LYCOS RETRIEVER 
A Star Is Born: Esther Blodgett
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Esther is signed by the studio as a contract player, and she works at bit parts until opportunity knocks: a major production is about to be shut down due to an unexplained absence of the big singing star. Maine talks Niles into giving Esther a chance at the part. She auditions for the part, and Niles decides to take a chance on her. The film is a hit, and Esther is on her way.
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Drunken, has been, rock star, John Norman Howard falls in love with unknown singer, Esther Hoffman after seeing her perform at a club. He lets her sing a few songs at one of his shows and she becomes the talk of the music industry. Esther's star begins to rise, while John's continues to fall. She tries desperately to get John to sober up and focus on his music, but it may be too late to save him.
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Plot Synopsis: Talented rock star John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson) has seen his career begin to decline. Too many years of concerts and managers and life on the road have made him cynical and the monotony has taken its toll. Then he meets the innocent, pure and very talented singer Esther Hoffman (Barbra Streisand). As one of his songs in the movie says "I'm gonna take you girl, I'm gonna show you how." And he does. He shows Esther the way to stardom while forsaking his own career.
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The film opens during the first of the three Hollywood ceremonies, a gala benefit "Night of Stars," being held at Hollywood's Shrine Theatre. The concert's proceeds will go to "The Motion Picture Relief Fund," a way to help out-of-work actors, as the Master of Ceremonies boasts: "Hollywood never forgets its own." Brilliant, but fading alcoholic movie actor Norman Maine (James Mason) arrives late to the benefit, obviously drunk. He staggers and wanders onto the stage in the middle of one of the acts. When one of the dancing performers, Esther Blodgett (Judy Garland) first notices him, seeing how drunk he is, she quips:
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Although the two remakes dating from the 1950s and 1970s offer forensic interest and morbid curiosity, the original 1937 version, starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, is the only one that actually functions as entertainment. Made in the full bloom of the studio system, the movie gives a benevolent but witty view of that form of dictatorship, as Esther is re-christened "Vicki Lester" and groomed into a series of parts in grandiose costume epics. The only one of the screen Esthers plucky or innocent enough to carry off the corniness of the conceit, Gaynor renders the conquest of Hollywood as the continuation of a frontier narrative, with the grandmother character providing a thematic link to what could still be called without sarcasm "the American spirit." (Granny's life hearbreak came when "some Indian devil put a bullet in" her sodbuster husband.) Connoisseurs of alcoholism appreciate the script's many boozer gag lines.
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Drunken wining movie star Norman Maine meets showgirl Esther Blodgett when he literally stumbles into her act one night. A friendship develops which blossoms into romance but tensions increase as Esther's career takes off whilst Norman's plummets.
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Esther Blodgett