”Hela Sveriges Tutta Rolf” : An analysis of a star image in early 1930s Swedish cinema

Sammanfattning: Tutta Rolf’s career. Rolf was one of the greatest stars in 1930s Swedish cinema. She was also a popular stage actress, vaudeville performer and recording artist. Despite her prominence she has been largely neglected in scholarly work. This thesis aim to bring new knowledge about this underresearched star by conducting basic research. I situate her within the field of star studies by deploying Richard Dyer’s influential theory to abstract a method on how to look at the praxis of Tutta Rolf’s stardom. Thus, I deploy her films, newspapers, Filmjournalen and archival material to tell the story of her early career. My basic assumption, i.e. hypothesis is that there existed a Swedish star system in the 1930s. Earlier there has been a lack of research regarding a potential Swedish star system. Hence, this is an inductive study that will try to bring forward new knowledge about Tutta Rolf, Swedish stardom and its star system that may be used for future research.