Brackett thought the sequence was cruel in its emphasis on what age had done to the one-time beauty, but Wilder insisted it was essential to show how driven she was in her pursuit of youth. The two starred in the films The Lion (1962) and The 7th Dawn (1964). She felt that Wilder used her name in a past-tense context, and she was offended. Despite the 19 year gap in their ages, Holden and Swanson died just 2 years apart from each other- Holden in 1981 at age 63 and Swanson in 1983 at age 84. In 1954, Holden was featured on the cover of Life. There was a maharajah who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings. F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered a heart attack while in Schwab's in 1940 (contrary to legend, Lana Turner was not discovered by a talent agent in Schwab's but, rather in a drugstore across from Hollywood High School, about three miles to the east). It's probably just as well, since the darker, more nuanced story that eventually emerged was quite different from West's wheelhouse anyway. After the. Gloria Swanson became so identified with the demanding, irascible Norma that later generations of fans were startled to discover her serene, easy-going, naturalist personality in real life. For the record, the other 12 films to achieve a similar feat are Mrs. Miniver (1942), Johnny Belinda (1948), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), From Here to Eternity (1953), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Billy Wilder originally wanted another silent star, Pola Negri, to take the part of Norma Desmond. Since her part required her to gaze at the newsreel cameramen and "fans" (the waiting police) gathered in the foyer below, she couldn't watch where she placed her feet. The first draft of the film was a straightforward comedy about a has-been actress making a comeback, and Wilder saw Mae West in the role. She liked Holden and went out of her way to help him succeed, devoting her personal time to coaching and encouraging him, which made them into lifelong friends. For added meta-truthfulness, Wilder wanted to have that film's lead actress, Hedy Lamarr, be there too, so that DeMille could ask her to let Norma sit in her chair (you know, those behind-the-scenes chairs that have the star's name on them). Peavey died in a San Francisco asylum, where he was being treated for syphilis-related dementia, in 1931. Also, the house didn't have a pool, so Paramount paid to have one installed on the condition that if Mrs. Getty didn't like it, they'd remove it after filming was over. Eugene Walter was a prolific Hollywood screenwriter of the 1920s and 1930s. of quiet desperation at the end of a relationship when nothing's really making sense and I sort of had the image of William Holden at the beginning of Sunset Blvd. a mean old woman who looks and acts a little like Ma Bates if she'd been dead for several years but was somehow still just as talkative and feisty. The apartments, and the "Alto Nido" sign out front that is glimpsed briefly in the film, are still there. Billy Wilder originally approached William Haines to play one of Norma's bridge partners. Highly unusual at the time, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder had Joe Gillis narrate, from beyond the grave, the sad tale of the final months of his life, while the film simultaneously depicts the still living Gillis experiencing those events unaware of the fate his dead self already knows. Swanson and von Stroheim are playing themselves in that scene. In 1989 the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selected this as one of 25 landmark films of all time. Beedle grew up in South Pasadena, California. Billy Wilder went into production with only 61 pages of script finished, so he had to shoot more or less in chronological order. She changed her professional name to Patricia Palmer and was working with Famous Players-Lasky, Taylors studio at the time of his death. [28] Columbia would not meet Holden's asking price of $750,000 and 10% of the gross for The Guns of Navarone (1961); the amount of money Holden asked exceeded the combined salaries of stars Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn.[29]. In subsequent years, two lawsuits have been filed against Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, claiming that Sunset Blvd. Normas waxworks card sharps were Swedish-born Anna Q. Nilsson, H. B. Warner and Buster Keaton. After all, it's about a dethroned queen." Holden never lost his stride as cinema changed. At Paramount, he was in a comedy with Ginger Rogers that was not particularly popular, Forever Female (1953). Norma's "gondola bed" was originally white, and was featured in Twentieth Century (1934) with Carole Lombard and John Barrymore. This was the actual set of Samson and Delilah (1949), which de Mille was making at the time. A second film with Seaton did not do as well, The Proud and Profane (1956), where Holden played the role with a moustache. When two more test audiences reacted the same way, Wilder cut the scene and the movie was saved. The one on the Paramount studio soundstage; the one whose driveway William Holden ducks into at 10060 Sunset Blvd; and the one used for the exteriors, which is the one shown here. But before that happened, it appeared in Rebel Without a Cause as the abandoned mansion in which the kids hang out. Her Stockholm Syndrome is positively infectious. [4] They had two sons, Peter and Scott. Billy Wilder had worked on a script for a Swanson picture years earlier called "Music in the Air (1934)" and had forgotten about it. Confess, Peavey, he laughed in the ghosts face. