawrence to explore how the media created celebrity identities in interwar Britain. Examining his appearance in seventeen national newspapers and in newsreels between 1919 and 1935, it shows how earlier press depictions that borrowed from Lowell Thomas’s portrayal of him as the mythical ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ were disrupted by a nascent media-driven celebrity culture which aimed to uncover intimate details of the lives of the so-called ‘real’ people that were believed to exist behind the outward personae of the famous. By the late 1920s, the press’s attention had switched from Lawrence as an imperial adventurer to focus on the intensely private man who lay behind the public image of the ‘Blonde Bedouin’. This shift in emphasis denoted a significant change in the way celebrities were presented by the news media in interwar Britain. Journalists intensified their exposure of celebrities’ private lives to amplify the empathetic connection between the public and the famous at a time when new modes of self-fashioning were configured through expression in private, domestic life. This shift was also informed by growing anxieties regarding how public figures communicated their social authority to the new audiences of the interwar mass media, newspapers and newsreels exposing famous people’s private lives to generate emotional connections with members of the public which would strengthen concepts of social leadership and trust.Key words: celebrityT. E. Lawrencenewspapersnewsreelsprivate life AcknowledgementsMy thanks is due, first, to the AHRC for the research support during my Masters year which allowed me to conduct an examination of T. E. Lawrence’s media image for my dissertation; secondly, to Frank Mort, James Greenhalgh, Maarten Walraven, Sarah Wood, Ian Field, James Corke-Webster and seminar audiences in Manchester, Brighton, Sheffield and Lancaster for their comments on drafts and papers; thirdly, to the anonymous referees who made a number of valuable suggestions; and, finally, my special thanks to Max Jones whose constant support and guidance, from the conception of this project to its completion, has been invaluable and greatly appreciated.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1. Britain, rather than England, because the newspapers and newsreels examined here were distributed to media audiences across Britain.2. The best biography of Lawrence is J. Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorised Biography (London, 1989). S. E. Tabachnick & C. Matheson, Images of Lawrence (London, 1988) offers a useful survey of the changing biographical treatment of Lawrence.3. G. Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinity (London, 1994), pp.167–232. For similar analyses, also see J. M. MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths of Empire’, in J. M. MacKenzie (ed.), Popular Imperialism and the Military, 1850–1950 (Manchester, 1992), pp.109–138; J. C. Hodson, Lawrence of Arabia and American Culture: The Making of a Transatlantic Legend (Westport, 1995).4. P. Satia, ‘Inter-war Agnotology: Empire, Democracy and the Production of Ignorance’, in L. Beers & G. Thomas (eds.), Brave New World: Imperial and Democratic Nation Building in Britain Between the Wars (London, 2011), p.217. P. Satia, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford, 2008).5. On using newspapers as historical sources and for terminologies see A. Bingham, Gender, Modernity and the Popular Press (Oxford, 2004), pp.12–15. For this investigation, over 700 press reports were sampled from seventeen daily and weekly national newspapers located at the old British newspaper archive in Colindale and online. The elite publications sampled were the Daily Telegraph; Manchester Guardian; The Observer; and The Times. The popular newspapers sampled were the Daily Express; Daily Herald; Daily Mail; Daily Mirror; Daily News; Daily Sketch; Empire News; Illustrated London News; News Chronicle; News of the World; Sunday Express; Sunday Pictorial; and The People. The newsreels examined include British Movietone News, Gaumont Graphic; Gaumont British News.6. Satia, ‘Inter-war Agnotology’, p. 217.7. Dawson, Soldier Heroes, p.167.8. For a useful review article on modern celebrity culture see S. Morgan, ‘Celebrity: Academic ‘Pseudo-Event’ or a Useful Concept for Historians?’, Cultural and Social History 8:1 (2011), pp.95–114.9. G. Turner, Understanding Celebrity (London, 2014), p.8.10. On the production of empathy between celebrities and media audiences see R. Schickel, Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity in America (Chicago, 2000); R. Dyer, Stars (London, 2004).11. C. L. Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890–1940 (London, 2002).12. S. Marcus, Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England (Princeton, 2007), p.37. Also see M. Thompson, Psychological Subjects: Identity, Culture and Health in Twentieth-Century Britain (Oxford, 2006), esp. Chapter 1; N. Rose, Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (London, 1999); C. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge, 1989); Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure, p.5 and pp.29–40.13. C. Langhamer, ‘Love, Selfhood and Authenticity in Post-War Britain’, Cultural and Social History 9:2 (2012), pp.277–297; N. Rose, Inventing Ourselves: Psychology, Power and Personhood (Cambridge, 1996), p.3.14. L. Beers, ‘A Model MP? Ellen Wilkinson, Gender, Politics and Celebrity Culture in Interwar Britain’, Cultural and Social History 10:2 (2013), pp.232–3.15. Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure, p.5 and pp.29–40.16. M. Houlbrook, ‘Commodifying the Self Within: Ghosts, Libels, and the Crook Life Story in Interwar Britain’, Journal of Modern History 85:2 (2013), p.322.17. T. Mole, Byron’s Romantic Celebrity: Industrial Culture and the Hermeneutic of Intimacy (Basingstoke, 2007), pp.1–5 and 22–3.18. This article does not subscribe to the argument that Lawrence engaged in self-effacement as a publicity strategy but it is clear that he was concerned about maintaining his aloof public image. For the view that Lawrence deliberately courted attention by shying away from the media, see S. Ashley, ‘Introduction’, in S. Ashely (ed.), Robert Graves: Count Belisarius and Lawrence and the Arabs (Manchester, 2004), p.viii. For contemporary accounts see Tabachnick, Images, p.46. For the alternative view adopted by this article, see Wilson, Lawrence, p.852.19. Dawson, Soldier Heroes, pp.167–70 and p.188.20. Ibid.21. Daily Express, 8 January 1920, p.3.22. The Times, 7 November 1919, p.12; The Observer, 4 January 1920, p.12.23. Hodson, Lawrence, p.45.24. Daily Express, 27 December 1922, p.1.25. AIR 2,692-0-3 pp.30–31 (National Archives PRO).26. For example, see Daily Mirror, 28 December 1922, p.3; Daily Telegraph, 28 December 1922, p.8; Daily News, 29 December 1922, p.1; The People, 31 December 1922, p.5.27. Daily Sketch, 29 December 1922, p.3.28. Ibid.29. News of the World, 31 December 1922, p.5.30. S. Heathorn, Haig and Kitchener in Twentieth-Century Britain: Remembrance, Representation and Appropriation (Farnham, 2013), pp.65–87.31. Ibid, p.87.32. Daily Mirror, 28 December 1922, p.3; Daily Telegraph, 28 December 1922, p.8. News of the World, 31 December 1922, p.5.33. Daily Mirror, 28 December 1922, p.3.34. A. McLaren, ‘Smoke and Mirrors: Willy Clarkson and the Role of Disguises in Inter-war England’, Journal of Social History 40:3 (2007), p.597; Houlbrook, ‘Commodifying’, pp.337–9.35. Heathorn, Haig, p.93; Satia, Spies, p.68.36. Daily Express, 27 December 1922, p.1.37. Daily Express, 28 December 1922, p.1.38. Daily News, 4 February 1929, p.8.39. Evening News, 26 September 1928, p.1.40. Empire News, 16 December 1928, p.3.41. Satia, ‘Inter-war’, pp.217–18.42. Daily Herald, 5 January 1929, p.1; Daily Sketch, 5 January 1929, p.3; Daily News, 5 January 1929, p.7.43. Daily Telegraph, 7 January 1929, p.12; The Observer, 6 January 1929, p.15; The Times, 8 January 1929, p.12.44. Daily News, 4 February 1929, p.9.45. Ibid.46. Satia, ‘Inter-war’, pp.217–18.47. Daily Express, 7 February 1929, p.3.48. Daily News, 4 February 1929, p.9.49. Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure, pp.36–7 and 56–65.50. On the demotic character of American celebrity see L. E. Nym Mayhall, ‘The Prince of Wales versus Clark Gable: Anglophone Celebrity and Citizenship Between the Wars’, Cultural and Social History 4:4 (2007), pp.529–543.51. D. L. LeMahieu, A Culture for Democracy: Mass Communication and the Cultivated Mind in Britain Between the Wars (Oxford, 1998), pp.107–21.52. Daily Mirror, 5 February 1929, p.7.53. Daily Express, 30 November 1925, p.8.54. Langhamer, ‘Love’, p.278.55. For example, see L. Riall, Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero (Yale, 2008), pp.252–3 and 311; Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure, pp.55–7.56. Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure, p.137.57. For example, see British Pathé, ‘Stars at Home - Miss Nellie Wallace (1921)’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-HXZnI31c8); British Pathé, ‘Stars at Home – Matheson Lang (1921)’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EvKh95tGAk); British Pathé, ‘The Stars as They Are – Miss Evelyn Laye (1924)’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmIfKJEStuY).58. Daily News, 29 December 1922, p.1.59. Bingham, Gender, pp.166–70; Mayhall, ‘The Prince’, pp.531–2; Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure, pp.120–9.60. Daily Express, 15 May 1929, p.10. Also see Hodson, Lawrence, pp.68–71; E. Gargano, ‘‘English Sheiks’ and Arab Stereotypes: E. M. Hull, T. E. Lawrence, and the Imperial Masquerade’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 48:2 (2006), pp.171–186.61. Daily Mirror, 14 December 1933, p.12.62. R. Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry (New York, 1955); P. Knightley & C. Simpson, The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia (London, 1969), pp.158–65 and 203–17; J. E. Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence (Harvard, 1998: London, 1976); Tabachnick, Images, pp.21 and 51–5.63. Mack, A Prince, pp.415–441, esp. p.427 and footnote 36 on p.523.64. Ibid, p.425.65. Daily Mirror, 11 March 1927, p.7.66. M. Jones, ‘‘National Hero and Very Queer Fish’: Empire, Sexuality and the British Remembrance of General Gordon, 1918–72’, Twentieth-Century British History (advance access – 2014), p.10.67. Notably, on the day of Lawrence’s funeral the Mirror (21 May 1935, p.5) began to speculate that his dedication in Seven Pillars was in fact a poem to a secret lover, and Knightley and Simpson later made the claim that it was written about a young Arab man named Dahoum (Secrets, pp.158–65). Equally, after Lawrence’s death, E. M. Forster broadcasted a review of the public edition of Seven Pillars and included in his description that it contained ‘a sexual frankness which would cause most authors to be run in by the police’ (published in The Listener, 31 July 1935).68. L. Braudy, The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History (Oxford, 1986), pp.375–6.69. Daily Express, 23 December 1927, p.6.70. Daily Express, 31 May 1928, p.8.71. D. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (New York, 1962), p.69.72. Daily Express, 7 February 1929, p.10.73. Daily Express, 7 August 1929, p.8.74. B. Rieger, Technology and the Culture of Modernity in Britain and Germany, 1890–1945 (Cambridge, 2005), p.149.75. Mayhall, ‘The Prince of Wales’.76. E. Owens, ‘“All the World Loves a Lover”: Royal Romance and the Enchantment of Constitutional Monarchy in Interwar Britain’, Social History Society 2013. http://www.gellius.net/downloads/org_3/owensshs25march.pdf.77. Daily Mirror, 14 December 1933, p.12.78. Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure, p.89.79. F. Inglis, A Short History of Celebrity (Oxford, 2010), pp.186–159; H. Bergmeier & R. Lotz, Hitler’s Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing (Yale, 1997).80. D. Giles, Illusions of Immortality: A Psychology of Fame and Celebrity (Basingstoke, 2000), pp.71–4.81. News Chronicle, 11 May 1934, p.1.82. For example, see Daily Express, 16 January 1925, p.1; Daily Mirror, 29 February 1936, p.1.83. Houlbrook, ‘Commodifying’, pp.332–5.84. AIR 2,692-0-2 pp.10–15 (57).85. For example, see Daily Sketch, 15 May 1935, p.2; Daily Mail, 15 May 1935, p.13; Daily Herald, 22 May 1935, p.7.86. Daily Mirror, 14 May 1935, p.1.87. Daily Herald, 16 May 1935, p.1; News Chronicle, 20 May 1935, p.1.88. For example, see Daily Mail, 4 September 1922, p.9; Daily News, 4 February 1929, p.9; Daily Express, 27 February 1931, p.11.89. For example, see Daily Sketch, 20 May 1935, p.1; Daily Mirror, 20 May 1935, p.9.90. Daily Express, 28 May 1920, p.1; Daily Express, 28 December 1922, p.1.91. Illustrated London News, 25 May 1935, p.947. Tabachnick suggests this series of photographs was taken in late 1931 (Images, p.75). Coster’s photographs would also appear in the first posthumous biography of Lawrence, V. Richards, Portrait of T. E. Lawrence (London, 1936).92. R. Linkof, ‘“The Photographic Attack on His Royal Highness”: The Prince of Wales, Wallis Simpson and the Prehistory of the Paparazzi’, Photography and Culture 4:3 (2011), pp.277–292.93. Sunday Pictorial, 3 February 1929, p.1.94. For a brief history of newsreels, see. http://bufvc.ac.uk/wp-content/media/2009/06/newsreels_long_history.pdf.95. Gaumont Graphic, 8 February 1929, ‘Aircraftman Shaw’.96. See Owens, ‘All the World’.97. British Movietone News, 3 June 1935, ‘New Film of Lawrence of Arabia’. http://www.aparchive.com/search?startd=&endd=&allFilters=British+Movietone%7C43894%3APartner&query=new+film+of+lawrence+of+arabia&advsearchStartDateFilter=&advsearchEndDateFilter=&searchFilterHdSDFormat=All&searchFilterDigitized=All&searchFiltercolorFormat=All&searchFilteraspectratioFormat=All&searchPartner=British+Movietone%7C43894.98. Gaumont British News, 3 June 1935, ‘The Late Colonel Lawrence in America’.99. Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure, pp.63–5.100. For example, see Daily Express, 27 December 1922, p.1; Sunday Express, 30 September 1928, p.1; Sunday Express, 19 May 1935, p.1.101. P. Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (London, 2001), pp.21–2.102. Dawson, Soldier Heroes, p.167.