On the basis of this film and largely due to his continuing association with director Billy Wilder, Holden would reach the zenith of his career from 1950-'57. His body was found four days later. American actress Gloria Swanson in a promotional portrait for 'Sunset Boulevard', directed by Billy Wilder, 1950. Erich von Stroheim could not drive in real life. After graduating from South Pasadena High School, Holden attended Pasadena Junior College, where he became involved in local radio plays. read more: The Big Sleep is Proof That Plot Doesnt Matter. Schwab's was torn down in 1988 to make way for a movie theater and a shopping center. GLAMOROUS MEN: WILLIAM HOLDEN: At some point, "Sunset Boulevard" The name Norma Desmond was a combination of early Hollywoods comedy star Mabel Normand and her lover, silent film director William Desmond Taylor. The photos of the young Norma Desmond that decorate the house are all genuine publicity photos from Gloria Swanson's heyday. He is the TV Editor at Entertainment. Wilder, ever the merry prankster, told Holden and Olson to keep kissing until he called "cut": he was going to fade out at the end of the scene, and he needed to make sure the kiss didn't end prematurely. Neither did Toward the Unknown (1957), the one film Holden produced himself. 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. Glenn Close, who portrayed Norma Desmond on stage, also played a character who dramatically cut her wrists over a man she was in love with in the film "Fatal Attraction. 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. In real life, when Swanson and DeMille had worked together, that was what they always called each other. [14], Holden made a third film with Wilder, Sabrina (1954), billed beneath Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. He made two more films with Olson: Force of Arms (1951) at Warner Bros. and Submarine Command (1951) at Paramount. He was a genuine star. Billy Wilder's sixth film in a row for Paramount Pictures. (1950) in my head, and I'd always sort of related to that character floating in . 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. 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. It was built in 1924 by William Jenkins, at a cost of $250,000. See production, box office & company info. Brackett was a New York-born novelist and screenwriter, head of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 1930s, and president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1949 to 1955 (during which time he won two screenwriting Oscarsgood news for conspiracy theorists). Columbia put Holden in a Western with Jean Arthur, Arizona (1940), then at Paramount he was in a hugely popular war film, I Wanted Wings (1941) with Ray Milland and Veronica Lake. From the right angle, the camera could shoot the reflected image in the mirror without ever going underwater itself. He starred in Sam Peckinpahs masterwork Western The Wild Bunch. Rudy's shoeshine stand at the parking lot where Gillis hides his car from the creditors was inspired by Oscar Smith's shoeshine stand located just inside the Bronson Gate at the old Paramount Studios, which was a popular hangout for gossip and socializing while Billy Wilder was building his career there. He loves Norma so much, he even forges thousands of pages of fan mail, just to feed her delusion. Swanson agreed to the audition, and won the role. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson. Perry, George & Andrew Lloyd Webber (1993). . About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Gloria Swanson worked closely with Edith Head on Norma's clothes to achieve just the right look: grandly expensive but slightly out of date. Cinematographer John Seitz put a mirror on the bottom of the pool and filmed the reflection. Eventually it wasn't Wilder who shouted "Cut!" 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. Sands had forged Taylors name on checks and wrecked his car the summer before and left footprints on Taylors bed after a burglary. The actor-turned-director-turned-actor-again, who had indeed been one of the great silent-filmmakers, winced at playing a character so self-referential and demeaning, but he needed the money. Ready? Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder retained the term of endearment for the scene in which DeMille greets Norma Desmond at the door of the sound stage. "[4], For his contribution to the film industry, Holden has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1651 Vine Street. Some speculated it was because he was dating an older woman at the time (actress Libby Holman, 16 years his senior) and didn't want people to think the movie was a parody of that relationship. There were actually three mansions used during filming. She can be seen talking and giggling on the phone during the party. William Holden 15 greatest films ranked: 'Sunset Boulevard' and more Being born on 17 April 1918, William Holden was 63 years old at the time of his death. This is absolutely true, Nancy Reagan continued consulting her astrologer long after she stopped parking at studio lots. Still, whatever hard feelings there may have been between Swanson and von Stroheim, they were gone by the time Sunset Boulevard came along. Art director John Meehan experimented until he came up with the idea to shoot the scene through a mirror at the bottom of the studio water tank. Such extravagances were so commonplace that when Wilder was planning to shoot the funeral of Normas chimpanzee, the director told the crew to just set-up the usual monkey-funeral sequence.. 