Montgomery Clift was originally cast as Joe Gillis but quit the production two weeks before filming began because he had already played the kept man of a wealthy older woman in The Heiress (1949). Norma is at the edge of insanity through the whole movie, but that doesnt mean shes not fun. Getty Mansion aka Norma Desmond's home in "Sunset Boulevard" midway He called it "that goddamned butler role" for the remaining seven years of his life. Cecil B. DeMille had a pet name for Gloria Swanson: "Young Fellow". The "[13] Paramount reunited him with Nancy Olson, one of his Sunset Boulevard costars, in Union Station (1950). Peavey died in a San Francisco asylum, where he was being treated for syphilis-related dementia, in 1931. He always wished that I would get an Oscar. He had made Swanson a star by. The much sought after but highly finicky leading man accepted the role, then backed out. The mansion was torn down in 1957, and a large office building for Getty Oil built on the site still stands on the spot. Sunset Boulevard: The Original Hollywood Expose | Den of Geek For a number of years, exhibitors voted Holden among the most popular stars in the country: On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. A second film with Seaton did not do as well, The Proud and Profane (1956), where Holden played the role with a moustache. A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return. The British author's satirical The Loved One was published in 1948, after Waugh had spent time in Hollywood observing the film industry and, of all things, the funeral industry. She reportedly told Clift shed kill herself if he made the movie. See, Bettys a message gal, not a virgin, and there are no whores in Hollywood. (1950) was plagiarized from other scripts. In an interview Wilder gave in 1996 he claimed that the film which eventually became SUNSET BOULEVARD began as a comedy for Mae West and Marlon Brando. (1950), as a way of "art imitating life." Marshman Jr. Sunset Boulevard was the last time Brackett and Wilder collaborated on a film. Joe Gillis' typewriter is a portable manual Remington Rand Noiseless Model 7. The home was built in 1923 for businessman William O. Jenkins. With the help of his partners, he created the Mount Kenya Game Ranch and inspired the creation of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation. The exterior shots were of a house located not on Sunset but Irving Boulevard, near the corner of Wilshire, owned by the J. Paul Getty family. 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. Gloria Swanson and Nancy Olson also co-starred in Airport 1975 together. [44] After his death, Powers set up the William Holden Wildlife Foundation at Holden's Mount Kenya Game Ranch. She burst into tears upon completion of the scene. The writer was almost all washed up, one step ahead of the finance company, parking his car in a lot behind the shoeshine parlor run by Rudy, a guy who never asked any questions about finances because he could just look at the peoplesr heels and know the score. In their scene together in Artie's bathroom Gillis mentions to Betty in his dramatic flirtation about having spent "12 years in the Burmese jungle", when coincidentally, just a few years later his character, Shears, finds himself lost there in David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai. The Paramount logo appears as a transparency over the opening shot. Thirty-one years later, the actor who played Gillis, William Holden, met his end. 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. [26], He made another war film for a British director, The Key (1958) with Trevor Howard and Sophia Loren for director Carol Reed. She felt that Wilder used her name in a past-tense context, and she was offended. Set non-holiday all-time house record of $166,000 at New York's Radio City Music Hall when it opened. Holden's first starring role was in Golden Boy (1939), costarring Barbara Stanwyck, in which he played a violinist-turned-boxer. This film is in the Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films on Letterboxd. It was meant to be slightly humorous in a morbid way, but the audience at the first test screening found it flat-out hysterical, setting the wrong mood for the rest of the picture. X. The studio needed an actor who the audience could believe wrote a story about Okies in the Dust Bowl that played on a torpedo boat by the time it hit the screen. Sunset Boulevard (1950): Billy Wilder's Darkly Humorous Masterpiece Norma Desmond says that she paid $28,000 for the Isotta-Fraschini car in 1929. 