The movies reach back into the 19th century. But as a mass-market, dream-catching, star-making, world-shaping medium they were born in the 1920s.
Fleeing bad weather, and the restrictive patents of the Edison companies, film makers set up shop on the shores of the Pacific.
Hollywoodland - an LA housing development shouting to attract customers - started to become Hollywood.
The eyes of the world were soon focussed on flickering screens in the darkened rooms of growing new cinema chains.
So-called Flappers were in fact relatively more liberated and financially independent women who were a key audience for the early cinema and wanted to see strong women on screen.
European art, Hollywood spectaculars, the birth of Bollywood… The world was glued to the pictures.
And, they were staring at a cavalcade of stars.
In the century since then, a parade of extraordinary women have had the eyes of the world.
Here are the most collectible women of every cinema decade of the 20th century.
1920s
Brigitte Helm
Brigitte Helm, a German actor imortalised in one of the single most important images in cinema history.
Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks… all wonderful stars, with fascinating life stories, guaranteed to make a film turn a profit.
And, yet, the most collectible film star of the 1920s is down to one image.
Brigitte Helm was the face of a robot called Futura. It was her first role, and she was only 17 when she started playing Futura (and the human on which the robot was based, Maria).
But that 1927 imagery is so iconic, that posters for Fritz Lang’s great masterpiece are now the most valuable in history.
One sold for $690,000 in 2005.
1930s
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo's persona was not entirely invented, but the studios were happy to use her aversion to stardom as a selling point.
Another European, but one who went to Hollywood and triumphed.
But one of the keys to Garbo’s success for collectors is that her on-screen persona wasn’t all an act.
She really did want to be alone.
And that included not being bothered by autograph hunting fans.
Her employers colluded in a semi-fiction, helping to sell Garbo as the aloof Scandinavian ice-maiden by limiting her public appearances and ruling out all but the most exclusive endorsements.
Now, even simple signed photos go for thousands of dollars and good items make tens of thousands.
One of the most famous repros of her name is a signature - so rarely seen - rendered on her gravestone.
Some New York shopping immortalised in one of the most famous signatures in Hollywood collecting. Click the image to read about this unique cheque.
1940s
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall in 1945. Routinely described as "smoky" the young actor's wise-cracking performances were on fire with wit and pace.
The 1940s was the heyday of the Film Noir, and the Femme Fatale.
Enter Lauren Bacall.
Her roles in To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948) are enough to make an archetype of the “nothing but trouble” female lead for the “everyone’s f*****” genre.
Her career had more than noir, and her life included a famously happy marriage to Humphrey Bogart.
She wrote widely to her many friends in Hollywood and when the contents of her apartment were auctioned they showed her own excellent taste in art and design and easily surpassed their $3 million estimate.
“We have been humbled by the worldwide outpouring of enthusiasm for this sale,” Jon King, director and vice-president at Bonhams told the Guardian of the 2015 auction.
A letter to a seriously ill John Wayne, "the Duke", was a typically kind act from an actor who was very well loved by her peers. Click the letter to find out more.
1950s
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn on her way to sign for a President. Click the image to find out how to own a unique memento of that famous night.
Just Marilyn is enough for a woman whose life and tragic death have elevated her to the ethereal level of one-name stars.
Marilyn was one of the most bankable stars in the most golden age of Hollywood stardom. Artefacts from her career would have had value come what may. But her contradictory fragility and the steeliness that saw her go from fostered child to global icon fascinate us. Successive relationships with baseball star Joe DiMaggio, left-leaning playwright Arthur Miller and, perhaps, President Kennedy, add another layer of interest and even conspiracy.
Marilyn is without doubt the most valuable of all cinema figures.
Costumes make eye-catching record prices - $4.8 million for the Happy Birthday Mr President dress - but autographs alone are often priced in the tens of thousands of dollars range.
A fascinating artefact that reveals so much about the star, this recording of her wedding, signed with her married name is on sale now.
