We watched Sunset Boulevard (1950) the other night on DVD, thanks to Netflix. It struck me that Gloria Swanson's character of Norma Desmond was at the time supposed to be 50 years old--ancient enough to be a washed-up old bag desperate for her comeback. In some way, Swanson's scenery-chewing performance reminded one of Madonna... In any case, the film is funny, especially as an inside joke about Hollywood, which hasn't changed much, it seems. Norma Desmond had a pet chimp--so did Michael Jackson. Norma Desmond believed in astrologers--so did Nancy Reagan. Norma Desmond had her first spouse work as her domestic servant--so did the owners of a Hollywood bookshop where someone I know toiled in the 1990s.
Swanson's life was apparently as melodramatic as Norma Desmond's--minus the murder of William Holden. Here's a list of Swanson's real-life romances from Wikipedia:
Marriages and RelationshipsThere's an interesting review of the film by D.K. Holm on DVD Journal.
She married actor Wallace Beery (1885-1949) in 1916. They divorced in 1919 with no children but according to Swanson she miscarried after Beery, encouraged by his mother, secretly gave her a poison intended to induce a miscarriage.
She married Herbert K. Somborn (1881-1934), then president of Equity Pictures Corporation and later the owner of the Brown Derby restaurant, in 1919. Their daughter, Gloria Swanson Somborn, was born in 1920. Their divorce, finalized in January 1925, was sensational. Somborn accused her of adultery with 13 men including Cecil B. DeMille, Rudolph Valentino and Marshall Neilan. During this divorce in 1923 Swanson adopted a baby boy named Sonny Smith (1922-1975). She renamed him Joseph Patrick Swanson in tribute to her then lover, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr., the Kennedy family patriarch.
Her third husband was French aristocrat Henry de la Falaise, Marquis de la Falaise whom she married in 1925 after the Somborn divorce was finalized. He became a film executive representing Pathé in the United States. She conceived a child with him but had an abortion which she said (in her autobiography, Swanson on Swanson) she regretted. This marriage ended in divorce in 1931.
In August 1931, Swanson married Michael Farmer (1902-1975). Although frequently described as a sportsman the only evidence of the Irishman's prowess was his frequent betrothals. Unfortunately Swanson's divorce from La Falaise had not been finalized at the time, making the actress technically a bigamist. She was forced to remarry Farmer the following November, by which time she was four months pregnant with Michelle Bridget Farmer, who was born in 1932. The Farmers were divorced in 1934.
In 1945 Swanson married William N. Davey and they divorced in 1946. Little is known of Davey except that single mother Gloria married this rich man because young Michelle had been nagging her about wanting a father. According to Swanson, she and Davey actually cohabited forty-five days.
Swanson's final marriage was in 1976 and lasted until her death. Her sixth husband, writer William Dufty (1916-2002), was the co-author of Billie Holiday's autobiography Lady Sings the Blues and the author of Sugar Blues, a best-selling health book. Swanson shared her husband's enthusiasm for macrobiotic diets.
