how old was william holden in sunset boulevard

was voted #6 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by "Premiere" magazine in 2007. The black studs on Joe's shirt front were probably onyx, black opals, or even black pearls. In reality, Gloria Swanson never worked with Normand and worked only once with Prevost in a 1916 short. To help promote the film, Gloria Swanson did a three-month tour of 36 cities in America and Canada. She refuses to believe that she's no longer remembered and will never make another movie. 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". Brackett thought it was too mean while Wilder felt it was necessary. The Tragic 1981 Death Of Sunset Boulevard Star William Holden Grunge 2.14M subscribers Subscribe 486 18K views 3 weeks ago #Actor #Hollywood #SunsetBoulevard While Actor William Holden. Wilder used real names like Darryl Zanuck, Tyrone Power, and Alan Ladd. 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.. It was Erich von Stroheim who suggested the revelation that Max was writing all of Norma's fan mail. 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. The car with the massive chrome grill that the repo men drive is a 1948 DeSoto Custom Club Coupe. Wilder changed the scene so that DeMille offered Lamarr's chair to Norma without Lamarr being present. American Beauty screenwriter Alan Ball has acknowledged that another Billy Wilder film, The Apartment (1960), influenced that screenplay. 13 Close-Up Facts About Sunset Boulevard - Mental Floss They are singing a parody of their song "Buttons and Bows," from The Paleface (1948), for which they won an Oscar in 1949, the year this film was made. As the camera cranes up into the apartment, we can see it's the Alto Nido. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. The exteriors of Norma Desmond's home on Sunset Boulevard were filmed at 641 South Irving Boulevard. In 1972, Holden began a nine-year relationship with actress Stefanie Powers and sparked her interest in animal welfare. He stayed true to his word. (1940) followed by the role of George Gibbs in the film adaptation of Our Town (1940), done for Sol Lesser at United Artists.[8]. At Cecil B. DeMille's first appearance, his on-set cry of "Wilcoxon!" Costume designer Edith Head found working on the film to be one of her greatest challenges. Gloria Swanson and Nancy Olson also co-starred in Airport 1975 together. Next image (0) (0) Gloria Swanson's career was not revitalized by this film. Thirty-one years later, the actor who played Gillis, William Holden, met his end. Holden turned the tables on Lucille Ball when he appeared as a guest star on I Love Lucy at The Brown Derby. 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. Holden's first film back from the services was Blaze of Noon (1947), an aviator picture at Paramount directed by John Farrow. 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. Holman was 16 years older than him and was afraid people would think the movie was a parody of their relationship. 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. 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. Von Stroheim didnt know how to drive, and the scene where hes driving the exotic leopard-upholstered Isotta-Fraschini was shot as the car was being towed. His characters were always angling for something, whether it was silk stockings in a POW Camp in Stalag 17 from 1953, which won him a Best Actor Oscar, or to clear impersonation charges in in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) with Alec Guinness. 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. Was the inspiration for Metallica's 1997 song "The Memory Remains". Please, don't let it be true, it must be some mistake," per her memoir. 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. The Tragic 1981 Death Of Sunset Boulevard Star William Holden. 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. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! There are several references to Gloria Swanson's actual career in the film. However, he knew that her arch-rival Hedda Hopper had trained as an actress and would therefore be more convincing onscreen. He stayed at Paramount for The Remarkable Andrew (1942) with Brian Donlevy, then made Meet the Stewarts (1943) at Columbia. In the scene where Norma is showing Joe her silent movies, one of them is Queen Kelly (1932), which was filmed at Paramount's Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens, NY. Talk! Film debut (uncredited) of Yvette Vickers. Their partnership ended in a professional and gentlemanly mannerthere was no airing of any dirty laundrybut it did end.. 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. 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. He rejects her. Wilder was, well, the wilder of the two, often bawdy and crass, while Brackett was genteel. Around this time he also appeared in 21 Hours at Munich (1976). The mansion belonged to the second Mrs. Jean Paul Getty, who rented it on condition that if she did not like the swimming pool the studio would have to add for the film, it would cover it over and restore the original landscaping. Set non-holiday all-time house record of $166,000 at New York's Radio City Music Hall when it opened. Cinematographer John Seitz put a mirror on the bottom of the pool and filmed the reflection. He did another Western at Columbia, Texas (1941) with Glenn Ford, and a musical comedy at Paramount, The Fleet's In (1942) with Eddie Bracken, Dorothy Lamour, and Betty Hutton.[9]. Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge were famous for owning downtown real estate in Los Angeles and San Diego. It was a gift from her lover, automobile magnate Walter Chrysler. Montgomery Clift was originally cast as the writer but dropped out two weeks before the shoot. This indicates that he is smoking filterless cigarettes, which was the norm for that era until filters became the standard after the mid-'50s. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's 17th and final screenplay collaboration. Garbo was once rumored to be engaged to the innovative Hollywood and Broadway director Rouben Mamoulian whose film Golden Boy (1939) made William Holden famous. 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 other line, "I am big! 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. The film was the favorite of Sci-Fi author J.G. 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. (as Arthur Schmidt) 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). 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. Mary Pickford lived in seclusion, away from the public eye, while both Mae Murray and Clara Bow had well documented struggles with mental illness. 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. Sunset Boulevard, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim The apartments, and the "Alto Nido" sign out front that is glimpsed briefly in the film, are still there. 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. The film is openly referenced in Soapdish (1991), The Player (1992), Gods and Monsters (1998), Mulholland Drive (2001), Inland Empire (2006) and Be Cool (2005) while the closing scene of Cecil B. Demented (2000) is a direct parody of the final scene of the 1950 classic. Zach Laws, Chris Beachum. Erich von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in Queen Kelly (1932), plays Max the butler, who serves as the projectionist in the scene. Norma Desmond: Get out! About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . She hates all of Joes writing except for about six pages. She is still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by. Who didnt then? Swanson herself reportedly asked him to do it. Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. 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: 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. Billy Wilder was a friend of the danish silent movie star Asta Nielsen, and based the Norma Desmond caracter on her. Cecil B. DeMille appears in the film on a studio set. [38], Holden maintained a home in Switzerland and also spent much of his time working for wildlife conservation as a managing partner in an animal preserve in Africa. He was perfection on and off-screen. Holden was a bit of an anti-hero, or at least a very flawed hero. Hack screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) accidentally falls in with faded screen legend Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). Joe insists hes not a Hollywood whore, but he accepts Normas gifts, gold cigarette cases, a platinum watch, suits, shirts, and shoes that would impress Rudy. Queen Kelly nearly ruined both of their careers: von Stroheim was replaced as director midway through after complaints from Swanson about the racy material and arguments with the producer (JFK's father!) "[13] Paramount reunited him with Nancy Olson, one of his Sunset Boulevard costars, in Union Station (1950). According to Billy Wilder, it was von Stroheim's idea to use a clip from Queen Kelly (1932) in Sunset Blvd. Schwab's was torn down in 1988 to make way for a movie theater and a shopping center. I think that Sunset Boulevard was the most important film of William Holden's career. 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. When she received her Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Award ceremony, Holden had died in an accident just a few months prior. About 10 minutes later, Holden passed out and died from blood loss. over the spiraling budget. Words are as good as sex to two writers. In those days there were no buttons on formal shirts. William Haines turned down an offer to appear in the film but attended the Hollywood premiere with Joan Crawford. Paramount reunited him with Nancy Olson, one of his Sunset Boulevard costars, in Union Station (1950). 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. 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). Norma Desmond promised she would never desert her audience again. Billy Wilder was one of the ultimate Hollywood insiders and he grew with film. As day breaks. 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. He loves Norma so much, he even forges thousands of pages of fan mail, just to feed her delusion. 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. Fury of the Gods Brings Back the "Shazamily": Inside DC's New Superhero Adventure, Scream 6's Brutal NYC Trip: "You Can't Trust Anyone" This Time, Cocaine Bear Is Not Just About a Killer "Coked-Up" Bear, It's Also an "Underdog Story", How Marvel's Wastelanders Podcast Created an Exciting Story with No Visual Safety Net, Sunset Boulevard: The Original Hollywood Expose. His body was found four days later. For scenes in which he drove, the car was towed by another car. The veteran actress particularly wanted to see what Mary Pickford felt and was disappointed to see that she had left. Holden acted in Executive Suite (1954), The Country Girl (1954) with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), and Picnic (1955). This can be deduced from the fact that when he pulls one out of the pack he turns the bottom end up to his mouth. 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). Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. 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. His death certificate makes no mention of cancer. And gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (who appears in the movie as herself) wrote that "Billy Wilder was crazy about Evelyn Waugh's book The Loved One, and the studio wanted to buy it.". But in 1957, Paramount formally asked Desmond to stop, the studio bosses having decided not to grant permission after all. His killer was never identified. For Swanson, whose career was already being threatened by the advent of talkies, Queen Kelly was another blow. 