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson. For scenes in which he drove, the car was towed by another car. The Tragic 1981 Death Of Sunset Boulevard Star William Holden. It was George Cukor who suggested Gloria Swanson for the role of Norma Desmond. In real life, when Swanson and DeMille had worked together, that was what they always called each other. Previous image. As DeMille was directing Lamarr at the time in Samson and Delilah (1949), this would have been no problem. Joe Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. It was widely known as a top Hollywood hangout for many actors, directors, writers and producers. Film News. For the first industry screening, Paramount executives invited several silent-film stars. Her character's age was 22 but she was 21 at the time of filming. He said it was because she was braver than any man. A modern-girl Jiminy Cricket, Betty asks, Dont you sometimes hate yourself? and Joe corrects her, Constantly.. Saltar al contenido principal.com.mx. In a scene described by director Billy Wilder as one of the best he'd ever shot, the body of Joe Gillis is rolled into the morgue to join three dozen other corpses, some of whom--in voice-over--tell Gillis how they died. Oscar and Emmy winner William Holden was one of Hollywood's biggest stars for decades, with his performances as cynical, conflicted men winning acclaim and awards. (1940) followed by the role of George Gibbs in the film adaptation of Our Town (1940), done for Sol Lesser at United Artists.[8]. This still goes on today. Sunset Boulevard is no. Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. When Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond watch one of Norma's old silent movies, they are watching a scene from Queen Kelly (1932), starring a young Gloria Swanson. He had made Swanson a star by. Whether he was the washed up screenwriter of Sunset Boulevard or the reluctant hero of The Bridge on the River Kwai, Holden kept audiences engrossed. Wilder told the actors to kibbutz and let him shuffle. The producer in the film was originally called Kaufman and was to be played by Joseph Calleia. The 2014 book by William J. Mann, Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood, names Ross Blackie Madsen Sheridan as the killer, based on a death bed confession from actress Margaret Gibson, who beat a 1917 rap on prostitution and opium dealing. They had faces. It said so on the chart from her astrologer, who read DeMilles horoscope. The plot element of Norma Desmond's obsession with writing a screenplay based on Salome as a vehicle for her comeback was obviously influenced by eccentric, aging actress Valeska Suratt, who had a brief film career (1915-1917) playing mostly vamp roles. Cecil B. DeMille had a pet name for Gloria Swanson: "Young Fellow". The clips in Sunset Boulevard were the first time American audiences saw it. It always will be! William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 - November 12, 1981) was an American actor and murderer, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. It was a big hit, as was The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), a Korean War drama with Kelly.[20][21]. Joe Gillis' typewriter is a portable manual Remington Rand Noiseless Model 7. Director Billy Wilder Writers Charles Brackett Billy Wilder D.M. Less popular was Satan Never Sleeps (1961), the last film of Clifton Webb and Leo McCarey; The Counterfeit Traitor (1962), his third film with Seaton; or The Lion (1962), with Trevor Howard and Capucine. In the opening scene of the 1950 film "Sunset Boulevard," the cynical screenwriter turned gigolo Joe Gillis lies floating in a swimming pool, blood seeping from his lifeless body. in West Hollywood. A true Hollywood horror story. Oddly enough, the reclusive Greta Garbo granted permission to use her name, though when she saw the film itself she was sorry she had done so. The musical version of the movie opened in London on July 12, 1993, and ran 1529 performances. Gene Kelly was then approached, but MGM refused to loan him out. But she fits it like a round peg in a square hole. When crew members asked Billy Wilder how he was going to shoot the burial of Norma's monkey, one of the film's most bizarre scenes, he just said, "You know, the usual monkey-funeral sequence.". She puts on a show playing a Max Sennett bathing girl and Charlie Chaplins Tramp character, though Maxs bad timing is a little too on the nose. For the clip of the vintage film that Norma was watching Paramount couldn't find anything suitable so Gloria provided it from her own collection. The two stars had never expressed any hostility towards each other over the