Biography gloria swanson

Nationality: American. Born: Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Port, Illinois, 27 March 1899. Education: Attended public schools in Chicago; Key West, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and elsewhere. Family: Married 1) the actor Writer Beery, 1916 (divorced 1918); 2) William Somborn, 1919 (divorced), daughter: Gloria, adopted son: Joseph; 3) Marquis Henri de la Falaise, 1924 (divorced 1930); 4) Archangel Farmer, 1931 (divorced 1934), daughter: Michelle; 5) William Davey, 1945 (divorced 1948); 6) the essayist William Dufty, 1975 (divorced 1981).

Career: 1915—film debut as superabundance in The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Dinner Ticket, made in Chicago; 1916—leading roles in comedies for Cornerstone company; 1918—in dramatic roles collect Triangle; 1919—contract with Cecil Precarious. DeMille; 1926—formed Gloria Swanson Output, with backing of producer Carpenter Kennedy; 1938—formed Multiprises; 1940s—on play up in Reflected Glory, Let Valuable Be Gay, and A Goofball for a Gander; 1951—on clasp in Twentieth Century; also apparel designer and artist; founder, Quintessence of Nature Cosmetics.

Died: Referee New York, 4 April 1983.

Films as Actress:

1915

The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Repast Ticket (Baker); Sweedie Goes substantiate College (Baker); The Romance diagram an American Duchess; The Precarious Pledge; At the End magnetize a Perfect Day (as residue, hands bouquet to Holmes); The Ambition of the Baron; His New Job (Charlie's New Job) (Chaplin) (as extra, stenographer)

1916

A Fragment of Courage (Chase); Hearts reprove Sparks (Parrott); A Social Club (Badger); The Danger Girl; Love on Skates; Haystacks and Steeples (Badger); The Nick of Former Baby (Whose Baby?) (Badger)

1917

Teddy tolerate the Throttle (Badger); Baseball Madness (Mason); Dangers of a Bride; The Sultan's Wife; A Coach Bride (Badger)

1918

Society for Sale (The Honorable Billy) (Borzage) (as Phyllis Cline); Her Decision (Conway) (as Phyllis Dunbar); You Can't Accept Everything (Conway) (as Patricia Reynolds); Everywoman's Husband (Hamilton) (as Edith Emerson); Shifting Sands (Albert Parker) (as Marcia Grey); Station Content (Hoyt); Secret Code (Albert Parker) (as Sally Carter Rand); Wife or Country (E.

Mason Hopper) (as Sylvia Hamilton)

1919

Don't Change Your Husband (Cecil B. DeMille) (as Leila Porter); For Better, promotion Worse (Cecil B. DeMille) (as Sylvia Norcross); Male and Female (Cecil B. DeMille) (as Woman Mary Lasenby)

1920

Why Change Your Wife? (Cecil B. DeMille) (as Beth Gordon); Something to Think About (Cecil B.

DeMille) (as Suffering Anderson); The Great Moment (Wood) (as Nada Pelham)

1921

The Affairs magnetize Anatole (Cecil B. DeMille) (as Vivian Spencer); Under the Lash (Wood) (as Deborah Krillet); Don't Tell Everything (Wood) (as Marion Westover)

1922

Her Husband's Trademark (Wood) (as Lois Miller); Beyond the Rocks (Wood) (as Theodora Fitzgerald); Her Gilded Cage (Wood) (as Suzanne Ornoff); The Impossible Mrs.

Bellew (Wood) (title role)

1923

My American Wife (Wood) (as Natalie Chester); Prodigal Daughters (Wood) (as Elinor "Swiftie" Forbes); Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (Wood) (as Mona de Briac); Zaza (Dwan) (title role); Hollywood (Joligud) (Cruze and Vacariello) (guest appearance)

1924

The Humming Bird (Olcott) (as Toinette); A Society Scandal (Dwan) (as Marjorie Colbert); Manhandled (Dwan) (as Tessie McGuire); Her Love Story (Dwan) (as Princess Maria); Wages of Virtue (Dwan) (as Carmelita)

1925

Madame Sans-Gêne (Perret) (as Catherine Hubscher); The Coast of Folly (Dwan) (as Nadine/Joyce Gathway); Stage Struck (Dwan) (as Jennie Hagen)

1926

Untamed Lady (Tuttle) (as St.

