When Joe Gillis says, "They'll love it in Pomona," most people assume (correctly) that Pomona is intended to be representative of just about any average American town. But who could play the silent film diva? (The book is about a failed screenwriter who works for a cemetery and lives with a forgotten silent-film star.) Billy Wilder was actually friendlier with the other leading gossip columnist of the day, Louella Parsons. In a case of life mirroring art, she outlived him. 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. According to Gloria Swanson's daughter, Michelle Amon, her mother stayed in character throughout the entire shoot, even speaking like Norma Desmond when she arrived home in the evening after filming. He followed it with Damien: Omen II (1978) and had a cameo in Escape to Athena (1978), which co-starred his real-life love interest Stefanie Powers. 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." Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard took the tinsel out of Tinseltown, the gild off the golden boy, and the cover off a forgotten murder. Born William Beedle Jr. on April 17, 1918, he was 21 when he got his first starring role as the classical fiddle playing boxer in Golden Boy in 1939. April 17 marks the 100th birthday of William Holden, who is ranked No. Norma Desmond was the greatest of them all. 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. Haines declined and fellow screen veteran H.B. These actors were bigger than life. The movie's line "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up" was voted the #7 movie quote by the American Film Institute. Her character's age was 22 but she was 21 at the time of filming. According to reports, Taylor went to the feds for help filing charges against Normands cocaine suppliers. All I know is that she's meshuggah, that's all. Although Gloria Swanson correctly states he is a Sagittarius, it is actually on the Sagittarius-Capricorn cusp. 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. Being born on 17 April 1918, William Holden was 63 years old at the time of his death. read more: Can The Biblical Epic be Resurrected? New York-born novelist and screenwriter Brackett was 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. Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, and Greta Garbo turned down the role. In 1989 the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selected this as one of 25 landmark films of all time. Norma is at the edge of insanity through the whole movie, but that doesnt mean shes not fun. Make-up designer Wally Westmore found that Gloria Swanson's face belied her age and wanted to make her look older. Strange? And that young man who was found floating in the pool of her mansion, with two shots in his back and one in his stomach, was nobody important, really. There was a maharajah who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings. His death certificate makes no mention of cancer. Norma wound up sitting in Mr. DeMilles chair. Normas waxworks card sharps were Swedish-born Anna Q. Nilsson, H. B. Warner and Buster Keaton. 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. Just us and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark! Norma Desmond didnt need dialogue, she can say whatever she wants with her eyes. Holden continued to work steadily for the next decade, but Hollywood often had no idea what to do with him. His co-star Barbara Stanwyck, a screen. A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return. 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. William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 November 12, 1981) was an American actor and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Please, don't let it be true, it must be some mistake," per her memoir. He received an eight-month suspended sentence for vehicular manslaughter.[1]. When Artie Green introduces Joe to other guests at his New Year's Eve party, he jokingly refers to him as "the well-known screenwriter, uranium smuggler and Black Dahlia suspect", a reference to the infamous unsolved L.A. murder case in 1947 of an aspiring actress known as The Black Dahlia, who was found murdered and dismembered on a street in Los Angeles. Columbia teamed him with Lucille Ball for Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949), and the sequel to Dear Ruth, Dear Wife (1949). Paramount reunited him with Nancy Olson, one of his Sunset Boulevard costars, in Union Station (1950). but Holden's wife, Ardis (Brenda Marshall), who happened to be on set that day. 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. She reportedly told Clift shed kill herself if he made the movie. You used to be big. Every woman was in love with him. "[13] And Wilder commented "Bill was a complex guy, a totally honorable friend. This one had it in spades. There were three young directors who showed promise in those early days of silent film, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. [40], Holden had a daughter born in 1937 from his relationship with actress Eva May Hoffman. It would not be turned into a motion picture until: The Naked and the Dead (1958). Only 950 were made from 1924 to 1931. You probably know about the Andrew Lloyd Webber version of Sunset Boulevard that premiered in London in 1993 and headed to Broadway in 1994 with Glenn Close in the lead role. The California license plate on Gillis' Plymouth, 4D R 116, appears to be a legal and current registration for 1949. In fact, Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett even went to Pickfair to pitch the story to Pickford, but her horrified reaction as the story progressed made them stop halfway through and apologize to her. 