Sunday evening, Hol-lywood once again salutes the movie industry and its accomplishments. Though the event isn’t quite as popular as it was a few years ago, we can safely predict it will still attract one of the largest audiences and highest Neilson ratings of 2012. Movie celebrities like Angelina Jolie and George Clooney seem to generate more public excitement than sport heroes or even our president. Movie luminaries are as close as America comes to royalty.

This is an interesting phenomenon. At least I hope you find it so because it’s the subject of this column.

Generally speaking, Hol-lywood stars are created by producers and other financial investors simply because they want to make money on their films. A shower of publicity creates celebs that people want to see. The main reason stars appear with Lettermen and Ellen is to promote their movies and some are only famous as long as their current film is playing the multiplex theaters.

Stars aren’t necessarily good actors. Some simply have a personality the public finds appealing. John Wayne is a perfect case in point. He was just John Wayne and he didn’t have to act. He offered the same personality in every one of the 150 films he made. He simply changed his clothes for different roles; in some cases he didn’t even do that since he wore the same cowboy hat in nearly 40 movies.

On the other hand, some stars are extremely talented. Meryl Streep comes immediately to mind. She is so strikingly different from one role to another, you have to wonder if it’s the same woman. Tom Hanks and Dustin Hoffman have this same uncanny ability.

And finally, some stars don’t have either acting talent nor attractive personalities and you have to ask what they’re doing up there on the screen. I’ve always felt that way about Humphrey Bogart, even though he was a superstar who appeared in some pretty good movies, like “Casablanca.”

Despite all the fame surrounding Hollywood celebs, or perhaps because of it, many stars lead terribly screwed-up lives. Some are egotistical and unstable as hell. They take advantage of every opportunity to promote their careers, no matter how weird or twisted the request might be, and they sacrifice everything for the sake of fame. Many of them are addicted to an entire pharmacopoeia of drugs and can’t possibly relax or sleep without injecting the proper mix of 14 different chemicals. If examples are necessary, consider major stars like Marilyn Monroe and Heath Ledger.

We might think stars have an enormous amount of money and are powerful players in the Hollywood hierarchy.   Though this may be true with certain superstars like Tom Hanks and George Clooney, apparently it isn’t true in general. Indeed, in many cases stars are simply given a studio credit card that they can use to get most anything they want – meals, drinks, whores, clothes, limos, etc. – but they never have much money, which means they’re completely at the mercy of their agents and producers. For instance, this was allegedly true of John Belushi. In situations like these, when producers pull the credit card, fame can vanish as quickly as it arrived and stars will suddenly find themselves broke and back on the street again—so they quickly learn to do what they’re told.

Alas, some aspects of fame can be a real pain in the butt.