"Let everybody love me" : the transnational body of Elżbieta Czyżewska

The ways to create a star personality in the Polish People's Republic are closer to the strategy of creating stars in the Soviet cinema, where the star had to function as an power engine, as an incentive to action, than to the Hollywood system (star system). It is well illustrated by the career of Elżbieta Czyżewska: not only was she the most fascinating actress of her generation but she was also quickly transformed into a star. Czyżewska’s body used as a screen on which first the (socialist) desires and then (socialist) fears were projected, was placed - almost from the beginning of her career - in transnational contexts. She crossed borders not only on the screen: in 1965 Czyżewska married The New York Times correspondent, David Halberstam, and left for New York, or rather was forced to leave. The star’s previously ideal body suddenly appeared to be - not for "strangers" but for "us", not outside the national community but inside it - a transgressive (since openly transnational) anti-body. This article explores (1) the phenomenon of a star in the Polish People's Republic ("socialist star system"), (2) transgressions of Czyżewska in the West, (3) and, above all, their Polish reception.