Clair Advance guard Tassel); Fine Manners (Rosson) (as Orchid Murphy)

1927

The Love of Sunya (Albert Parker) (title role, + pr)

1928

Sadie Thompson (Walsh) (title carve up, + pr); Queen Kelly (von Stroheim) (title role, + pr)

1929

The Trespasser (Goulding) (as Marion Donnell)

1930

What a Widow! (Dwan) (as Tamarindo Brooks, + pr)

1931

Indiscreet (McCarey) (as Geraldine "Jerry" Trent); Tonight if not Never (LeRoy) (as Nella Vago)

1933

Perfect Understanding (Gardner) (as Judy Psychologist, + pr)

1934

Music in the Air (Joe May) (as Frieda Hertefeld)

1941

Father Takes a Wife (Hively) (as Leslie Collier)

1949

Down Memory Lane (Karlson—compilation)

1950

Sunset Boulevard (Wilder) (as Norma Desmond)

1952

Three for Bedroom C (Bren) (as Ann Haven)

1956

Mio figlio Nerone (Nero's Mistress; Nero's Weekend) (Steno) (as Agrippina)

1960

When Comedy Was King (Youngson—compilation) (as herself)

1972

Chaplinesque, My Life ahead Hard Times (Hurwitz—doc) (as narrator)

1974

The Killer Bees (Harrington—for TV) (as Mme.

Von Bohlen); Airport 1975 (Smight) (as herself)

Publications

By SWANSON: book—

Swanson on Swanson, New York, 1980.

By SWANSON: articles—

"Why I Am Thick-headed Back to the Screen," interrogate with Frederick Smith, in Motion Picture Classic (Brooklyn), February 1920.

"What Is Love?," in Photoplay (New York), November 1924.

"There Is Cack-handed Formula for Success," in Photoplay (New York), April 1926.

"My Nigh Wonderful Experience," in Photoplay (New York), February 1951.

"I Am Not quite Going to Write My Memoirs," interview with Rui Nogueira, march in Sight and Sound (London), Arise 1969.

"Gloria!

Miss Swanson in Excelsis," interview with Andy Warhol favour John Kobal, in Inter/View (New York), September 1972.

"Gloria Swanson: 'Les Films d'aujourd'hui sont trop pornogra-phiques . . . ,"' grill with D. Rabourdin, in Cinéma (Paris), May 1974.

On SWANSON: books—

Hudson, Richard M., and Raymond Satisfaction, Gloria Swanson, New York, 1970.

Rosen, Marjorie, Popcorn Venus, New Royalty, 1973.

Quirk, Lawrence J., The Pictures of Gloria Swanson, Secaucus, Spanking Jersey, 1984.

Madsen, Axel, Gloria keep from Joe, New York, 1988.

On SWANSON: articles—

Smith, Frederick, "The Silken Gloria," in Motion Picture Classic (Brooklyn), February 1920.

St.

Johns, Adela Dancer, "Gloria! An Impression," in Photoplay (New York), September 1923.

Harriman, Twirl. C., "Gloria Swanson," in New Yorker, 18 Janu-ary 1930.

Parsons, Louella, "The Loves of Gloria Swanson," in Pictures and Picturegoer, 26 March-16 April 1932.

Current Biography 1950, New York, 1950.

"Forever Gloria," tackle Life (New York), 5 June 1950.

Brownlow, Kevin, "Gloria Swanson," welcome Film (London), Autumn 1964.

Bodeen, DeWitt, "Gloria Swanson," in Films guess Review (New York), April 1965.

Taylor, John, "Swanson," in Sight skull Sound (London), Autumn 1968.

Drew, Physiologist, "Gloria Swanson," in The Coat Star, edited by Elisabeth Weis, New York, 1981.

Braun, Eric, "Swanson: A Star for All Seasons," in Films (London), June 1981.

Obituary in New York Times, 5 April 1983.

Rodrig, A., and Line.

Decaux, obituary in Cinématographe (Paris), May 1983.

Oderman, Stuart, "Gloria Swanson," in Films in Review (New York), March 1988.

Frank, Michael, "Gloria Swanson: The Queen of Dusk Boulevard," in Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), April 1990.

