how old was william holden in sunset boulevard how old was william holden in sunset boulevard

At the end, they stood and cheered for Gloria Swanson's return. 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. [39][46] He dictated in his will that the Neptune Society cremate him and scatter his ashes in the Pacific Ocean. Holdens last movie, Blake Edwardss S.O.B., was another masterpiece of Hollywood cynicism. It has to be an opera. And, of course, a pool. Norma wound up sitting in Mr. DeMilles chair. In 1973, Holden starred with Kay Lenz in a movie directed by Clint Eastwood called Breezy, which was considered a box-office flop. Haines declined and fellow screen veteran H.B. Stanwyck went to bat for Holden when he was going to be replaced in Golden Boy (1939) and Wilder's collaboration with Holden in the 50s starting with Sunset Boulevard revitalized his career (including the Best Actor Oscar for Stalag 17 (1953). 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. [43] Capucine and Holden remained friends until his death in 1981. Their relationship makes the film as much a love story as it is a noir film, because if ever there is a femme fatale, it is Norma Desmond. Schwab's was torn down in 1988 to make way for a movie theater and a shopping center. The ocean?' Joes voice even starts to take on more and more of her theatrical flourish after too much exposure. He contributed to Altvariety, Chiseler, Smashpipe, and other magazines. A week later she heard the news of Holden's death on her car radio. But when Sondheim pitched the idea to Billy Wilder at a party, Wilder said, "You can't write a musical about Sunset Boulevard. William Holden movies: 15 greatest films, ranked worst to best, include 'Sunset Boulevard,' 'Network,' 'Stalag 17'. 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. Film debut (uncredited) of Yvette Vickers. 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 gives them an opportunity to write really good acceptances speeches. But it was too difficult to put a camera underwater to get the shot, so Wilder and cinematographer John Seitz came up with an ingenious solution: they put a mirror on the bottom of the pool and filmed the reflection from above. Schwab's Pharmacy was filmed only 500 feet (145 meters) from where Robert "D-Fens" Foster shot out the phone booth in Falling Down (1993). West wanted to rewrite her dialogue. William Holden returns to find that Gloria Swanson has tried to slash her wrists in 'Sunset Boulevard', directed by Billy Wilder. 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). In her private screening room, with butler Max running the projector, Norma cuddles up with Joe to watch one of her own films. As day breaks. (The book is about a failed screenwriter who works for a cemetery and lives with a forgotten silent-film star.) Not long ago, he was divorced from the actress, Gloria Holden, but carried the torch after the marital rift. Montgomery Clift was originally cast as the writer but dropped out two weeks before the shoot. After working on Sunset Boulevard, Swanson remarked, Bill Holden was a man I could have fallen in love with. The clips in Sunset Boulevard were the first American audiences had seen of it. He always wished that I would get an Oscar. The old movies needed neither color nor dialogue. For Swanson, whose career was already being threatened by the advent of talkies, Queen Kelly was another blow. 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. The magnifying glass in Normas beauty makeover scene shows the skin of a young ingnue, not an aging crone. 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. X. Every woman was in love with him. But trophies or not, Sunset Boulevard has stayed near the top of the list of great movies about moviemaking. 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. Boulevard du crpuscule : Amazon.com.mx: Pelculas y Series de TV. The car with the massive chrome grill that the repo men drive is a 1948 DeSoto Custom Club Coupe. To publicize the film, Paramount sent Gloria Swanson on a cross-country tour, paying her $1,000 a week for her services. The apartments, and the "Alto Nido" sign out front that is glimpsed briefly in the film, are still there. But in 1957, Paramount formally asked Desmond to stop, the studio bosses having decided not to grant permission after all. 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. [30] Holden made a Western with Ryan O'Neal and Blake Edwards, Wild Rovers (1971). "I am big. According to a statement director King Vidor made in 1968, the Los Angeles police detective who was assigned to the case was told to lay off about a week into the investigation. It was built in 1924 by William Jenkins, at a cost of $250,000. Sunset Boulevards cinematographer John Seitz said Wilder had wanted to do The Loved One, but couldnt obtain the rights. British author Evelyn Waughs satirical 1948 novel was about a failed screenwriter who lives with a silent film star and works in a cemetery. Wilder was no fan of improvisation and was very protective of his words. On the advice of Libby Holman, Montgomery Clift, who had signed to play the part of Joe Gillis, broke his contract just two weeks prior to the start of shooting. When Norma visits DeMille at Paramount, he's in the midst of shooting Samson and Delilah, which really is what he was up to at the time. Gloria Swanson's career was not revitalized by this film. Universal bought it on her death in 1920 and it was used in several movies, most notably in The Phantom of the Opera (1925). 