Gloria Swanson: Ready for Her Close-Up

4. The Lions’ Den

47 C H a p t e r 4 The Lions’ Den swanson always rememBered Her first sCene for CeCil B. demille. She was in costume, packing a trunk, with lights and cameras trained on her. Suddenly a noise of whistles and car horns erupted, and people started dancing, hugging, and shouting for joy: the war was over. The euphoria on the lot seemed like a good omen to Gloria, who was also feeling jubilant.1 For the second time she had landed, not only on her feet, but another rung up the professional ladder. However, she was too busy to take much notice of the world outside the studio gates: working for Mr. DeMille was a full-time job. The new featured player found everything about working at Famous Players-Lasky impressive. The director was fully in charge, his control apparent even before the cameras began cranking on Don’t฀Change฀Your฀ Husband. DeMille called his cast and crew together to review the scenario , and Gloria felt she was part of a carefully designed project, not something flung together as quickly as possible. She also observed that no one volunteered any criticism of the director’s plans. She had already undergone another DeMille ritual. “No leading player was hired without benefit of a ceremony in the boss’s office,” said one longtime employee.2 The director apologized to Gloria for trying to lure her from Triangle, fearing he had done her a disservice with her employers . Swanson, however, was not sorry at all. She had learned that when she suddenly became available, DeMille dismissed his leading lady. Though they were already two weeks into production and it meant starting over, he wanted Gloria for the part. This would have been unthinkable at Triangle. DeMille encouraged Swanson to wander through the sets, familiarizing herself with the furniture and props furnishing her screen home. How wonderfully sensitive, she thought, to know that a woman would want to fuss with the décor: “I would walk around, open the magazines, t H e l i o n s ’ d e n 48 make it look as if it had been lived in. [I would] try to work out some pieces of business that might denote the mood I was in.”3 The flowers in the vases were real; so were the furs and jewels. There was even violin music to set the mood. DeMille had a plan for the young actress. He had been making lavish , expensive period pictures; now he wanted to capture something of the modern temper. Gloria could help him satisfy the public hunger for “modern stuff with plenty of clothes, rich sets, and action.” He would not give up what Jesse Lasky called “spectacle stuff” but incorporate it into his tales of contemporary marriage.4 DeMille’s most recent picture, Old฀Wives฀for฀New, had dared to suggest that a mismatched couple would be better served by divorce than staying together. Adolph Zukor found this shocking and insisted on testing the picture with preview audiences, who were less shocked. Old฀Wives did brisk business. DeMille’s approach with Swanson and Elliott Dexter was simple. Don’t฀ Change฀Your฀Husband concentrates on the destructive impact of an average married woman’s dissatisfaction with her husband. DeMille and scenarist Jeanie Macpherson devised an elegant premise: a modern marriage is in trouble, and divorce and a new, more desirable spouse seem the answer. But rather than embracing divorce, Don’t฀Change presents it as a wrong move that will itself be corrected. After finding a new mate, the wife leaves him, too, reconciling happily with her first husband. Screwball comedies like The฀Awful฀Truth and The฀Philadelphia฀Story would have fun with this premise twenty years later. The film’s curious title came amid a barrage of marriage-oriented problem pictures, movies with names like Should฀a฀Wife฀Forgive? (and its opposite number, Should฀a฀Husband฀Forgive?). Other films asked Should฀ a฀Woman฀Divorce?, Should฀a฀Wife฀Work?, Should฀a฀Woman฀Tell?, Should฀She฀ Obey?, and—perhaps not surprisingly, given all the confusion—Should฀a฀ Girl฀Marry? By 1920, one film advised a complete withdrawal from the field: Don’t฀Ever฀Marry. If audiences were ready to patronize pictures on these topical questions, DeMille was happy to provide them. DeMille’s innovation was his exploration of a woman’s fantasy life. In lavishly imagined scenes, Swanson’s Leila sees three “priceless gifts” her silver-tongued seducer offers: pleasure, wealth, and love...