We all are." She reads everyone and everything in Hollywood, except Joes script. Minters mother Charlotte Shelby was a manipulative stage mother who owned a rare .38 caliber pistol that fired unusual bullets very similar to ones found inside Taylor. His death certificate makes no mention of cancer. When Powers returned to California, she went to his penthouse apartment in Santa Monica but couldn't get in. 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. Sunset Boulevard turns the tables on film noir by casting Joe in the oldest role on the books. Well, not everybody! 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. Without Norma Desmond, there wouldnt be any Paramount Pictures. This makes her the youngest of the cast members, excluding any extras. Sunset Boulevard, Clip, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, 1950 . It was widely known as a top Hollywood hangout for many actors, directors, writers and producers. Filtered cigarette packs always open at the filtered end, which meant he would've been lighting the filter otherwise. He played an older version of Joe in Sidney Lumets classic Network (1976), written by the cynical Paddy Chayefsky. 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. Whether he was the washed up screenwriter of Sunset Boulevard or the reluctant hero of The Bridge on the River Kwai, Holden kept audiences engrossed. It always will be! 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). But she fits it like a round peg in a square hole. William Haines turned down an offer to appear in the film but attended the Hollywood premiere with Joan Crawford. [17], Their relationship did not last much beyond the completion of the film. 'Sunset Blvd.': 15 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About - Moviefone Nothing else! An out of work writer in Hollywood (Holden) randomly pulls into the driveway of a silent film star (Swanson) who can use the assistance of his writing talent. It is because of Sunset Blvd., for certain, that my mind could ever go there. Fat Man: "You were murdered?" At one point Norma mentions working with Mabel Normand and Marie Prevost. The black studs on Joe's shirt front were probably onyx, black opals, or even black pearls. This is a reference to the now-mad Norma's final possession by the character of Salome, with whom she'd been so obsessed. The last name of the studio executive played by Fred Clark is Sheldrake. Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. 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. 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. 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. Being born on 17 April 1918, William Holden was 63 years old at the time of his death. [10] RKO borrowed him for Rachel and the Stranger (1948) with Robert Mitchum and Loretta Young. Holden starred in the 20th Century Fox film Apartment for Peggy (1948). 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. Sunset Boulevard's cinematographer, John Seitz, said Wilder "had wanted to do The Loved One, but couldn't obtain the rights." But as commentator Steve Sailer points out, more than one contemporary source mentions it as an inspiration. She reportedly told Clift shed kill herself if he made the movie. The "Desmond mansion" was located not on Sunset Blvd. Normands career never recovered after word of her addiction leaked out and she died of tuberculosis on Feb. 23, 1930. (Norma Desmond would be quick to point out that, thanks to computers and iPads, the pictures have gotten even smaller. Old whores dont fuck for fun, as the old saying goes. However, DeMille insisted that Lamarr be paid $25,000 for the privilege, so the idea was quickly dropped. 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!) They reportedly began a two-year affair, which is alleged to have ended due to Holden's alcoholism. 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). Well, in the end, he got himself a poolonly the price turned out to be a little high, so Paramount paid to have one installed on the condition that if Mrs. Getty didnt like it, theyd remove it after filming was over. We had faces" was #13. 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. On Joe's and Betty's night walk through the Paramount backlot, his calling the false building fronts "Washington Square" would be an accurate reference, as that neighborhood in New York was full of brownstone houses, apartments, and other turn-of-the-century architecture. 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. He was Judy Hollidays tutor in Born Yesterday (1950) and played a war correspondent in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). 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. 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. When the movie first dropped, Louis B. Mayer, the Mayer in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, told everyone who would listen that Wilder disgraced the industry that made him and fed him, and urged that he be tarred and feathered, and run out of Hollywood. Wilder, who had been feeding himself for quite some time, told Meyer to go fuck himself. Warner (one of the four "Waxworks" at the bridge party) in The King of Kings (1927). The latter was shot in Africa and sparked Holden's fascination with the continent that was to last for the rest of his life. DeMille." Brackett was a New York-born novelist and screenwriter, head of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 1930s, and president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1949 to 1955 (during which time he won two screenwriting Oscarsgood news for conspiracy theorists). of quiet desperation at the end of a relationship when nothing's really making sense and I sort of had the image of William Holden at the beginning of Sunset Blvd. 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]. Holden's first starring role was in Golden Boy (1939), costarring Barbara Stanwyck, in which he played a violinist-turned-boxer. But it wasn't a mistake. Cecil B. DeMille: at the studio during Norma's visit. But along with the accolades came a dependence on alcohol that would play a major role in his tragic end. 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.". Holden's first film back from the services was Blaze of Noon (1947), an aviator picture at Paramount directed by John Farrow. Bogart took the part hoping it would pair him back up with his wife Lauren Bacall. William Holden says his birthday is December 21st. The movie was previewed with this opening, in Illinois, Long Island (NY) and Poughkeepsie (NY). Billy Wilder quickly offered the role to Fred MacMurray, who turned it down because he didn't want to play a gigolo. I instantly fell in love - both with the movie itself and with its handsome 32-year old male lead, William Holden. 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. According to reports, Taylor went to the feds for help filing charges against Normands cocaine suppliers. Taylor had $78 in his wallet, a silver cigarette case, a Waltham pocket watch, and a two-carat diamond ring on his finger when his body was found, so cops quickly ruled out robbery as the motive. Editorial Reviews. Men bribed her hairdresser to get a lock of her hair. 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. At the end of her acceptance speech, she paid him a personal tribute: "I loved him very much, and I miss him. (1940) followed by the role of George Gibbs in the film adaptation of Our Town (1940), done for Sol Lesser at United Artists.[8]. 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. 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. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson. Ready? For Swanson, whose career was already being threatened by the advent of talkies, Queen Kelly was another blow. At Paramount, he did another Western, Streets of Laredo (1949).
how old was william holden in sunset boulevard
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