Zach Laws, Chris Beachum. The much sought after but highly finicky leading man accepted the role, then backed out. They swore each other off over the montage where Norma struggles to lose weight for her comeback. 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. Prior to joining the Houston Chronicle, Gonzales worked as a night cops reporter at The. His death certificate makes no mention of cancer. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett met with Greta Garbo and tried to convince her to make a comeback in the role of Norma Desmond. We all are." 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.". 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. 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. Swanson made the transition to talkies with The Trespasser in 1929. 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. 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. After working on Sunset Boulevard, Swanson remarked, Bill Holden was a man I could have fallen in love with. Sunset Boulevard, Clip, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, 1950 It opened on Broadway at the Minskoff Theater on November 17, 1994, ran for 977 performances and won the 1995 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Book and Score. 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. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Was Oscar-nominated in all the major categories--Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Screenplay--but only won in the last category. They eventually worked together on several films and became close friends. The script (which was to be a vehicle for her comeback) was submitted to Cecil B. DeMille who sent it back. American Film Institute On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder, by Ed Sikov, 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. Sunset Boulevard (1950) 1950, 1h 50min - Drama Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond, an aging silent-film queen, and William Holden, as the struggling young screenwriter who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen's most memorable characters in "Sunset Boulevard." Location scenes at Norma Desmond's mansion were shot not on Sunset Boulevard but on Wilshire Boulevard. His family moved to South Pasadena when he was three. 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. It was this astonishing footage that rekindled interest in the film. 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. That's the end.". An ending for the film was cobbled together, but the movie was never shown in the U.S. Jay Livingston, Ray Evans: The Paramount songwriting duo is seen at the piano at Artie Green's New Year's Eve party. The larger version is seen at the temple that Samson brings down in the movie Samson and Delilah (1949), which Cecil B. DeMille was shooting when Norma visits him at Paramount. [12] Swanson later said, "Bill Holden was a man I could have fallen in love with. Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Film debut (uncredited) of Yvette Vickers. The house was owned by the J. Paul Getty family. The only addition was the swimming pool, which wasn't equipped with a means of circulating the water so it was useless after filming. william holden arlene holden - bdcgtoronto.ca The apartments, and the "Alto Nido" sign out front that is glimpsed briefly in the film, are still there. 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. The film was the favorite of Sci-Fi author J.G. Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard is one of his three or four masterpieces, a seminal Hollywood black comedy-satire, which unlike most films keeps improving with the passage of time.. Benfiting from a glorious and iconic cast, the film concerns a faded silent film star, played by Gloria Swanson (in a variation of her own onscreen persona), who lives in the past with her butler (and former . 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. 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. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's 17th and final screenplay collaboration. 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. She was disappointed to see that all the parts she was offered subsequently were watered-down versions of Norma Desmond. Yeah. [46] Rumors existed that he was suffering from lung cancer, which Holden had denied at a 1980 press conference. Sunset Boulevard, the 1950 film noir classic directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, did a lot to change that and other myths of old Hollywoodlike the real-life murder at the heart of the story. Norma's "gondola bed" was originally white, and was featured in Twentieth Century (1934) with Carole Lombard and John Barrymore. Perry, George & Andrew Lloyd Webber (1993). 10 films that began filming without a finished script, Donald Trumps Bad Romance with Hollywood Began Before Parasite, Shazam! Norma is at the edge of insanity through the whole movie, but that doesnt mean shes not fun. 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. However, he knew that her arch-rival Hedda Hopper had trained as an actress and would therefore be more convincing onscreen. Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, Venice Film Festival Special Award for Ensemble Acting, Laurel Award for Top Male Dramatic Performance, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, "When Alcoholics drink themselves to death", "William Holden Dead at 63; Won Oscar for 'Stalag 17', "Barbara Stanwyck's Honorary Award: 1982 Oscars", "The Screen Strand Shows 'Invisible Stripes', "30 Days, 30 Classics Day 17: Sabrina (1954) starring Audrey Hepburn, William Holden and Humphrey Bogart", "Screen: Crosby Acts in 'Country Girl'; Film Based on Odets Drama Makes Bow", "The Screen in Review; 'Bridges at Toko-ri' Is Fine Film of War", "Han Suyin dies at 95; wrote 'Many-Splendored Thing', "13 Fascinating Facts About 'The Bridge on the River Kwai', "Columbia Earns as It Holds Coin Due Bill Holden on 10% of 'Kwai', "The Towering Inferno Movie Review (1974)", "Network Movie Review & Film Summary (1976)", "William Holden Gave His All Even "When Time Ran Out", "William Holden's Unscripted Fall From Grace", The William Holden Wildlife Education Center, "West Holden: More than just the son of William Holden", Image of William Holden and Brenda Marshall, Academy Awards, Los Angeles, 