failure of Cecil B. DeMille and Stroheim made many recommendations to Wilder during the making of the film, including having his character write all of Norma Desmond's fan mail, and, more importantly, to use footage from "Queen Kelly" as an excerpt from one of Desmond's great silent films. In the penultimate scene, as Max tells Norma that "the cameras have arrived," the high strings in composer Franz Waxman's Oscar-winning score quote a chord from Richard Strauss's "The Dance of the Seven Veils" from his opera "Salome". The whole place seemed to have been stricken with the kind of creeping paralysis, out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion. Zach Laws, Chris Beachum. Newspapers printed love letters between 19-year-old former child star and screen idol Mary Miles Minter and Taylor. X. To get around the restrictions of the Breen Code, the script was submitted piecemeal, several pages at a time. When filming began, William Holden was 31 and Gloria Swanson was 50, the same stated age as her character. Holden himself claimed that he, too, could picture his end. You used to be in silent pictures. On the advice of Libby Holman, Montgomery Clift, who had signed to play the part of Joe Gillis, broke his contract just two weeks prior to the start of shooting. Idealists can screw for fun and for power, because sex is good for business but love is a luxury Hollywood gals cant live without. And if you find it a little odd to hear dead men telling their own tales via narration, it is less strange than hearing it from a bunch of corpses with toe-tags talking it over in the LA county morgue, which was the way the movie was originally shot. Darryl F. Zanuck, Olivia de Havilland, Tyrone Power and Samuel Goldwyn all refused to allow their names to be used in the film, but Billy Wilder decided to use Zanuck's and Power's names anyway. Although they don't have a scene together in this film, Hedda Hopper and Buster Keaton had worked together in the 1932 comedy Speak Easily (1932), both were among the many stars appearing in the 1931 two-reeler The Stolen Jools (1931), and they both appeared in a 1958 episode of The Garry Moore Show (1958) that also featured Carol Burnett, who years later would spoof the Norma Desmond character regularly on her own variety show. Getty always wanted a pool, the poor dope. Gillis smokes unfiltered cigarettes in the film. Two years later, he was praised for his Oscar-nominated leading performance in Sidney Lumet's classic Network (1976),[34] an examination of the media written by Paddy Chayefsky, playing an older version of the character type for which he had become iconic in the 1950s, only now more jaded and aware of his own mortality. Not long ago, he was divorced from the actress, Gloria Holden, but carried the torch after the marital rift. When he drives Norma to Paramount Pictures at the studio gates, the car was pulled with a rope by off-camera grips. At the time this movie was made, the incident was still quite recent. So speaking of funerals, heres the great real life murder mystery we teased in the opening. Yeah. When the movie first dropped, Louis B. Mayer, the Mayer in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, told everyone who would listen that Wilder disgraced the industry that made him and fed him, and urged that he be tarred and feathered, and run out of Hollywood. Wilder, who had been feeding himself for quite some time, told Meyer to go fuck himself. He would slay, "I have no idea! Sunset Boulevard is also a reflection of Hollywood through a glass, darkly. However, DeMille insisted that Lamarr be paid $25,000 for the privilege, so the idea was quickly dropped. Marshman Jr. Sunset Boulevard was the last time Brackett and Wilder collaborated on a film. Studs and cufflinks were inserted into the shirt holes to secure the garment. You see, this is my life, she promised. Someone who said they were a doctor said Taylor died of a stomach hemorrhage and then disappeared. William Holden returns to find that Gloria Swanson has tried to slash her wrists in 'Sunset Boulevard', directed by Billy Wilder. . Norma, the aging silent-movie star who ensnares down-at-the-heels screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden), is the vamp become vampire (look at those clawlike hands! He directed classic films like Double Indemnity, Ace in the Hole, The Apartment, The Lost Weekend, Stalag 17, Witness for the Prosecution, Sabrina, and Some Like It Hot. Suratt was reportedly obsessed with the fact that she was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, and after her career ended commissioned the leader of the U.S. Reform Bah' Movement to co-write a script on the life of Mary Magdalene. In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked this as the #16 Greatest Movie of All Time. De Mille, and Max von Mayerling. Billy Wilder was frustrated with people assuming that the ending was meant to be ambiguous and asking him what happens to Norma after the final dissolve. [10] RKO borrowed him for Rachel and the Stranger (1948) with Robert Mitchum and Loretta Young. There once was a time in this business when they had the eyes of the whole