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.". When filming began, William Holden was 31 and Gloria Swanson was 50, the same stated age as her character. 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. Columbia teamed him with Lucille Ball for Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949), and the sequel to Dear Ruth, Dear Wife (1949). 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. The two starred in the films The Lion (1962) and The 7th Dawn (1964). Billy Wilder was a friend of the danish silent movie star Asta Nielsen, and based the Norma Desmond caracter on her. 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. A second film with Seaton did not do as well, The Proud and Profane (1956), where Holden played the role with a moustache. Movie audiences in the nave early days of film sometimes didnt know that somebody had to sit down and write a movie. Everyone had a good laugh, though the record doesn't reflect whether Marshall joined in. Their partnership ended in a professional and gentlemanly mannerthere was no airing of any dirty laundrybut it did end.. Ready? Her friend George Cukor, who initially recommended her for the part, told her, "If they want you to do ten screen tests, do ten screen tests. (he'd already gotten the shot he needed on the first take). Paramount reunited him with Nancy Olson, one of his Sunset Boulevard costars, in Union Station (1950). One of only 13 films to be nominated for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Director. Paramount reunited Bracken and him in Young and Willing (1943). Hola, identifcate . Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, and Greta Garbo turned down the role. 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. Norma is Scorpio, and Mars had been transiting Jupiter for weeks and that was the day of greatest conjunction. His death certificate makes no mention of cancer. Holden had another good break when he was cast as Judy Holliday's love interest in the big-screen adaptation of the Broadway hit Born Yesterday (1950). For scenes in which he drove, the car was towed by another car. He was Judy Hollidays tutor in Born Yesterday (1950) and played a war correspondent in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). There were actually three mansions used during filming. The film originally opened and closed the story at the Los Angeles County Morgue. The "Desmond mansion" was located not on Sunset Blvd. 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. It's the *pictures* that got small. (1950) was plagiarized from other scripts. Getty always wanted a pool, the poor dope. But before you hear it all distorted and blown out of proportion, before those Hollywood columnists get their hands on it, maybe youd like to hear the facts, the whole truth. When Norma visits Cecil B. Old whores dont fuck for fun, as the old saying goes. Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" is the portrait of a forgotten silent star, living in exile in her grotesque mansion, screening her old films, dreaming of a comeback. For the first industry screening, Paramount executives invited several silent-film stars. Well, they kissed, and kissed, and kept kissing, and the crew began to snicker, and finally Marshall's voice rang out: "Cut, dammit!" [10] RKO borrowed him for Rachel and the Stranger (1948) with Robert Mitchum and Loretta Young. His co-star Barbara Stanwyck, a screen. Set non-holiday all-time house record of $166,000 at New York's Radio City Music Hall when it opened. 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. The name was then changed to Millman and finally to Sheldrake and was played by Fred Clark. The stars read the stars. On the last day of shooting, Swanson drove back to the house she, her mother and daughter shared during production, announcing "there were only three of us in it now, meaning that Norma Desmond had taken her leave.". I think that Sunset Boulevard was the most important film of William Holden's career. He was just a movie writer with a couple of B-pictures to his credit. The actor got up and tried to staunch the blood pouring from his forehead but never called 911, which might have saved his life, per the biography. Gloria Swanson brings sunshine into every room as silent screen idol Norma Desmond. Words are as good as sex to two writers. . The studio needed an actor who the audience could believe wrote a story about Okies in the Dust Bowl that played on a torpedo boat by the time it hit the screen. 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. Principal photography took place from 11 April to 18 June 1949. 