英语词汇matinee idol的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

matinee idol. This term for a star isn’t heard nearly so much today as it was 50 years ago. It refers to the matinee (afternoon) performances of plays and films, when many women were present in the audience, some of whom idolized certain actors. Matinee, a French word deriving ultimately from the French for “morning,” was first recorded in English in 1848 by the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. rudolph valentino was probably the most famous matinee idol. Though he was an Irishman with “an incurable Irish brogue” and had played in Dublin and London before sailing for America, the handsome actor John Henry (1738–94) has often been called “America’s First Matinee Idol” (even though there were no matinees in his day). Henry did so well acting and producing that he could af- ford his own coach for transit, a rarity among the thespians of his time, but he tried to avoid ostentation by having the words this or these painted on the coach under a picture of two crutches. The coach was necessary, he explained to his detrac- tors, because gout had crippled him and he would have to walk on crutches if he didn’t ride. Henry was possibly the first Ameri- can actor involved in a sex scandal. After his first wife was lost at sea, he lived for some time with her sister, by whom he had a child, but abandoned her to marry still another of his departed wife’s sisters. When his star faded in America, he sailed back to Ireland but died of a heart attack in passage; his new wife went insane over her loss and died a year later. See star.

词汇	matinee idol
词源	matinee idol. This term for a star isn’t heard nearly so much today as it was 50 years ago. It refers to the matinee (afternoon) performances of plays and films, when many women were present in the audience, some of whom idolized certain actors. Matinee, a French word deriving ultimately from the French for “morning,” was first recorded in English in 1848 by the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. rudolph valentino was probably the most famous matinee idol. Though he was an Irishman with “an incurable Irish brogue” and had played in Dublin and London before sailing for America, the handsome actor John Henry (1738–94) has often been called “America’s First Matinee Idol” (even though there were no matinees in his day). Henry did so well acting and producing that he could af- ford his own coach for transit, a rarity among the thespians of his time, but he tried to avoid ostentation by having the words this or these painted on the coach under a picture of two crutches. The coach was necessary, he explained to his detrac- tors, because gout had crippled him and he would have to walk on crutches if he didn’t ride. Henry was possibly the first Ameri- can actor involved in a sex scandal. After his first wife was lost at sea, he lived for some time with her sister, by whom he had a child, but abandoned her to marry still another of his departed wife’s sisters. When his star faded in America, he sailed back to Ireland but died of a heart attack in passage; his new wife went insane over her loss and died a year later. See star.
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