The fame game
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6 minute English from BBClearningEnglish.com
Welcome to 6 Minute English.
And with me here in the studio ladies and gentlemen is …
Finn!
Thank you sound effects!
Thank you,
Neil!
Is this all for me?
I feel like quite a celebrity!
a celebrity –
someone famous -
particularly someone in show business,
that’s the world of entertainment,
theatre and film.
Today we’re talking about fame,
and teaching you some related vocabulary.
Some celebrities are famous for their talent,
which means by their ability to do something well,
like singing,
acting or telling jokes …
well,
for being famous or being associated with someone who is.
The names Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian come to mind:
wealthy women with their own TV shows.
But,
talking about celebrity,
let me ask you a question.
only if you play that lovely applause again.
Go on Neil!
Right.
Here it goes.
Anyway,
Neil…
I can give you my autograph later…
An autograph is the signature of a famous person,
Finn.
Fans collect these and things like photographs.
we call things like those memorabilia.
NeilFor example,
Michael Jackson’s leather glove with shiny crystals -
it became very famous in the 1980s
when he presented his moonwalk to the world.
How much was it sold for at auction in 2009?
Was it:
a) US$ 150,000
b) US$ 250,000 or
c) US$ 350,000
I think Michael Jackson has some big fans in the world
so I’ll say c) US$ 350,000.
I’ll give you the answer at the end of the programme.
does it have a long history?
Lord Byron,
a very famous English poet born in 1788,
is considered by some experts to be the world’s first modern-style celebrity.
Let’s hear Dr Corin Throsby,
English Literature researcher at Cambridge University.
or something for sale.
where someone’s personality becomes a commodity.
So,
for Byron the fact that he was popular on this scale
that had never been achieved before
because his career had coincided with mass printing.
But something more than that,
that there was a sort of a secondary industry of Byron stuff,
you know,
that there were Byron neck ties,
people wanted to look like Byron.
There was this mass of people that loved him.
He could no longer control his image.
I think that’s what separates celebrity from the fame that had preceded that.
She said that when someone’s personality becomes a product,
that’s when they turn into a celebrity.
that’s your reputation,
the way other people think about you and imagine you.
Someone interesting in this respect is Justin Bieber.
Are you a fan,
Neil?
I love him.
His fans are called ‘Beliebers’…
That’s the name his wife gave his adoring fans.
Though she wasn’t too happy about them.
Byron’s life was full of scandals,
actions which cause shock and disapproval among people.
He had affairs with men and women.
He was accused of driving after drinking alcohol,
and of vandalism.
his career started when he was in his early teens
and I think it must have been difficult growing up
with this global fame.
Still,
I wonder how much his autograph is worth in the current market…
It became iconic in the 1980s,
but how much was it sold for?
Was it US$ 150,000; US$ 250,000 or c) US$ 350,000?
That’s rare.
No.
our time’s up but let’s remember the words we heard from today.
Finn.
celebrity
show business
talent
autograph
memorabilia
commodity
image
scandal
vandalism
Please join us again soon for 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.
Go on.
One more time.
don’t you?
It’s great.
I’ll join in.
6 minute English from BBC.