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. When Joe and Norma sit down to watch one of her old movies, Joe pulls out a cigarette and places the bottom end in his mouth. The general consensus was that the two titans had canceled each other out, leaving the field clear for Holliday. So speaking of funerals, heres the great real life murder mystery we teased in the opening. Sunset Boulevard DVD (2007) William Holden, Wilder (DIR) cert PG Amazing Value. Holden's first film back from the services was Blaze of Noon (1947), an aviator picture at Paramount directed by John Farrow. 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. Holden, just 63 when he died, had most recently appeared in the Blake Edwards' film "S.O.B." [42][citation needed]. Without Norma Desmond, there wouldnt be any Paramount Pictures. 3.48. Holden had a supporting role in Ashanti (1979) and was third-billed in another disaster film, When Time Ran Out (1980), which was a flop. This is a reference to the now-mad Norma's final possession by the character of Salome, with whom she'd been so obsessed. It's kind of sweet, actually. Holden himself claimed that he, too, could picture his end. At one point Norma mentions working with Mabel Normand and Marie Prevost. Co-writer D.M. They swore each other off over the montage where Norma struggles to lose weight for her comeback. Originally Billy Wilder wanted both of Hollywood's top gossip columnists--Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons--reporting from Norma's mansion at the end and fighting over the phone. The interiors of Norma's decaying mansion were actually a set at Paramount Studios. Studs and cufflinks were inserted into the shirt holes to secure the garment. He was a genuine star. All I know is that she's meshuggah, that's all. Was the inspiration for Metallica's 1997 song "The Memory Remains". Brackett was also a frequent collaborator with Billy Wilder, co-writing and producing a dozen movies with him (including The Lost Weekend) before Sunset Boulevard proved to be their last. 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. It was the same technique he had used to shoot Rudolph Valentino's tango in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). A true Hollywood horror story. The 49-year-old film directors body was found on the morning of Feb. 2, 1922, inside his bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments in Westlake, Los Angeles. 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. The last name of the studio executive played by Fred Clark is Sheldrake. Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard took the tinsel out of Tinseltown, the gild off the golden boy, and the cover off a forgotten murder. Its second owner was Jean Paul Getty, who purchased it for his second wife. Free Postage. Editorial Reviews. After graduating from South Pasadena High School, Holden attended Pasadena Junior College, where he became involved in local radio plays. words "Sunset Blvd." Bogart was not especially friendly toward Hepburn, who had little Hollywood experience, while Holden's reaction was the opposite, wrote biographer Michelangelo Capua. It is also one of the most frequently misquoted movie lines, usually given as, "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Holden's first starring role was in Golden Boy (1939), costarring Barbara Stanwyck, in which he played a violinist-turned-boxer. When Peavey heard the moans I am the ghost of William Desmond Taylor. H.B. Holden had his most widely recognized role as "Commander" Shears in David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) with Alec Guinness,[25] a huge commercial success. On the morning of February 1, 1922, Taylor--who had been romantically involved with her-- was shot and killed in his Hollywood bungalow. Also in 1969, Holden starred in director Terence Young's family film L'Arbre de Nol, co-starring Italian actress Virna Lisi and French actor Bourvil, based on the novel of the same name by Michel Bataille. and Crescent Heights Blvd. In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked this as the #16 Greatest Movie of All Time. Gillis: "No, swimming pool." Although they don't have a scene together in this film, Hedda Hopper and Buster Keaton had worked together in the 1932 comedy Speak Easily (1932), both were among the many stars appearing in the 1931 two-reeler The Stolen Jools (1931), and they both appeared in a 1958 episode of The Garry Moore Show (1958) that also featured Carol Burnett, who years later would spoof the Norma Desmond character regularly on her own variety show. The character of Max Von Mayerling as a washed up silent film director was an homage paid by Wilder to Erich von Stroheim, who was an inspiration to Billy in his glory days as a notorious silent film director himself. And what faces. He starred in the 1953 . But it could just as well have been Joes headquarters, Schwabs Drug Store, a kind of combination office, coffee clutch, and waiting room where actors and writers wait for the gravy train. Getting the role was a lucky break for Holden, as