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 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. For the cover photo of the very first issue, in April 1951, of what many consider the most important film magazine of all time, the Paris-based "Cahiers du Cinema, " the editors chose the image of Gloria Swanson and William Holden in her screening room. Dont bother with a rewrite, man, take it direct! But Joe wouldnt have fallen so hard if he werent so shackled. The only addition was the swimming pool, which wasn't equipped with a means of circulating the water so it was useless after filming. To help promote the film, Gloria Swanson did a three-month tour of 36 cities in America and Canada. Later he strangled himself with it. Swanson supplemented many of the costumes with her own accessories and jewelry. [7], Back at Paramount, he starred with Bonita Granville in Those Were the Days! Holden's films continued to struggle at the box office, however: Paris When It Sizzles (1964) with Hepburn was shot in 1962 but given a much delayed release, The 7th Dawn (1964) with Capucine and Susannah York, a romantic adventure set during the Malayan Emergency produced by Charles K. Feldman, Alvarez Kelly (1966), a Western, and The Devil's Brigade (1968). The only Best Picture Oscar nominee of the year to be also nominated for Original Screenplay. 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 would go on to be one of his most successful movies. Swanson made the transition to talkies with The Trespasser in 1929. Wilder was no fan of improvisation and was very protective of his words. 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. . 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. Warner (one of the four "Waxworks" at the bridge party) in The King of Kings (1927). A modern-girl Jiminy Cricket, Betty asks, Dont you sometimes hate yourself? and Joe corrects her, Constantly.. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Taylor had a British accent and the imposter sounded like he came out of Chicagos south side. Paramount reunited Bracken and him in Young and Willing (1943). "Lonely, alone, without dignity.". She can be seen talking and giggling on the phone during the party. 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. He received an eight-month suspended sentence for vehicular manslaughter. Next image (0) (0) On the morning of February 1, 1922, Taylor--who had been romantically involved with her-- was shot and killed in his Hollywood bungalow. Both suits were dismissed. 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. The film is included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list. Wilder changed the scene so that DeMille offered Lamarr's chair to Norma without Lamarr being present. He played an older version of Joe in Sidney Lumets classic Network (1976), written by the cynical Paddy Chayefsky. Sondheim respectfully stopped work on the project and, on the same grounds, later declined an offer to write the score for a proposed movie remake., Additional Sources: 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). He would slay, "I have no idea! Joe Gillis' typewriter is a portable manual Remington Rand Noiseless Model 7. London Boulevard (2010) was based on the Ken Bruen novel that was inspired by Sunset Boulevard and features the same trope of an aging actress as the stranger caught in her web. Upon telephoning her, however, Wilder found that Negri's Polish accent, which had killed her career, was still too thick for such a dialog-heavy film. [2] He had two younger brothers, Robert Westfield Beedle and Richard Porter Beedle. 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 movie was previewed with this opening, in Illinois, Long Island (NY) and Poughkeepsie (NY). About 10 minutes later, Holden passed out and died from blood loss. Movie audiences in the nave early days of film sometimes didnt know that somebody had to sit down and write a movie. 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. His Mount Kenya Safari Club in Nanyuki (founded 1959) was popular with the international jet set. This inter-positive was scanned at 2,000 lines of resolution and electronically restored for the 2002 DVD reissue. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. We had faces" was #13. The directions given by the Paramount guard for Norma and Joe to go meet Cecil B. DeMille on "Stage 18" is accurate: this stage, one of the largest on the Paramount lot, was known for years as "The DeMille Stage" and now is called "The Star Trek Stage", as all the "Trek" movies and some scenes from the TV shows have been shot there (the TV series, from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) onward, had its main sets right across the studio street on Stages 8 and 9, which are right below the second-floor office occupied by Betty Schaefer in this film. The only film to be nominated for Best Actor and Actress Oscars that year. But like so many of the female actors of the era, Holden soon realized it was his physical attributes and not his acting ability that the studio cared about. 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. The character of Norma Desmond is modeled on the fate of several leading actresses of the silent era. 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 first name of the Joe Gillis character was Dan in an early draft of the screenplay, then altered to Dick, and finally to Joe just before filming began. Getty always wanted a pool, the poor dope. Gloria Swanson almost considered rejecting the role of Norma Desmond after Billy Wilder requested she do a screen test for the role. Thirty-one years later, the actor who played Gillis, William Holden, met his end. But it wasn't a mistake. Sunset Boulevard told an old familiar story. At Paramount, he was in a comedy with Ginger Rogers that was not particularly popular, Forever Female (1953). But she wanted to rewrite her dialogue (as was her custom)a nonstarter for Wilder, who seldom let his actors change their lines even slightly from what was on the page. But Hollywood press has always had clout. (1950) in my head, and I'd always sort of related to that character floating in . 