1960s
Elizabeth Taylor
A PR pic of Elizabeth Taylor. If you were going to use one person as an archetype for "Hollywood Star" it might well be the British-born actor.
1963 was a big year for British culture, and is usually considered the start of the Swinging Sixties, a big bang, colourful revolution in the entertainment industry.
It was a breakthrough year for The Beatles of course.
But in cinemas the big news was epic: Cleopatra was released.
Despite its legendary expense the film went on to make a decent profit, and on its set Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton met.
Taylor might be the last great star of the Golden Age of Hollywood. And what a star she was.
Forget Burton - and the other six husbands - she’s a substantial actor and an icon of glamour, beauty, poise and elegance who will inspire women for another century.
The Burton/Taylor romance(s) are particularly attractive to collectors, but her own lavish lifestyle also saw big sales of her personal collections.
She has owned - and had named for her - several million dollar-plus diamonds, and a sale of her jewels in 2011 was topped off with an $11 million pearl, diamond and ruby necklace.
How many diamonds have you had named after you? This is just one Elizabeth Taylor diamond - all $8.8 million-worth of it. Image courtesy of Christie's.
1970s
Barbra Streisand
Barbra in 1970, about to conquer a decade.
Barbra was the biggest female box office star of the 1970s.
She really has conquered it all. She began as a recording star, then she was a musicals star, then she was a movie star. Star! Star! Star!
Wikipedia’s summary gives you some idea: “Her accolades span ten Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Grammy Legend Award; nine Golden Globe Awards; five Emmy Awards; four Peabody Awards; two Academy Awards; the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
Two relatively recent auctions have shown she has lovely taste in furniture (a sale of items from her home brought in nearly $3 million at Christie’s) and there’s an appetite for more personal items like the stage-worn gown that made $13,000 at a recent LA sale.
Her autograph goes for hundreds of dollars, and in the right circumstances can go for much more.
With a career that takes in very mainstream hits like A Star is Born and cultier fare like On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, a huge TV profile, stage shows… there’s a lot of Barbra to collect.
1980s
Carrie Fisher
This controversial costume, which Fisher didn't like, is the most valuable item from a career that is much deeper and broader than a futuristic bikini suggests.
This is a list of great women actors. But it’s a list shaped by the value of collectibles, and Carrie Fisher is here because of one character: Princess Leia in Star Wars.
Although the first movie came out in 1977, the initial trilogy was completed in 1980 and 1983 with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Fisher starred in all of them, and came back for the more recent DIsney films, the last of which, The Force Awakens was posthumously dedicated to her.
She was a fine actor and an excellent writer whose novel Postcards from the Edge was a successful film.
So far, the most valuable Fisher item is a somewhat infamous Princess Leia bikini costume that sold for $175,000 last year. That record won’t stand for too long I don’t think.
She came from Hollywood royalty, and her mother, Debbie Reynolds was herself one of the most famous collectors of movie memorabilia in history.
1990s
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet, far right, breaking class barriers in Titanic, a story that will be told and retold.
Another brilliant actor, with huge range and a consequential career across decades and genres. And another single movie that makes her a collector’s favourite.
Here, it’s Titanic.
The sinking of the Titanic has bewitched generations of ordinary people and well-heeled collectors. Items from the actual disaster are among the most valuable of their period - there’s nothing really comparable as an historic event.
So, alongside her many other brilliant performances - Heavenly Creatures, Iris, Finding Neverland, just to begin the list - it is Rose DeWitt Bukater who will forever head her CV.
“You don't understand! I am Rose!” she reportedly told director James Cameron as she lobbied for the part.
And, in the mind of many collectors she is Rose now. Items from the movie are now starting to show up in sales of items from the actual disaster, and get good prices.
Last year, a prop door on which Rose floated to safety was sold for $718,000.
A piece of carpet from the movie Titanic. The ship was tragic, its story is gold dust for collectors. Click the image to own this item.
Collecting movie memorabilia today
So many names we had to pass over: Judy Garland, Jane Fonda, Bette Davis, Julia Roberts, Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon…
Who would you add to your list?