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. Here's some backstage information to enhance your experience the next time you visit the Paramount lot.. william holden arlene holden - bdcgtoronto.ca Winston was one of those who discovered the Golden Boy newcomer and who renamed himin honor of his former spouse!"[3]. This film is in the Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films on Letterboxd. So in that scene, William Holden is driving over the future locations of Walk of Fame stars dedicated to the two people arguably most responsible for his success in Hollywood. We all are." It said so on the chart from her astrologer, who read DeMilles horoscope. [27] He played an American Civil War military surgeon in John Ford's The Horse Soldiers (1959) opposite John Wayne, which was a box-office disappointment. 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. [4] He made a sex comedy with David Niven for Otto Preminger, The Moon Is Blue (1953), which was a huge hit, in part due to controversy over its content. Billy Wilder went into production with only 61 pages of script finished, so he had to shoot more or less in chronological order. "I am big. If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. 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. 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. 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. Some, including Holden himself and one of his close confidants, could foresee the death (per The Huntsville Item). Sunset Blvd. You see, this is my life, she promised. Billy Wilder's 1978 Flop Fedora is less a worthy follow up to Sunset Boulevard than a sorry footnote. Normas waxworks card sharps were Swedish-born Anna Q. Nilsson, H. B. Warner and Buster Keaton. 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? 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. 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. in 1911 when the Nestor Film Company moved from New. I instantly fell in love - both with the movie itself and with its handsome 32-year old male lead, William Holden. Louis B. Mayer's reaction is well documented but Mae Murray also found the film offensive. After returning from France, she shot her last Paramount films--Stage Struck (1925), The Untamed Lady (1926) and Fine Manners (1926)--at the studio's lot in Astoria, Queens, NY. In 1954, Holden was featured on the cover of Life. It would go on to be one of his most successful movies. Warner took the part. Billy Wilder's terrifying valentine to Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard (1950), features one of the most indelible of all screen performances: Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond. Fat Man: "You were murdered?" Although Sheldrake's musings on a film about the story of a female baseball player was seen as humorous, the movie "A League of Their Own" would do just that 42 years later. The part was only Nancy Olson's third film appearance. Dont bother with a rewrite, man, take it direct! In fact, a pivotal plot point in the Showtime limited series of Twin Peaks (2017) includes a scene from "Sunset Boulevard" in which the character's name is mentioned. in West Hollywood. The building manager found the body of the legendary actor who starred in 70 films and was a good friend of President Ronald Reagan nearly a week later, per The Washington Post. It was the same technique he had used to shoot Rudolph Valentino's tango in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). 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. Gloria Swanson and Nancy Olson also appeared in Airport 1975. So she lands his head on a golden tray, kissing his cold, dead lips. (1949), and "Father Is a Bachelor" (1950). 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. Yeah. The moment he discovers that life could be beautiful, Norma slits her wrist with Joes razor. She looks like a mannequin of a . Or shall I call my servant? Because all three audiences inappropriately found the morgue scene hilarious, the film's release was delayed six months so that a new beginning could be shot. director of photography Film Editing by Arthur P. Schmidt . The script (which was to be a vehicle for her comeback) was submitted to Cecil B. DeMille who sent it back. 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. For the opening shot of Joe Gillis floating face-down in the swimming pool, Billy Wilder wanted a shot from below that would show both the body and the police and photographers standing at the pool's edge looking down. read more: The Big Sleep is Proof That Plot Doesnt Matter. [49], His death was noted by singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, whose 1987 song "Tom's Diner", about a sequence of events one morning in 1981, included a mention of reading a newspaper article about "an actor who had died while he was drinking". 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. When filming began, William Holden was 31 and Gloria Swanson was 50, the same stated age as her character. He said it was because she was braver than any man. Billy Wilder wanted a fresh face for the part of Betty Schaefer. Norma Desmond returns to the Paramount lot and is overcome with nostalgia. Sunset Boulevard - Paramount Originals (includes Limited Edition Everyone had a good laugh, though the record doesn't reflect whether Marshall joined in. The movie begins about five oclock in the morning, left coast time. He had made Swanson a star by. 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. 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. Perry, George & Andrew Lloyd Webber (1993). Gloria Swanson does a famous impression of Charles Chaplin as the "Little Tramp," but Chaplin's name is never mentioned. 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. 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. The magnifying glass in Normas beauty makeover scene shows the skin of a young ingnue, not an aging crone.