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. To shoot Joe and Norma dancing together at her New Year's Eve party, cameraman John F. Seitz used a dance dolly---a wheeled platform attached to the camera. Sunset Boulevard mixed fiction with the realities of filmmaking. I didn't know. Gloria Swanson was paid $50,000 plus $5,000 per week for any time over schedule. Clift's biographers say it was because he had a strong following among older women, who wrote him letters describing how they'd like to mother him, and he didn't want to encourage such behavior. While in Italy in 1966, Holden was responsible for the death of another driver in a drunk-driving incident near Pisa. Sunset Blvd. (The book is about a failed screenwriter who works for a cemetery and lives with a forgotten silent-film star.) The other line, "I am big! When Joe tells Betty that next time he will write "The Naked and the Dead", he is referring to the best-seller written by Norman Mailer and published in 1948. Not long ago, he was divorced from the actress, Gloria Holden, but carried the torch after the marital rift. Its second owner was Jean Paul Getty, who purchased it for his second wife. The musical version of the movie opened in London on July 12, 1993, and ran 1529 performances. was better known as the seat of the film industry in 1950, the Los Angeles film industry actually began on Sunset Blvd. Yeah. 'Sunset Blvd.': 15 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About - Moviefone The investigation found that in the weeks just prior to his death, Taylor had been making some pretty delusional statements about his place in the world and some of his friends thought he had recently gone insane. Betty is an idealist, more closely resembling Normas rose-colored outlook, but with darker shades she wants to bring to light. That should make the young blond Paramount actress-turned-script reader Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson) the virgin in the virgin/whore dynamic that film noir so often (and happily) deals in. When Joe and Betty stroll around the studio back lot they pass through the Washington Square set that was used in The Heiress (1949). 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. Holden made a fourth and final film for Wilder with Fedora (1978). Gloria Swanson worked closely with Edith Head on Norma's clothes to achieve just the right look: grandly expensive but slightly out of date. An inventory of his prospects added up to exactly zero. He rose to prominence with his role in the movie "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), which landed him his first Best Actor Oscar nomination. (1950) Full Cast & Crew See agents for this cast & crew on IMDbPro Directed by Billy Wilder Writing Credits Cast (in credits order) verified as complete Produced by Charles Brackett . Suratt believed that DeMille's epic, "The King of Kings" (released in 1927) was based on her screenplay and filed a $1,000,000 plagiarism suit which was settled out of court in 1930. And, of course, a pool. Editorial Reviews. He worked on dramas like The Key (1958), Westerns like John Fords The Horse Soldiers (1959) opposite John Wayne, and comedies like The Moon is Blue which so famously challenged the Production Code in 1953 that Hawkeye and BJ insisted it get shown at M*A*S*H 4077 to break the monotony of the Korean War. American actress Gloria Swanson in a promotional portrait for 'Sunset Boulevard', directed by Billy Wilder, 1950. LAS COSAS DEL QUERER", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sunset_Boulevard_(film)&oldid=1142173541, Best Overall New Extra Features Library Release. [5][6], Next he starred with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart in the Warner Bros. gangster epic Invisible Stripes (1939), billed below Raft and above Bogart. When two more test audiences reacted the same way, Wilder cut the scene and the movie was saved. Kodak would discontinue to manufacture it altogether in 1953. Norma Desmond: Get out! Even though it wasn't the last scene filmed, Billy Wilder threw a party for her as soon as the shot was finished. Sad as this may sound, to the day he died, Holden insisted Bogart was a bastard. Their partnership ended in a professional and gentlemanly mannerthere was no airing of any dirty laundrybut it did end.. And like the title, Holden seemed to have the looks and muscular build Hollywood craved. Holden's career took off again in 1950 when Billy Wilder tapped him to play a down-at-heel screenwriter taken in by a faded silent film actress (Gloria Swanson) in Sunset Boulevard. Paramount reunited Bracken and him in Young and Willing (1943). When Norma Desmond says to the guard at the "Paramount Studio" gates, "Without me there wouldn't be any 'Paramount Studio'" the words could apply to Gloria Swanson herself, as she was the studio's top star for six years running. This makes her the youngest of the cast members, excluding any extras. Sunset Boulevard's cinematographer, John Seitz, said Wilder "had wanted to do The Loved One, but couldn't obtain the rights." Queen Kelly nearly ruined both of their careers after Joe Kennedy, JFKs dad who produced the film, replaced von Stroheim as director because Swanson complained about the racy material. The first of four films in which William Holden and Nancy Olson appeared. If you don't, I will personally shoot you." Ballard, who used to impersonate Norma descending the stairs. Every character is jaded, except the oldest players. The forensics team rolled him over and saw he had been shot at least once in the back with a small-caliber pistol. The princess in love with a holy man, she dances the dance of the seven veils. Paramount reunited him with Nancy Olson, one of his Sunset Boulevard costars, in Union Station (1950). 