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. Norma telling studio guard Jonesy that without her there would be no Paramount Studios is not a far-fetched notion. She hates all of Joes writing except for about six pages. Sunset Boulevard told an old familiar story. He would slay, "I have no idea! Hack screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) accidentally falls in with faded screen legend Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). The restoration was performed at Lowry Digital by Barry Allen and Steve Elkin. Since he had classic good looks, an expressive voice, and was an excelle 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. His death certificate makes no mention of cancer. 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. "I am big. But that wasnt good enough for Hollywood. See, Bettys a message gal, not a virgin, and there are no whores in Hollywood. She said it was a blackmail scheme gone wrong. It is one of the most indelible films you will ever see. The original nitrate negatives for the film have long disappeared. Cecil B. DeMille agreed to do his cameo for a $10,000 fee and a brand-new Cadillac. Joe Gillis: Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? 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. Ultimately she retired completely from films, making only sporadic appearances, notably in Airport 1975 (1974). It's the pictures that got small," was voted #24, out of 100. It was this astonishing footage that rekindled interest in the film. If anything, its observations on the greedy machinations of Tinseltown are truer now than they were in 1950. (1950), Cecil B. DeMille, who plays himself in the film, directed H.B. When Norma visits Cecil B. Director Cecil B. DeMille, silent film actors Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson played waxy versions of themselves. The actor's second major breakthrough occurred when Wilder cast him in the lead of the. Billy Wilder went into production with only 61 pages of script finished, so he had to shoot more or less in chronological order. When Powers returned to California, she went to his penthouse apartment in Santa Monica but couldn't get in. Getty always wanted a pool, the poor dope. Her character's age was 22 but she was 21 at the time of filming. [16] Holden recalls their romance:.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, Before I even met her, I had a crush on her, and after I met her, just a day later, I felt as if we were old friends, and I was rather fiercely protective of her, though not in a possessive way. Holden was reunited with Wilder in Stalag 17 (1953), for which Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Youre killing yourself for an empty house. Gloria Swanson almost considered rejecting the role of Norma Desmond after Billy Wilder requested she do a screen test for the role. The last name of the studio executive played by Fred Clark is Sheldrake. 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. "[13]:174 The interactions between Bogart, Hepburn and Holden made shooting less than pleasant, as Bogart had wanted his wife, Lauren Bacall, to play Sabrina. Sunset Boulevard is no has-been, though. Both Mary Astor and Miriam Hopkins starred in TV versions of the film in 1955 and 1956, respectively. It would not be turned into a motion picture until: The Naked and the Dead (1958). Norma goes to visit Cecil B. DeMille, several of whose films Swanson had starred in. He was just a movie writer with a couple of B-pictures to his credit. 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. Taylor had a British accent and the imposter sounded like he came out of Chicagos south side. Sunset Boulevard (styled in the main title on-screen as SUNSET BLVD.) William Holden | Biography, Movies, Death, & Facts | Britannica The death was just one of many infamous Hollywood scandals of the 1920s, which included the Roscoe Arbuckle bottle rape trial, the death of Olive Thomas, the mysterious death of Thomas H. Ince, and the drug-related deaths of Wallace Reid, Barbara La Marr, and Jeanne Eagels. And here is how he obtained his new movie tag. Set designer Hans Dreier had in fact been the interior designer for the homes of former silent stars Bebe Daniels, Norma Shearer and Pola Negri. Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge were famous for owning downtown real estate in Los Angeles and San Diego. But it's also a love story, and the love keeps it from becoming simply a waxworks or a freak show. 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. This still goes on today. [2] He had two younger brothers, Robert Westfield Beedle and Richard Porter Beedle. Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard took the tinsel out of Tinseltown, the gild off the golden boy, and the cover off a forgotten murder. When Billy Wilder went back to him later to secure a close-up, DeMille charged him another $10,000. Every woman was in love with him. 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. Holden met French actress Capucine in the early 1960s. Norma Desmond: Get out! And what faces. 