Old people like to pretend that in their heyday society was generally better. I honestly do not believe a Paris Hilton-type would be regarded very highly in 1950s Hollywood, but that may have less to do with Hollywood and the sensibilities of the 1950s society as much as it has to do with media.
It's not that 1950s society were not obsessesed with their movie stars but they had only so many venues in which to read about and learn more about them -- magazines and the actual movies they make.
Today, we have the movies, magazines, Internet, TV, newspapers, gossip rags and an endless cornucopia of celebrity fodder, which thus allows the scope of celebrity to expand. Paris Hilton is only famous because there's a medium for her and an audience that cares.
However, the mania was the same in the 1950s. "All About Eve" is all about a desperate and conniving woman who would go to all ends of lying and blackmail to become rich and famous. This just wasn't a film, but a comment, I think, on American society and our ideas about fame, glamour and money. All of this was not foreign to the 1950s movie goer and it still has value today.
Also, love the Marilyn Monroe role. Extremely hot in this role.
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