, Columnist
Williams, Bacall and the Death of Star Power
The deaths of Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall raise a question that has been troubling Hollywood in recent years: Do movie stars still matter?
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The deaths this week of Lauren Bacall and Robin Williams weigh heavily on all those who love film. Some stars are irreplaceable. It's also an appropriate occasion to revisit a question that has troubled Hollywood these last few years: As much as we'll miss Williams and Bacall, do movie stars even matter anymore?
It has become commonplace to assert that we live in the post-star era, in which, as GQ put it, "the movies seem to be doing just fine without the presence of an entire category of people who have been, for the better part of the past century, the main reason a lot of people went to the movies."