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318 C H a p t e r 1 9 “You Used to Be Big” wHen paramoUnt prodUCer CHarles BraCKett Called swanson in September 1948 about Sunset฀Boulevard, she was already getting tired of TV. She liked the idea of taking a lucrative break in California to do a movie bit for Brackett and Billy Wilder, the hottest producer-director team in Hollywood. Fifteen years earlier, Wilder had been a struggling writer on Music฀in฀the฀Air; now he had eight Oscar nominations and two wins—for direction and screenplay—to his credit. Gloria felt certain she could get a week or two off from her show. No, Brackett said, she would be needed for longer: they wanted her for the lead in a major film. What would she think about a salary of $50,000? Swanson was not their first choice. The early idea—Brackett’s, anyway —was to do a comedy about an actress who had lost her hold on the box office. Wilder was lukewarm about the project until someone suggested that the actress had a Midwestern screenwriter as her paid escort. The gigolo would be the central character. When Wilder imagined the actress shooting the younger man, the story suddenly gained traction.1 With only half the first act down on paper, Brackett and Wilder approached Pola Negri, but Negri was unenthusiastic about portraying a fallen star, and her Polish accent was still disconcertingly thick. Mae West was downright insulted at the suggestion that she was past her prime; she was juggling offers from employers and beaux. The two men went to Pickfair to see if Mary Pickford might come out of retirement to play Norma Desmond. She was intrigued but wanted the script reshaped to focus on her character. Wilder claimed they backed away gently, saving Mary’s pride by saying the role was too “vulgar” for her.2 Pickford maintained she refused the part, suggesting they approach Gloria Swanson instead.3 In fact, George Cukor suggested Swanson to Wilder, and the idea quickly acquired the force of inevitability. Gloria had been famous in the silent era; she was still attractive; and she was known for her romantic “ y o U U s e d t o B e B i g ” 319 liaisons. Over lunch on Labor Day, Swanson found Wilder “elfish, witty, confident,” and full of energy; like her, he was seldom still. Brackett was the quieter, “more refined” one of the pair.4 A better diplomat, Brackett claimed they had never seriously considered anyone else for the part. There was only one catch: they wanted Gloria to do a screen test. “Me? Test? I was revolted,” Swanson said. “I said what the hell do you have to test me for? You want to see if I’m alive, do you? Or do you doubt I can act?” She flatly refused. Then her friends went to work on her: one by one, Clifton Webb, Allan Dwan, William Powell—even Mickey Neilan—told Gloria she should test. “Darling George Cukor” was especially persuasive: “That dear man,” she said, could “charm the birds out of the trees.”5 Cukor told Swanson she would be remembered for the part of Norma Desmond; that was all the persuasion Gloria needed. She aced her test, the scene where Joe Gillis first recognizes the aging actress: “You used to be in pictures,” he says. “You used to be big.” Swanson put on her Gorgon gaze for the first time as Norma Desmond and tried out the line she would make famous: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” Then she went back to New York to wind up her television series. She was glad to be out of the grind of television work and excited to be preparing for her picture: “Guess it’s the old circus horse in me scenting the sawdust again.”6 Yet when she posed for publicity photos with studio head Barney Balaban and Adolph Zukor, who was now chairman of the board at Paramount, the old man took her aside and had a quiet word. Keep your TV show, he advised her, but keep quiet about it: “If anyone hears you say the word television, you will have your mouth washed out.” Nonetheless, Zukor said, television was the future. “Everything was small about him but his ideas,” Swanson declared.7 Though she seldom looked back, she snatched a moment to write to Virginia from a favorite haunt: “I am sitting in...

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