12 Sep. WILLIAM HOLDEN: At some point, "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) played at The Silver Screen. It was a gift from her lover, automobile magnate Walter Chrysler. They thought the actors made it up as they went along. In later interviews, Davis admitted that she thought Swanson's work in the film was absolutely outstanding. One of only 13 films to be nominated for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Director. In reality, Gloria Swanson never worked with Normand and worked only once with Prevost in a 1916 short. preppy-3 15 March 2008. [10] RKO borrowed him for Rachel and the Stranger (1948) with Robert Mitchum and Loretta Young. Zach Laws, Chris Beachum. This car has been on display at the National Automobile Museum in Turin, Italy since 1972. Erich von Stroheims Max von Mayerling is equally awestruck, still caught in the wake of Normas star dust. While talking with Betty and Artie in Schwab's, Artie points out the studs in Joe's tuxedo. The interiors of Norma's decaying mansion were actually a set at Paramount Studios. Youre killing yourself for an empty house. Read more of his work here or find him on Twitter @tsokol. Haines, whose career had ended because of his homosexual off-screen life, was too happy in his new profession as an interior decorator to want to call attention to his past as an actor. But when Sondheim pitched the idea to Billy Wilder at a party, Wilder said, "You can't write a musical about Sunset Boulevard. He was also one of many stars in Feldman's Casino Royale (1967). Everyone had a good laugh, though the record doesn't reflect whether Marshall joined in. The name "Norma Desmond" was chosen from a combination of silent-film star Norma Talmadge and silent movie director William Desmond Taylor, whose still-unsolved murder is one of the great scandals of Hollywood history. Hola Elige tu direccin Pelculas y Series de TV. read file from blob storage c#; ted dwane and isabel soden; best seats at belk theater charlotte; my rabbit ate ibuprofen At Paramount, he did another Western, Streets of Laredo (1949). 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. The script (which was to be a vehicle for her comeback) was submitted to Cecil B. DeMille who sent it back. Wilder almost hired Broadway star Marlon Brando, who would make his screen debut in The Men in 1950. The latter was shot in Africa and sparked Holden's fascination with the continent that was to last for the rest of his life. Holden appeared uncredited in Prison Farm (1939) and Million Dollar Legs (1939) at Paramount. It's not possible to shoot through water and get a clear image beyond. The character of Norma Desmond is modeled on the fate of several leading actresses of the silent era. Joes voice even starts to take on more and more of her theatrical flourish after too much exposure. It always will be! Holdens last movie, Blake Edwardss S.O.B., was another masterpiece of Hollywood cynicism. Clift was also wary of appearing in the film because he, like the character of Joe, was having an affair with a wealthy older former actress, Libby Holman. Wilder was no fan of improvisation and was very protective of his words. Sunset Boulevard DVD (2007) William Holden, Wilder (DIR) cert PG Amazing Value. William Holden 15 greatest films ranked: 'Sunset Boulevard' and more For this Lamarr wanted $25,000 (which would be about $250,000 in 2015 dollars). Sunset Boulevard 1950, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, full movie Swanson argued that a woman like Norma would have been obsessed with her appearance and would have done her utmost not to look old. Sunset Boulevard Review (1950) Classic Film | William Holden | Gloria The audience left 20 years ago. Words are as good as sex to two writers. According to a statement director King Vidor made in 1968, the Los Angeles police detective who was assigned to the case was told to lay off about a week into the investigation. In fact,Bob Thomas, Holden's biographer, said that the actor's addiction counselor predicted his demise. was voted #6 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by "Premiere" magazine in 2007. But Hollywood press has always had clout. 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. [39] On a trip to Africa, he fell in love with the wildlife and became increasingly concerned with the animal species that were beginning to decrease in population. (1950) in Australia? Sunset Boulevard, one of Hollywood's most cruelly accurate depictions of itself, is now 65 years oldolder, even, than its main character, who's washed up at 50. The Tragic 1981 Death Of Sunset Boulevard Star William Holden 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. )[19], He took third billing for The Country Girl (1954) with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, directed by George Seaton from a play by Clifford Odets. Swanson herself reportedly asked him to do it. 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. Gloria Swanson, meanwhile, was born on March 27, 1899. Holden earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for the role.[11]. He said hed already played a young kept man in the film The Heiresswith Olivia De Havilland, and in real life with his relationship with older singer Libby Holman. Norma's bed originally belonged to French actress/singer Gaby Deslys. She refuses to believe that she's no longer remembered and will never make another movie.