1951, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Holden&oldid=1142631715, Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie Primetime Emmy Award winners, United Service Organizations entertainers, Articles with dead external links from December 2019, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Pages using infobox person with multiple partners, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2022, TCMDb name template using numeric ID from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, episode: "William Holden/Frances Bergen Show", This page was last edited on 3 March 2023, at 14:28. Wilder won the argument and privately told friends that he would not be making any more films with Brackett. It always will be! Norma is perceived as the evil force, even if she uses a white phone while Betty is relegated to a poor black phone. Technically the address was 641 S Irving Blvd but the estate lay at the corner of Irving and Wilshire Blvd. Marion Davies owned a famous ocean-front mansion in Santa Monica. He received an eight-month suspended sentence for vehicular manslaughter.[1]. 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. Cecil B. DeMille appears in the film on a studio set. But attempts to turn the movie into a stage musical began almost immediately, spearheaded by none other than Gloria Swanson. When Gloria Swanson finished Norma's final scene, the mad staircase descent, she burst into tears and the crew applauded. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett almost came to blows over the montage depicting Norma's preparations for her comeback. ", 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. words "Sunset Blvd." April 17 marks the 100th birthday of William Holden, who is ranked No. Gloria Swanson played her final descent on the staircase barefoot, as she was terrified of tripping in high heels. He received an eight-month suspended sentence for vehicular manslaughter. Norma is Scorpio, and Mars had been transiting Jupiter for weeks and that was the day of greatest conjunction. In later interviews, Davis admitted that she thought Swanson's work in the film was absolutely outstanding. 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. The character of Joe Gillis was very much in tune with William Holden's standing at the time. In accordance with his wishes, no funeral or memorial services were conducted. [7], Back at Paramount, he starred with Bonita Granville in Those Were the Days! read more: The Big Sleep is Proof That Plot Doesnt Matter. Montgomery Clift was originally cast as the writer but dropped out two weeks before the shoot. Sunset Blvd. (1950) - Trivia - IMDb At one point Norma mistakes Joe for a funeral director and asks for her coffin to be white, as well as specially lined with satin. The young actor also got to work with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart in the gangsters on parole movie,Invisible Stripes. Wilder wanted Hedy Lamarr to sit in for a cameo, but she wanted $25,000. It was like that old woman in Great Expectations, Miss Havisham in her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil, taking it out on the world because shed been given the go-by. (Norma Desmond would be quick to point out that, thanks to computers and iPads, the pictures have gotten even smaller. 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. was better known as the seat of the film industry in 1950, the Los Angeles film industry actually began on Sunset Blvd. Billy Wilder was actually friendlier with the other leading gossip columnist of the day, Louella Parsons. Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge were famous for owning downtown real estate in Los Angeles and San Diego. Gillis: "No, swimming pool." Gillis smokes unfiltered cigarettes in the film. (1950) in my head, and I'd always sort of related to that character floating in . 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. 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. Sometimes its interesting to see just how bad, bad writing can be. Part of the dialogue goes: Fat Man: "Where did you drown? was voted #6 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by "Premiere" magazine in 2007. He stayed true to his word. Both Keaton and Hopper died the same day, on February 1, 1966, at the ages of 70 and 80 respectively, both in Los Angeles. Sunset Boulevard (DVD, 2017) UK Region 2 release with extras. After all, it's about a dethroned queen." The next decade saw Holden's career flourish. The film originally opened and closed the story at the Los Angeles County Morgue. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). [17], Their relationship did not last much beyond the completion of the film. Included among the 25 films on the American Film Institute's 2005 list of AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. He stayed at Paramount for The Remarkable Andrew (1942) with Brian Donlevy, then made Meet the Stewarts (1943) at Columbia. Westmore and director Billy Wilder agreed with this so William Holden was made up to look younger than he was. 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. I think that Sunset Boulevard was the most important film of William Holden's career. So she lands his head on a golden tray, kissing his cold, dead lips. She said it was a blackmail scheme gone wrong. Holden was still an unknown actor when he made Golden Boy, while Stanwyck was already a film star. The murder made it to the late editions, radio, and television because one of the biggest old-time stars was involved. De Mille at Paramount, the director is shooting the film Samson and Delilah, which he was actually shooting at the time. [4] The film was made for Columbia, which negotiated a sharing agreement with Paramount for Holden's services. Joes voice even starts to take on more and more of her theatrical flourish after too much exposure. 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. Gloria Swanson, meanwhile, was born on March 27, 1899. Joe Gillis: Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? The drugstore where Joe Gillis meets up with his old movie industry friends is Schwab's Pharmacy, then a real pharmacy/soda fountain at the intersection of Sunset Blvd. Sunset Blvd. (1950) - Full Cast & Crew - IMDb Even though it wasn't the last scene filmed, Billy Wilder threw a party for her as soon as the shot was finished. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!