Since the golden era of silent movies, stars have been described as screen gods, goddesses and idols. This is the story of how Olympus moved to Hollywood to divinise stars as Apollos and Venuses for the modern age, and defined a model of stardom that is still with us today.

MICHAEL WILLIAMS is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Southampton, UK. He is author of Ivor Novello: Screen Idol, and is co-editor of British Silent Cinema and the Great War published by Palgrave Macmillan. He has also written on stardom; film and antiquity, British cinema; landscape, sexuality and the heritage film.