I read an article about Britney Spears, and they wrote, "...those who live in the klieg lights of real fame." I'd not heard the word, and in looking it up, I find that it's used as a studio light and was named after 2 brothers (Anton and John Kliegl) who invented it.

Is that how the word is normally used? It seemed an odd use to me, though that may be because I'd not heard the word before.

We still talk about people being 'in the limelight' and similar well over a hundred years after the use of limelight in theatres was discontinued.

Their name was Kliegl. Just think of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) at the end of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard coming down the stair case to be arrested and being filmed by Max (Eric von Stroheim). They used klieg lights there. Here are some other terms for klieg lights, depending on their size: baby and brute.

I forgot about "limelight," Arnie. We say that, too, but I'd never before thought where that came from. It was a type of light in theatres?

Zmj, would someone in theatre say "...those who live in the 'baby' or 'brute' lights of real fame"...?

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I forgot about "limelight," Arnie. We say that, too, but I'd never before thought where that came from. It was a type of light in theatres?

Limelight was produced by playing a hot flame (typically oxy-hydrogen) onto a block of lime. The lime would fluoresce, emitting a very bright, white light.

Obviously dangerous and uncomfortably hot, its use was discontinued once high-power electric lighting was developed.

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Zmj, would someone in theatre say "...those who live in the 'baby' or 'brute' lights of real fame"...?

No, but they might say "strike the baby and kill the blonde".

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Limelight was produced by playing a hot flame (typically oxy-hydrogen) onto a block of lime. The lime would fluoresce, emitting a very bright, white light.

I think you mean incandesce; fluorescence means something else.

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I think you mean incandesce; fluorescence means something else.

Incandescence is probably a better name for the phenomenon. I was trying to recall the name and couldn't. Call it a senior moment caused by too much exposure to limelight!

No, but they might say "strike the baby and kill the blonde".

Ah, yes, Alan Smithee. These days a pseudonym is chosen by the DGA on a case by case basis. Another tradtion down the plughole.

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I was trying to recall the name and couldn't

If I were asked to predict what word you would draw a blank on, I would not have chosen "incandescent".

Oh, zmj, that Allen Smithee story was great! The funny part was that the critics loved the first movie to use the pseudonym; they said the movie was "sharply directed by Allen Smithee who has an adroit facility for scanning faces and extracting sharp background detail."

quote: I think you mean incandesce; fluorescence means something else.

Wikipedia tells me that limelight "is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence," but I can't figure out how those two terms differ. Can anyone explain, non-technically?

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Originally posted by wordnerd:
Wikipedia tells me that limelight "is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence," but I can't figure out how those two terms differ. Can anyone explain, non-technically?

Candoluminescence is when hot things are whiter than they should be.