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Gloria Swanson
Birthday:
27 March 1899
Birth Name:
Gloria May Josephine Svensson
Height:
155 cm
Biography
[during the first screening of The Impossible Mrs. Bellew (1922)} Did we make that on location or in the studio?
[during the first screening of The Impossible Mrs. Bellew (1922)} Did we make that on location or in the studio?
I haven't a very great sense of humor. When I see a comedy I laugh with the others. I'm sufficiently amused, but when it's over I have a feeling that I am not taking anything away with me. I don't think that comedy, unless it has a great deal of irony in it, corresponds to anything in life. It makes me feel vacant - just as though I had gone to a restaurant ...
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I haven't a very great sense of humor. When I see a comedy I laugh with the others. I'm sufficiently amused, but when it's over I have a feeling that I am not taking anything away with me. I don't think that comedy, unless it has a great deal of irony in it, corresponds to anything in life. It makes me feel vacant - just as though I had gone to a restaurant hungry and come away without eating.
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They won't ever let me forget Sunset Blvd. (1950). Maybe I shouldn't have done it. These people who watch the film now never heard of me. They weren't alive when I did silent films. They think I was Norma Desmond, and I keep telling them Norma Desmond was a creation, not a real character. I NEVER was Norma Desmond, and I don't know anyone who lived like that!
They won't ever let me forget Sunset Blvd. (1950). Maybe I shouldn't have done it. These people who watch the film now never heard of me. They weren't alive when I did silent films. They think I was Norma Desmond, and I keep telling them Norma Desmond was a creation, not a real character. I NEVER was Norma Desmond, and I don't know anyone who lived like that!
[on showing pictures of herself] You notice there are NO bathing beauty scenes? And I'll tell you why: I was never a Sennet bathing beauty. Those glossies that sometimes turn up were publicity stills that I unfortunately made as a favor when I had a free hour. And I've paid for it all of my life.
[on showing pictures of herself] You notice there are NO bathing beauty scenes? And I'll tell you why: I was never a Sennet bathing beauty. Those glossies that sometimes turn up were publicity stills that I unfortunately made as a favor when I had a free hour. And I've paid for it all of my life.
Under God we became the freest, strongest, wealthiest nation on earth. Should we change that?
Under God we became the freest, strongest, wealthiest nation on earth. Should we change that?
[on being transported by police through a mob of fans to the premiere of The Trespasser (1929)] As I felt my feet leave the ground, I could tell that someone behind me was standing on my train, so I screamed for one of the horsemen to pick it up. I was now completely horizontal, face down, like a battering ram, and that is the way they carried me through the...
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[on being transported by police through a mob of fans to the premiere of The Trespasser (1929)] As I felt my feet leave the ground, I could tell that someone behind me was standing on my train, so I screamed for one of the horsemen to pick it up. I was now completely horizontal, face down, like a battering ram, and that is the way they carried me through the crowd and into the theater lobby.
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Two of the more trivial topics I never discuss are my marriage [of three weeks] to Wallace Beery and those frozen dinners which have become famous with my name on them.
Two of the more trivial topics I never discuss are my marriage [of three weeks] to Wallace Beery and those frozen dinners which have become famous with my name on them.
[In a 1965 interview with DeWitt Bodeen] The public didn't want the truth, and I shouldn't have bothered to give it to them. In those days they wanted us to live like kings. So we did--and why not? We were in love with life. We were making more money than we ever dreamed existed, and there was no reason to believe it would ever stop.
[In a 1965 interview with DeWitt Bodeen] The public didn't want the truth, and I shouldn't have bothered to give it to them. In those days they wanted us to live like kings. So we did--and why not? We were in love with life. We were making more money than we ever dreamed existed, and there was no reason to believe it would ever stop.
[on Erich von Stroheim] The experience of working with him was unlike any I had had in more than 50 pictures. He was so painstaking and slow that I would lose all sense of time, hypnotized by the man's relentless perfectionism.
[on Erich von Stroheim] The experience of working with him was unlike any I had had in more than 50 pictures. He was so painstaking and slow that I would lose all sense of time, hypnotized by the man's relentless perfectionism.
Hollywood has called me in turn "The Clothes Horse", "The Old Grey Mare"--and "Death of a Saleswoman". Since my comeback in Sunset Blvd. (1950), I'm glad to say they've thought up a new title: "Gloss".
Hollywood has called me in turn "The Clothes Horse", "The Old Grey Mare"--and "Death of a Saleswoman". Since my comeback in Sunset Blvd. (1950), I'm glad to say they've thought up a new title: "Gloss".
Every victory is also a defeat.
Every victory is also a defeat.
By the time I was 15, my mother had turned me into a real clotheshorse.
By the time I was 15, my mother had turned me into a real clotheshorse.
