Actor as Icon

In contemporary English the rather pretentious metaphor ‘icon’ is steadily taking the place of ‘star’ (and the older ‘idol’) as a way of designating performers and others in the public eye – rock musicians, screen actors, footballers, models, princesses – who have an exceptionally magnetic appeal for audiences. What all who achieve iconic status have in common is the extreme seductiveness of their glamour, which depends as much on charisma and physical presence as on particular virtuoso skills. There is no reason, of course, to see this as a purely modern phenomenon: although television and newspaper images can magnify iconic status they hardly create it out of nothing.