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. It was named after a major street that runs through Hollywood, the center of the American film industry . But along with the accolades came a dependence on alcohol that would play a major role in his tragic end. Despite that, von Stroheim "still managed to hit the gates, he had no co-ordination", said Billy Wilder in an interview for the book "Sunset Boulevard: From Movie to Musical". The older actor prided himself on needling people and he needled the shit out of Holden on the first movie, and the second movie was worse because Holden started dating Audrey Hepburn during filming. In addition to starring in "Queen Kelly", Swanson also produced it, and fired von Stroheim when he had already gone over the budget by more than double, and with no end to filming in sight. The only extant film elements were 35mm inter-positives struck in 1952, which had undergone a great deal of decay. This dynamic served them well for years, each man's extreme tendencies being balanced by the other's, but during Sunset Boulevard it finally became unworkable. Joe Gillis is seen reading the book "The Young Lions" by Irwin Shaw, a best-selling World War Two novel of the time, Montgomery Clift, who was originally offered the part of Joe Gillis, later played one of the leads in the film adaptation of that book The Young Lions (1958), though it was not directed by Billy Wilder. Billy Wilder's sixth film in a row for Paramount Pictures. 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.. I know your face. 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. They had paired up in pictures since 1938. producer Music by Franz Waxman Cinematography by John F. Seitz . When Billy Wilder went back to him later to secure a close-up, DeMille charged him another $10,000. There were no shortage of suspects. He just didnt have what it takes. Among the many past associations embedded in Sunset Blvd. is a 1950 American black comedy [1] [2] film noir [3] directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett. Norma's butler, Max, who used to be one of her directors is played by Erich von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in the movie Queen Kelly (1932), clips from which are used in the scene where Norma and Joe watch one of her old films. She is ever the star. 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. It was a the kind of a place crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s. "Twin Peaks" also features characters named Chester Desmond and Norma Jennings, in reference to Norma Desmond. The statuette on the telephone table at Artie Green's new years party is a model of the Philistine god, Dagon. Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge were famous for owning downtown real estate in Los Angeles and San Diego. Besides Tyrone Power, other stars mentioned when Joe Gillis is pitching his "baseball" picture to the producer are Alan Ladd, William Demarest and Betty Hutton. Marion Davies owned a famous ocean-front mansion in Santa Monica. For scenes in which he drove, the car was towed by another car. The Homicide Squad, complete with detectives and newspapermen, are responding to a call about a murder from one of those great big houses in the ten thousand block of Sunset Boulevard, a 22-mile block that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown LA to the Pacific Ocean. Marshman Jr. Stars William Holden Gloria Swanson Erich von Stroheim See production, box office & company info Add to Watchlist 701 User reviews 196 Critic reviews 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." [4] The film was made for Columbia, which negotiated a sharing agreement with Paramount for Holden's services. Principal photography took place from 11 April to 18 June 1949. Holden's first starring role was in Golden Boy (1939), costarring Barbara Stanwyck, in which he played a violinist-turned-boxer. In 1998 the American Film Institute selected this as the 12th greatest film of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time. A classic film review of Sunset Boulevard (1950) starring William Holden, Gloria Swanson and Eric Von StroheimDirected by acclaimed film maker Billy Wilder (. [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. Sunset Boulevard (DVD, 2017) UK Region 2 release with extras. [32] Also in 1974, Holden starred with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen in the critically acclaimed disaster film The Towering Inferno,[33] which became a box-office smash and one of the highest-grossing films of Holden's career. According to Billy Wilder, it was von Stroheim's idea to use a clip from Queen Kelly (1932) in Sunset Blvd. It also alludes to the fact that Pomona was one of three towns in California's Inland Empire region (Riverside and San Bernardino were the others) that were frequently used during Hollywood's Golden Age for testing preview audiences' reactions to unreleased films. Universal bought it on her death in 1920 and it was used in several movies, most notably in The Phantom of the Opera (1925). Peavey died in a San Francisco asylum, where he was being treated for syphilis-related dementia, in 1931. If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. If Gillis is accurate in stating that his meeting with Norma occurred some six months prior, the action of the film takes place between mid-November 1948 and mid- May 1949. It was this astonishing footage that rekindled interest in the film. Now that we are getting closer to Awards Season in here in Hollywood, Im getting more and more interest from nominees and prospective nominees who want to know in advance if they are going home with the gold, Marie Bargas, known for years as the Hollywood Witch, told Den of Geek. 10 films that began filming without a finished script, Donald Trumps Bad Romance with Hollywood Began Before Parasite, Shazam! Swanson and von Stroheim are playing themselves in that scene. Holden himself claimed that he, too, could picture his end. In the fall of 1981, the television actor Stefanie Powers, who was dating William Holden, was in Hawaii filming the ABC show "Hart to Hart" when Holden stopped answering his phone. The general consensus was that the two titans had canceled each other out, leaving the field clear for Holliday. 