Montgomery Clift was initially cast but backed out of his contract. American Beauty screenwriter Alan Ball has acknowledged that another Billy Wilder film, The Apartment (1960), influenced that screenplay. And like the title, Holden seemed to have the looks and muscular build Hollywood craved. The actor's second major breakthrough occurred when Wilder cast him in the lead of the. It made him a true front ranked star after years of being an actor slogging through a series of largely forgottable films (and performances). For television roles in 1974, Holden won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his portrayal of a cynical, tough veteran LAPD street cop in the television film The Blue Knight, based upon the best-selling Joseph Wambaugh novel of the same name.[31][4]. 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). 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. Since 2006, he has overseen the Bayou City History blog, which covers various aspects of Houston's history. Mae West rejected the role of Norma Desmond because she felt she was too young to play a silent-film star. 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. In fact, such was the buzz about the film during production that the viewing of the dailies became one of the hottest tickets on the lot. Talk! 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. 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]. The movie's line "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." 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 Holdens Joe Gillis helps a timid soul named Norma Desmond cross a crowded street on Paramounts back lot. [44] After his death, Powers set up the William Holden Wildlife Foundation at Holden's Mount Kenya Game Ranch. 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. The only Best Picture Oscar nominee of the year to be also nominated for Original Screenplay. Still, whatever hard feelings there may have been between Swanson and von Stroheim, they were gone by the time Sunset Boulevard came along. Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge were famous for owning downtown real estate in Los Angeles and San Diego. Not everyone felt the same way, however. Erich von Stroheim dismissed his participation in this film, referring to it as "that butler role.". The photos of the young Norma Desmond that decorate the house are all genuine publicity photos from Gloria Swanson's heyday. At Columbia, he starred in film noirs, The Dark Past (1948), The Man from Colorado (1949) and Father Is a Bachelor (1950). Normand was the last person known to have seen Taylor alive and she was grilled by the Los Angeles Police Department as a result. Holden was reunited with Wilder in Stalag 17 (1953), for which Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Norma's bed originally belonged to French actress/singer Gaby Deslys. Holden paid it forward, becoming Hepburns guardian angel.. It is because of Sunset Blvd., for certain, that my mind could ever go there. Cecil B. DeMille agreed to do his cameo for a $10,000 fee and a brand-new Cadillac. Unsurprisingly, he was largely self taught, spending countless hours with instruction manuals and newspaper clips, playing all four hands simultaneously until he became an expert. There's a little dig in the scene when Cecil B. DeMille finds out that Paramount has been calling Norma Desmond because it wants to rent her car for "the Crosby picture." The two actors never worked together in another film. They had to have the ears of the old place, too. 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. 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. Betty is an idealist, more closely resembling Normas rose-colored outlook, but with darker shades she wants to bring to light. So she lands his head on a golden tray, kissing his cold, dead lips. We were close friends for many years. According to reports, Taylor went to the feds for help filing charges against Normands cocaine suppliers. Fat Man: "You were murdered?" He was perfection on and off-screen. Holden was a bit of an anti-hero, or at least a very flawed hero. Carol Burnett spoofed the film several times on her TV variety show. The young actor also got to work with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart in the gangsters on parole movie,Invisible Stripes. I didn't know. 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. Every time I go to L.A., which isn't too often, I look at these palm-bemused, once smart stucco facades, and wonder if a Norma Desmond from a later era might be hiding from the world inside them, buttressed by cable TV (AMC or TCM, no doubt), a poodle named FiFi or Sir Francis, walk-in closets full of leopard-print Capri pants that haven't fit in decades, and a world class liquor cabinet that has seen heads of state under the table on a good night. In 1954, Holden was featured on the cover of Life. On February 7, 1955, Holden appeared as a guest star on I Love Lucy as himself. Only 950 were made from 1924 to 1931. 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.