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. When he appeared in the innovative Hollywood director Rouben Mamoulian's Golden Boy (1939), he was hailed as exactly that, but had seen his stock fall, largely through his problems with alcohol and a string of unmemorable films in the 1940s. In July 1941, he married 25-year old actress Brenda Marshall, who commanded five times his income. So funny that it took away from the rest of the picture. After the completion of his film, Wilder shocked his longtime collaborator by announcing that he wished to dissolve their partnership; this was the result of a fierce quarrel over a montage scene in the film. Both Keaton and Hopper died the same day, on February 1, 1966, at the ages of 70 and 80 respectively, both in Los Angeles. Only 950 were made from 1924 to 1931. Culture Editor Tony Sokol cut his teeth on the wire services and also wrote and produced New York CitysVampyr Theatreand the rock operaAssassiNation: We Killed JFK. Newspapers printed love letters between 19-year-old former child star and screen idol Mary Miles Minter and Taylor. The address of Norma Desmond's house is given as 10086 Sunset Boulevard. Other actresses considered for Norma Desmond were Mae West (who wanted to rewrite the dialogue), Mae Murray, and Mary Pickford. Fat Man: "You were murdered?" [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. Joes voice even starts to take on more and more of her theatrical flourish after too much exposure. The butler stonewalls Joe from the outside world until hes rolling up twenties tight enough snort through to deal with even the shortest withdrawal from the big empty house. Not long ago, he was divorced from the actress, Gloria Holden, but carried the torch after the marital rift. Although Gloria Swanson correctly states he is a Sagittarius, it is actually on the Sagittarius-Capricorn cusp. Included among the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the Top 100 Greatest American Movies. Joe Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. Sunset Boulevard mixed fiction with the realities of filmmaking. 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. What is the correct title - "Blvd." Buster Keaton appears only in the bridge party scene and utters the word "Pass" twice. [15] Holden and Hepburn became romantically involved during the filming, unbeknownst to Wilder: "People on the set told me later that Bill and Audrey were having an affair, and everybody knew. William Holdens Joe Gillis helps a timid soul named Norma Desmond cross a crowded street on Paramounts back lot. But attempts to turn the movie into a stage musical began almost immediately, spearheaded by none other than Gloria Swanson. We had faces" was #13. [41], Holden was married to actress Brenda Marshall from 1941 until their divorce in 1971. There were three young directors who showed promise in those early days of silent film, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. Billy Wilder's 1978 Flop Fedora is less a worthy follow up to Sunset Boulevard than a sorry footnote. It has to be an opera. This promised to go the limit. That movie, however, departs from the trope by making both actress and stranger much younger. David Lynch is an avid fan of the movie, having referenced it in films such as Inland Empire (2006), Mulholland Drive (2001)--which has a similar title and theme about the misfortunes of aspiring artists in Hollywood--and the television show Twin Peaks (1990), where Lynch himself played an FBI Bureau Chief named Gordon Cole. William Haines, along with fellow silent screen veterans Buster Keaton and Anna Q. Nilsson, was approached to play one of Gloria Swanson's bridge partners. Warner (one of the four "Waxworks" at the bridge party) in The King of Kings (1927). Well, not a comeback, a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven her for deserting the screen. Sure she was a forgotten silent star, living in exile, screening her old movies and dreaming of a comeback. Normands career never recovered after word of her addiction leaked out and she died of tuberculosis on Feb. 23, 1930. The great big white elephant of a mansion on Sunset Boulevard was actually on Wilshire Boulevard and would be used again as the abandoned mansion in the film Rebel Without a Cause. An iconic sequence in that earlier film sees the character of Diane ascending a long staircase to a seventh-story apartment (hence the film's title). ", The scene of Max playing Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" at the organ might well have been an inspiration for Lurch at the harpsichord in the TV series "The Addams Family.". The musical version of the movie opened in London on July 12, 1993, and ran 1529 performances. White, pink, or maybe bright flaming red. 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. 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. Billy Wilder also used Sheldrake as the last name of Fred MacMurray's character in "The Apartment". If it were to come to auction in 2021, it would be valued at well over $1M. Old whores dont fuck for fun, as the old saying goes. These towns were favored because they were on the way to Palm Springs where, after collecting the audience reaction cards, studio personnel would then go to relax and determine what changes should be made to the previewed films. The princess in love with a holy man, she dances the dance of the seven veils. What is the streaming release date of Sunset Blvd. This film is in the Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films on Letterboxd. Norma wound up sitting in Mr. DeMilles chair. The character of Joe Gillis was very much in tune with William Holden's standing at the time. Without