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. As a practical joke, during the scene where William Holden and Nancy Olson kiss for the first time, Billy Wilder let them carry on for minutes without yelling "Cut!" Even though it wasn't the last scene filmed, Billy Wilder threw a party for her as soon as the shot was finished. His co-star Barbara Stanwyck, a screen veteran and one of the greatest actors of all time, coached and promoted Holden personally. "[18] Rumors at the time had it that Hepburn wanted a family, but when Holden told her that he had had a vasectomy and having children was impossible, she moved on. He rose to prominence with his role in the movie "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), which landed him his first Best Actor Oscar nomination. The clips in Sunset Boulevard were the first time American audiences saw it. Still, whatever hard feelings there may have been between Swanson and von Stroheim, they were gone by the time Sunset Boulevard came along. Confess, Peavey, he laughed in the ghosts face. That movie, however, departs from the trope by making both actress and stranger much younger. He starred in Sam Peckinpahs masterwork Western The Wild Bunch. 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. The first of four films in which William Holden and Nancy Olson appeared. In Billy Wilder's film, Erich von Stroheim plays the butler of Gloria Swanson's forgotten silent-film star. The Pharmacy was filmed only 500 feet (150 meters) from a scene in Armed and Dangerous (1986) & Falling Down (1993), The parking lot behind Rudy's Shoeshine where Joe Gillis pulls his car out of is 1751 Vine Street - about a half a block North of Hollywood Blvd (you can tell by the scene's POV of the Taft building that sits on the corner of Hollywood and Vine). Reluctantly, Wilder met with William Holden, who hadn't done much after the great Hollywood innovator Rouben Mamoulian's Golden Boy (1939). 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. They swore each other off over the montage where Norma struggles to lose weight for her comeback. Sometimes its interesting to see just how bad, bad writing can be. It's the pictures that got small," was voted #24, out of 100. You see, this is my life, she promised. Fat Man: "A husky fellow like you?" Billy Wilder quickly offered the role to Fred MacMurray, who turned it down because he didn't want to play a gigolo. And here is how he obtained his new movie tag. When Norma is telling Joe about how rich she is, she mentions a beach house and downtown real estate. He was just a movie writer with a couple of B-pictures to his credit. Brackett and Wilder worked together on more than a dozen movies including The Lost Weekend. [47], President Ronald Reagan released a statement: "I have a great feeling of grief. White, pink, or maybe bright flaming red. Holden was best man at the wedding of his friend Ronald Reagan to actress Nancy Davis in 1952. Not long ago, he was divorced from the actress, Gloria Holden, but carried the torch after the marital rift. Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," edited by Steven Schneider. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). An ending for the film was cobbled together, but the movie was never shown in the U.S. The Paramount logo appears as a transparency over the opening shot. The "Desmond mansion" was located not on Sunset Blvd. This is absolutely true, Nancy Reagan continued consulting her astrologer long after she stopped parking at studio lots. At Cecil B. DeMille's first appearance, his on-set cry of "Wilcoxon!" At Paramount, he did another Western, Streets of Laredo (1949). The house was owned by the J. Paul Getty family. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Sunset Boulevard DVD Special Collector's Edition William Holden Gloria Swanson at the best online prices at eBay! Norma is Scorpio, and Mars had been transiting Jupiter for weeks and that was the day of greatest conjunction. 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. While in Italy in 1966, Holden was responsible for the death of another driver in a drunk-driving incident near Pisa. In the film Gloria is seen playing cards with three silent film stars: Buster Keaton, H.B. 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. 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). Director Cecil B. DeMille, silent film actors Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson played waxy versions of themselves. With unofficial permission from Paramount, she worked for a few years with writer Dickson Hughes and actor Richard Stapley developing a show called Starring Norma Desmond (later changed to Boulevard). It was the same technique he had used to shoot Rudolph Valentino's tango in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). The structure in the film required a tennis court, or rather the ghost of a tennis court, with faded markings and a sagging net. Free shipping for many products! Neither did Toward the Unknown (1957), the one film Holden produced himself. Part of the dialogue goes: Fat Man: "Where did you drown? The two starred in the films The Lion (1962) and The 7th Dawn (1964). It was George Cukor who suggested Gloria Swanson for the role of Norma Desmond. is directed toward his associate producer, Henry Wilcoxon, who had starred in his epics Cleopatra (1934), The Crusades (1935) and Unconquered (1947), later moving to a position behind the camera as DeMille's associate, which he held until the older man's death in 1959.