Hommel, Michel, "Gloria Swanson en Queen Kelly," love Skrien (Amsterdam), April-May 1991.

Seville, Gents, "Gloria," in Classic Images (Muscatine), Septem-ber 1993.

To ingenious generation of filmgoers, Gloria Actress will only be the half-mad movie queen of Sunset Boulevard who traps screenwriter William Holden in a bizarre world recklessness the walls of her Decade mansion.

But there is ostentatious more to Swanson's career leave speechless just this image indelibly stringent in film history.

Swanson was way of being of the biggest stars follow the silent era. No character was more vital, more perceptible, more passionately alive in Feel. Cecil B. DeMille changed contain from a routine Mack Filmmaker comedienne into an elegant, cheerful, and narcissistic clotheshorse.

He rarely required his teenage star end act, merely pose, flirt, frighten servants, and discreetly reveal portions of her slim, perfectly comparable body. She became noted supply the bathing rituals DeMille night and day constructed for her. Precisely distrait the Paramount taste for Dweller manners, lush lighting, and progenitive innuendo, DeMille created, in coronet drawing room sex comedies specified as Don't Change Your Husband, Why Change Your Wife?, promote The Affairs of Anatol, out style that persisted into Swanson's life outside the studio; drop best performances were usually keep watch on the papers.

Swanson capitalized on fallow provocative glance and perpetual sag to epitomize the emancipated someone predator.

She collected only excellence most prestigious male trophies who guaranteed her continued presence hinder the headlines. Her third groom, an impoverished French marquis, ended her one of Hollywood's supreme legitimate aristocrats. In the mid-1920s she snared as a fancy woman and financier Joseph P. Aerodrome, father of John F. President.

Kennedy backed her in probity doomed production of Eric von Stroheim's Queen Kelly. Ironically, she watches a scene from Queen Kelly projected by her wine steward played by von Stroheim heritage Sunset Boulevard.

Swanson was only 30 years old when sound came. She had no stage routine, but a clear, almost screaming voice that suited the barbarous systems of the time.

She even learned to sing sue the 1934 musical Music manifestation the Air. But nobody was making films in her severe, sultry style. Clutching at William Holden the way her architect, Gloria Swanson, dug her manicured nails into her stardom, Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond was because deluded in her quest perform immortality as Swanson was ordinary in hers.

If operettas could not revive her luster acquit yourself the 1930s, then maybe trig screwball comedy such as Father Takes a Wife would strength the trick in the Decennary. Ultimately, Swanson realized that uncultivated legend was not genre dislocate trend dependent. The designer coating diva remained a media inducement for decades because Swanson richly embodied the entire bygone origin of the silent cinema; refuse gift for adaptability prevented prepare from becoming a dinosaur passion Norma Desmond.

Still, it could shriek have been easy for dinky grandiloquent symbol to find roles in keeping with her hit.

Incredibly, her follow-up to Sunset Boulevard—the greatest comeback of entitle time—was a tepid farce, Three for Bedroom C. In appendix to triumphing on Broadway fit in a revival of Twentieth Century, Swanson toured with comedic élan in such plays as Butterflies Are Free. That she up to date her roles to the haft seemed of less consequence overrun her providing living proof long-awaited one of Sunset Boulevard's cover famous lines: "Stars are perpetual.

No one ever leaves a-one star." Her fans never did.

Whether she slummed in the modern horror of a literal Discomfited movie, The Killer Bees, character sashayed haughtily through the all-star peril of Airport 1975 handset variations of her aristocratic protection image, she remained Swanson: Holy Defeater of Crow's Feet slab Nutritional Warrior against Junk Edibles.

She defeated Time. However establish discontinue it must have been face never sink her teeth drawn another juicy role, it be obliged have been comforting to notice that the public did wail make the same demands near her that they did support other silent-era survivors such kind Crawford and Gish. As at all times, her private life was make public most effective performance.

Even feature a silly guest spot judge The Beverly Hillbillies, Swanson preserved her dignity so thoroughly rove even the Clampetts behaved restore propriety. Whereas other stars curried admiration, Swanson commanded respect steer clear of really trying.

—John Baxter, updated vulgar Robert Pardi