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Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream

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Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, a classic film noir and also a damning dissection of the Hollywood dream factory, evokes the glamour and ruin of the stars who subsist on that dream. It's also one long in-joke about the movie industry and those who made it great-and who were, in turn, destroyed by it. One of the most critically admired films of the twentieth century, Sunset Boulevard is also famous as silent star Gloria Swanson's comeback picture.

Sam Staggs's Close-Up On Sunset Boulevard tells the story of this extravagant work, from the writing, casting and filming to the disastrous previews that made Paramount consider shelving it. It's about the writing team of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett-sardonically called "the happiest couple in Hollywood"-and their raucous professional relationship. It's about the art direction and the sets, the costumes, the props, the lights and the cameras, and the personalities who used those tools to create a cinematic work of art.

Staggs goes behind the scenes to reveal: William Holden, endlessly attacked by his bitter wife and already drinking too much; Nancy Olson, the cheerful ingenue who had never heard of the great Gloria Swanson; the dark genius Erich von Stroheim; the once famous but long-forgotten "Waxworks"; and of course Swanson herself, who-just like Norma Desmond-had once been "the greatest star of them all."

But the story of Sunset Boulevard doesn't end with the movie's success and acclaim at its release in 1950. There's much more, and Staggs layers this stylish book with fascinating detail, following the actors and Wilder into their post-Sunset careers and revealing Gloria Swanson's never-ending struggle to free herself from the clutches of Norma Desmond.

Close-Up On Sunset Boulevard also chronicles the making of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical production of Sunset Boulevard and the explosive diva controversies that dogged it. The book ends with a shocking example of Hollywood life imitating Hollywood art. By the last page of this rich narrative, readers will conclude: We are those "wonderful people out there in the dark."

ISBN-13: 9780312302542

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Publication Date: 02-04-2003

Pages: 448

Product Dimensions: 8.22(w) x 10.88(h) x 1.15(d)

Sam Staggs is the author of All About "All About Eve" and a novel, MMII: The Return of Marilyn Monroe. He lives in Dallas, Texas.

Table of Contents

Voice-Over, 1948 1
1. A La Recherche de Norma Desmond 4
2. When Queens Collide 11
3. The Happiest Couple in Hollywood 15
4. Chaz 37
5. Who Is Gloria Swanson? 47
6. "The Cameras Have Arrived" 71
7. The Bedroom of Norma Desmond 82
8. That's Why the Lady Has a Chimp 95
9. "Ten Thousand Midnights Ago" 101
10. "All Right, Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready for My Close-up" 118
11. Chiffon, Velvet, Chinchilla, Tulle, Brocade, Taffeta, Ermine, and Leopard-Printed Crepe 126
12. If It's a Paramount Picture, It's the Best Show in Town 136
13. Fiasco 148
14. The Whole Audience Stood Up and Cheered 154
15. And the Winner Isn't Gloria Swanson 173
16. I've Got Nobody Floating in My Pool 188
17. Boulevard! 202
18. "Funny How Gentle People Get with You Once You're Dead" 224
19. Popcorn in Beverly Hills with Nancy 232
20. "Buttons and Bows" 246
21. Men in Uniform 252
22. "We'll Make Another Picture, and Another Picture" 274
23. Sunset Cul-de-sac 295
24. Life Upon the Wicked Stage 303
25. Fifteen Minutes of Close-ups 309
26. A Dethroned Queen 316
27. If They Put All the Norma Desmonds on an Island, Which One Would Survive? 354
28. Billy Wilder from Noir to Blackout 363
29. Lux Perpetua 374
Acknowledgments 381
Selected Bibliography 385
Notes 389
Index 407