At 26, I felt myself a victim rather than a victor in the realm of pictures.
At 26, I felt myself a victim rather than a victor in the realm of pictures.
As Daddy said, life is 95 percent anticipation.
As Daddy said, life is 95 percent anticipation.
All they had to do was put my name on a marquee and watch the money roll in.
All they had to do was put my name on a marquee and watch the money roll in.
A crisis arose when several newspapers questioned whether my singing voice was real. I had not sung--they wanted to know why.
A crisis arose when several newspapers questioned whether my singing voice was real. I had not sung--they wanted to know why.
After years of negotiating, I felt bitter and resentful about Mr. Lasky [Jesse L. Lasky] and Paramount and I knew I always would.
After years of negotiating, I felt bitter and resentful about Mr. Lasky [Jesse L. Lasky] and Paramount and I knew I always would.
After seven years in one place, not to mention two marriages and 32 pictures, I felt I had earned a vacation.
After seven years in one place, not to mention two marriages and 32 pictures, I felt I had earned a vacation.
After 16 years in pictures I could not be intimidated easily, because I knew where all the skeletons were buried.
After 16 years in pictures I could not be intimidated easily, because I knew where all the skeletons were buried.
[on Marlene Dietrich] Her legs may be longer than mine, but unlike me, she doesn't have 7 grandchildren.
[on Marlene Dietrich] Her legs may be longer than mine, but unlike me, she doesn't have 7 grandchildren.
It's amazing to find that so many people, who I thought really knew me, could have thought that Sunset Blvd. (1950) was autobiographical. I've got nobody floating in my swimming pool.
It's amazing to find that so many people, who I thought really knew me, could have thought that Sunset Blvd. (1950) was autobiographical. I've got nobody floating in my swimming pool.
[on her pre-Cecil B. DeMille years as a comedienne working for Mack Sennett] I played my comedies like Duse [serious classical actress Eleonora Duse], which is probably why I was so funny.
[on her pre-Cecil B. DeMille years as a comedienne working for Mack Sennett] I played my comedies like Duse [serious classical actress Eleonora Duse], which is probably why I was so funny.
[on her role in Airport 1975 (1974)] I was holding out for a picture I could take my grandchildren to see, something exciting and contemporary without senseless violence.
[on her role in Airport 1975 (1974)] I was holding out for a picture I could take my grandchildren to see, something exciting and contemporary without senseless violence.
[To her mother following her triumphant return to Hollywood in 1924 after making Madame Sans-Gêne (1925) in France] It's the saddest night of my life. I'm just 26. Where do I go from here?
[To her mother following her triumphant return to Hollywood in 1924 after making Madame Sans-Gêne (1925) in France] It's the saddest night of my life. I'm just 26. Where do I go from here?
[In 1922] I have gone through a long apprenticeship. I have gone through enough of being a nobody. I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment the star! Everybody from the studio gateman to the highest executive will know it.
[In 1922] I have gone through a long apprenticeship. I have gone through enough of being a nobody. I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment the star! Everybody from the studio gateman to the highest executive will know it.
When I die, my epitaph should read "She Paid the Bills". That's the story of my private life.
When I die, my epitaph should read "She Paid the Bills". That's the story of my private life.
I've given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You can't divorce a book.
I've given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You can't divorce a book.
I think all this talk about age is foolish. Every time I'm one year older, everyone else is too.
I think all this talk about age is foolish. Every time I'm one year older, everyone else is too.
All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year.
All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year.
I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment a star.
I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment a star.
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson went to public schools in Chicago; Key West, Florida; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her film debut was as an extra in The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (1915). From the following year on, she had leading roles in pictures for Keystone, then a year with Triangle, and, in 1919, a contract with Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille transformed her from a typical Mack Sennett comedienne into a lively, provocative, even predatory, star. She collected husbands (e.g., the indigent Henri de la Falaise) and lovers (e.g., Joseph P. Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy). Kennedy produced her Queen Kelly (1929), directed by Erich von Stroheim (it was von Stroheim's copy of this film that Swanson was watching as Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. (1950) when she leaped into the projection beam shouting, "Have they forgotten what a star looks like? I'll be up there again, so help me!"--ironic in that the butler-projectionist was, again, von Stroheim). She survived the switch to talkies, even learning how to sing for Music in the Air (1934), but her kinds of films were over with by that time. She returned to the stage in the 1940s ("Reflected Glory," "Let us Be Gay," "A Goose for a Gander"). She was a clothes designer and artist; she founded Essence of Nature Cosmetics; and she made television appearances through the 1960s and 1970s, doing cameos and pushing health foods. She received Best Actress nominations for Sadie Thompson (1928), The Trespasser (1929) and Sunset Blvd. (1950).
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