world. While Hollywood Blvd. While in Italy in 1966, Holden was responsible for the death of another driver in a drunk-driving incident near Pisa. About 10 minutes later, Holden passed out and died from blood loss. Norma Shearer turned down the role of Norma Desmond as she didn't want to come out of retirement and also found the part to be highly distasteful. So funny that it took away from the rest of the picture. read more: Can The Biblical Epic be Resurrected? The film was the favorite of Sci-Fi author J.G. The four films were released between August 1950 and November 1951. On February 7, 1955, Holden appeared as a guest star on I Love Lucy as himself. Holden, just 63 when he died, had most recently appeared in the Blake Edwards' film "S.O.B." Costume designer Edith Head found working on the film to be one of her greatest challenges. Fred MacMurray and Gene Kelly both turned down the role of Joe Gillis. He rose to prominence with his role in the movie "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), which landed him his first Best Actor Oscar nomination. An inventory of his prospects added up to exactly zero. [30] Holden made a Western with Ryan O'Neal and Blake Edwards, Wild Rovers (1971). Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge were famous for owning downtown real estate in Los Angeles and San Diego. Unlike the character she played, Gloria Swanson had accepted the fact that the movies didn't want her anymore and had moved to New York, where she worked on radio and, later, television. (1966), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Network (1976), Coming Home (1978), Reds (1981), Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013). (he'd already gotten the shot he needed on the first take). This ushered in the peak years of Holden's stardom. About 28:00 in, when Max is playing the organ, it is the same chords that Captain Nemo (James Mason) plays on his organ aboard the Nautilus in "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea." preppy-3 15 March 2008. When Norma visits Cecil B. At one point, Norma decides the time is right to send Gillis script to DeMille because is a Leo. It was a the kind of a place crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s. And what faces. After graduating from South Pasadena High School, Holden attended Pasadena Junior College, where he became involved in local radio plays. The look of pain sustained two fine films 'The Wild Bunch' and 'Network' so that we rubbed our eyes to recall the fresh-faced enthusiast from Golden Boy. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Sometimes hetinkles the wheezing gothic ivories like Lurch in the original TV series The Addams Family, playing the recognizable strains of The Phantom of the Opera. After his final film S.O.B., Holden declined to star in Jason Miller's film That Championship Season.[37]. He rejects her. Although a registered Republican, he never involved himself in politics. She offered Peavey 10 dollars to identify Taylors grave in the Hollywood Park Cemetery and had someone wait there in a white sheet to scare it out of him. This parallel narrative--two perspectives from the same character, one omniscient, the other blissfully ignorant--that converge at the moment of Joe's death, are a major reason the film retains such dramatic and emotional power. The mundane accident that took the Hollywood actor's life was made even worse by the fact that nobody found his body for a week afterward, according to the Associated Press. Read more of his work here or find him on Twitter @tsokol. Sunset Boulevard is a noir film and like many of the post-World War II dark classics, it is covered with a thick sheen of cynicism. Swanson made the transition to talkies with The Trespasser in 1929. The interiors of Norma's decaying mansion were actually a set at Paramount Studios. When Joe and Norma sit down to watch one of her old movies, Joe pulls out a cigarette and places the bottom end in his mouth. In addition to the famous swimming pool, the studio also built sets to exactly duplicate Schwab's Drug Store in Hollywood and the Los Angeles County Morgue. Men bribed her hairdresser to get a lock of her hair. Although she had long before ruled out the possibility of a movie comeback, she was nevertheless highly intrigued when she got the offer to play the lead. Norma's bed originally belonged to French actress/singer Gaby Deslys. This promised to go the limit. The California license plate on Gillis' Plymouth, 4D R 116, appears to be a legal and current registration for 1949. When Peavey heard the moans I am the ghost of William Desmond Taylor. words "Sunset Blvd." She reads everyone and everything in Hollywood, except Joes script. This was a first for Gloria Swanson, but proved a big boon in helping her develop her character's descent into madness. Ready? The antique car used as Norma Desmond's limousine is an 1929 Isotta-Fraschini Tipo 8A, a luxury car made in Italy, and once belonged to 1920s socialite Peggy Hopkins Joyce. And like the title, Holden seemed to have the looks and muscular build Hollywood craved. "I am big. Westmore and director Billy Wilder agreed with this so William Holden was made up to look younger than he was. Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. ", After serving with the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, he returned to Hollywood and in 1950 he got his first substantial role in Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard," per Britannica. This is an old film which has been made into a musical. [45], According to the Los Angeles County Coroner's autopsy report, Holden bled to death in his apartment in Santa Monica, California, on November 12, 1981, after lacerating his forehead from slipping on a rug while intoxicated and hitting a bedside table. The "fee" for renting the Jean Paul Getty mansion was for Paramount to build the swimming pool, which features so memorably. but at 641 S. Irving Blvd. That movie, however, departs from the trope by making both actress and stranger much younger. It has to be an opera. It gives them an opportunity to write really good acceptances speeches. Hola, identifcate . [41], Holden was married to actress Brenda Marshall from 1941 until their divorce in 1971. The name Norma Desmond was a combination of early Hollywoods comedy star Mabel Normand and her lover, silent film director William Desmond Taylor. According to reports, Taylor went to the feds for help filing charges against Normands cocaine suppliers. She is ever the star. That's the end.". Prior to joining the Houston Chronicle, Gonzales worked as a night cops reporter at The. Everyone had a good laugh, though the record doesn't reflect whether Marshall joined in. . He contributed to Altvariety, Chiseler, Smashpipe, and other magazines. She turns out to be a multimillionaire silent screen icon played by the legendary Gloria Swanson and she leaves him all her money, which shes already spent, and face down in a pool. (Norma Desmond would be quick to point out that, thanks to computers and iPads, the pictures have gotten even smaller. If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. It was largely from his association with Wilder that Holden would enjoy the greatest acting successes of his career in the 1950s. Taylor had a British accent and the imposter sounded like he came out of Chicagos south side. Set non-holiday all-time house record of $166,000 at New York's Radio City Music Hall when it opened. He played Rafts kid brother, who was following in his gangster footsteps and needed to be set straight. At Paramount, he did another Western, Streets of Laredo (1949). She produced and starred in Sadie Thompson and The Love of Sunya. After working on Sunset Boulevard, Swanson remarked, Bill Holden was a man I could have fallen in love with. The first-floor set of Norma Desmond's mansion was also used in the western comedy Fancy Pants (1950) starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball, giving fans a chance to see it in full color. One of his father's grandmothers, Rebecca Westfield, was born in England, while some of his mother's ancestors settled in Virginia's Lancaster County after emigrating from England in the 17th century. On Joe's and Betty's night walk through the Paramount backlot, his calling the false building fronts "Washington Square" would be an accurate reference, as that neighborhood in New York was full of brownstone houses, apartments, and other turn-of-the-century architecture. The footage we see is from Queen Kelly (1929), which starred Gloria Swanson and was directed by Max himself, Erich von Stroheim. Marshman was a journalist but both Wilder and Brackett had been impressed by the critique he had given of their earlier film, The Emperor Waltz (1948). [48] He also has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Erich von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in Queen Kelly (1932), plays Max the butler, who serves as the projectionist in the scene. A few years later, Stephen Sondheim became interested in writing a musical version of his own, working with writer Burt Shevelove (with whom he ended up writing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum). In later interviews, Davis admitted that she thought Swanson's work in the film was absolutely outstanding. His death certificate makes no mention of cancer. In his place, Wilder hired Buster Keaton. [46] Rumors existed that he was suffering from lung cancer, which Holden had denied at a 1980 press conference. Schwab's was torn down in 1988 to make way for a movie theater and a shopping center. (1950) in my head, and I'd always sort of related to that character floating in . But as commentator Steve Sailer points out, more than one contemporary source mentions it as an inspiration. The clips in Sunset Boulevard were the first American audiences had seen of it. But it wasn't a bullet from the gun of an aging movie queen that tragically ended his life, but rather, a rug, per The New York Times. "[4], For his contribution to the film industry, Holden has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1651 Vine Street. She declined the offer. Talk! Was the inspiration for Metallica's 1997 song "The Memory Remains". A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.