Norma Desmond, there wouldnt be any Paramount Pictures. According to the DVD commentary by Wilder biographer Ed Sikov, this story was most likely invented/exaggerated by Billy Wilder. [44] After his death, Powers set up the William Holden Wildlife Foundation at Holden's Mount Kenya Game Ranch. The part was only Nancy Olson's third film appearance. His deal was considered one of the best ever for an actor at the time, with him receiving 10% of the gross, which earned him over $2.5 million, however, Holden stipulated that he should only receive a maximum of $50,000 per year from the film. Eugene Walter was a prolific Hollywood screenwriter of the 1920s and 1930s. For Swanson, whose career was already being threatened by the advent of talkies, Queen Kelly was another blow. At one point Norma mentions working with Mabel Normand and Marie Prevost. But it originally began in the L.A. county morgue, with toe-tagged corpsesincluding Joe'sspeaking to each other (in voiceover) about how they died. It was widely known as a top Hollywood hangout for many actors, directors, writers and producers. When filming began, William Holden was 31 and Gloria Swanson was 50, the same stated age as her character. Holden made a fourth and final film for Wilder with Fedora (1978). cynical Hollywood survivor played by William Holden. 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. The apartments, and the "Alto Nido" sign out front that is glimpsed briefly in the film, are still there. [2] His brother Robert ("Bobbie") became a U.S. Navy fighter pilot and was killed in action in World War II, over New Ireland, a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific. Warner took the part. . The undertaker, who appears for a few seconds early on with the white casket for Norma's deceased pet chimp, was veteran actor Franklyn Farnum, who played extras in over 1,000 films during his lengthy but unsung career. Holden earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for the role.[11]. [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]. 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. A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return. Warner, who appears as one of "The Waxworks", had been Gloria Swanson's leading man in Zaza (1923). Wilder and his co-writers reversed several elements, and there was no official connection between the movie and Waugh's book. Billy Wilder was one of the ultimate Hollywood insiders and he grew with film. [35] Holden starred in The Earthling,[36] as a loner dying of cancer at the Australian outback and accompanying an orphan boy (Ricky Schroder). He earned an Oscar nomination for "Sunset Boulevard" and won an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 for his role in "Stalag 17," per IMDb. She looks like a mannequin of a . 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. He followed it with a romantic comedy, Dear Ruth (1947) and he was one of many cameos in Variety Girl (1947). To everyone's surprise, Judy Holliday won the Best Actress Oscar in 1951 for Born Yesterday (1950), beating Gloria Swanson in this film, and Bette Davis in All About Eve (1950). "I knew he was off the wagon," she recalled in her memoir "One from the Hart." Gillis: "Yes I was murdered." A disagreement over the montage where Norma puts herself through hell getting thinner and younger for her comeback nearly resulted in physical violence: Brackett thought it was too mean, while Wilder felt it was necessary to show what lengths a desperate actor would go to in Hollywood. 3.48. When she received her Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Award ceremony, Holden had died in an accident just a few months prior. In subsequent years, two lawsuits have been filed against Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, claiming that Sunset Blvd. 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. However, DeMille insisted that Lamarr be paid $25,000 for the privilege, so the idea was quickly dropped. 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. Both suits were dismissed. On the night of November 12, 1981, Holden consumed somewhere between eight and 10 drinks in a short amount of time, according to "William Holden: A Biography." But along with the accolades came a dependence on alcohol that would play a major role in his tragic end. So Wilder gave up, and DeMille (who was already being compensated) gave Norma his own chair.. 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. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! They eventually worked together on several films and became close friends. Sunset Boulevard Review (1950) Classic Film | William Holden | Gloria These include Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Rudolph Valentino, Rod La Rocque, Vilma Bnky, Mabel Normand, Marie Prevost, Pearl White, and Douglas Fairbanks. On the Columbia lot is an assistant director and scout named Harold Winston. Make-up designer Wally Westmore found that Gloria Swanson's face belied her age and wanted to make her look older. Microphones would catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor would photograph the red, swollen tongues. Sunset Blvd. by Billy Wilder, Billy Wilder, William Holden, Gloria Zach Laws, Chris Beachum. After all, it's about a dethroned queen." Holman was 16 years older than him and was afraid people would think the movie was a parody of their relationship.

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