The Ulmer Scale rated actors’ fame specifically as bankability, like a bond-rating service.

Evidence

Even the ancien régime did recognize gradations, however, and these found expression in the Ulmer Scale, created in the 1980s by a reporter named James Ulmer; he named it after himself, perhaps in his own small bid at microimmortality. The scale was designed to measure the celebrity status of actors, for the express purpose of estimating their “bankability” (i.e., how much value they added to a production just by appearing in it). In practice the scale divided famous actors into an A-list, B-list, and C-list, not unlike a bond-rating service on Wall Street. Ulmer called it a movie star “racing form.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1026

Categorization

• XREF: The bond-rating analogy echoes the diamond-grading scale discussed in the extralegal contracts reading — metrics that convert reputational standing into credit.