Background Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles has been associated with Hollywood film production since 1911, when the town's first film studio,
Nestor, opened there. Film workers lived modestly in the growing neighborhood, but during the 1920s, profits and salaries rose to unprecedented levels. With the advent of the
star system, luxurious homes noted for their often incongruous grandeur were built in the area. As a young man living in
Berlin in the 1920s,
Billy Wilder was deeply interested in American culture, with much of his interest fueled by film. In the late 1940s, many of the grand Hollywood houses remained, and Wilder, then a Los Angeles resident, found them to be a part of his everyday world. Many former stars from the silent era still lived in them, although most were no longer involved in the film business. Wilder wondered how they spent their time now that "the parade had passed them by" and began imagining the story of a star who had lost her celebrity and box-office appeal. The character of Norma Desmond mirrors aspects of the later lives of several former silent-film stars, such as the reclusive existences of
Mary Pickford and
Pola Negri and the mental health struggles of
Mae Murray,
Valeska Surratt,
Audrey Munson, and
Clara Bow. Critic
Dave Kehr has asserted that
Norma Talmadge is "the obvious if unacknowledged source of Norma Desmond, the grotesque, predatory silent movie queen". The most common analysis of the character's name is that it is a combination of the names of silent film actress
Mabel Normand and director
William Desmond Taylor, a close friend of Normand's who was murdered in 1922 in a never-solved case sensationalized by the press. Wilder and Brackett began working on a script in 1948, but the result did not completely satisfy them. In August 1948,
D. M. Marshman Jr., formerly a writer for
Life, was hired to help develop the storyline after Wilder and Brackett were impressed by a critique he provided of their film
The Emperor Waltz (1948). In an effort to keep the full details of the story from
Paramount Pictures and avoid the restrictive censorship of the
Breen Code, they submitted the script a few pages at a time. The Breen Office insisted certain lines be rewritten, such as Gillis's "I'm up that creek and I need a job," which became "I'm over a barrel. I need a job." Paramount executives thought Wilder was adapting a story called
A Can of Beans (which did not exist) and allowed him relative freedom to proceed as he saw fit. Only the first third of the script was written when filming began in early May 1949, and Wilder was unsure how the film would end. Wilder preferred to leave analysis of his screenplays and films to others. When asked if
Sunset Boulevard was a
black comedy, he replied: "No, just a picture".
Casting According to Brackett, Wilder and he never considered anyone except Gloria Swanson for the role of Norma Desmond. Wilder, however, recalled first wanting
Mae West and
Marlon Brando for the leads. West rejected the offer outright; she portrayed herself as a sex symbol through her senior years, and was offended that she should be asked to play a Hollywood has-been. The filmmakers approached
Greta Garbo, whom they had worked with previously on
Ninotchka (1939), but she was not interested. Wilder contacted Pola Negri by telephone, but had a difficult time understanding her heavy Polish accent. He then reached out to Clara Bow, the famed "
It girl" of the 1920s, but she declined, having found the transition to sound films so difficult that she preferred to leave her film career behind her. They also offered the part of Norma Desmond to
Norma Shearer, but she rejected the role due to both her retirement and distaste for the script. They were considering
Fred MacMurray to play opposite her as Joe. Wilder and Brackett then visited Mary Pickford, but before even discussing the plot with her, Wilder realized she would consider a role involving an affair with a man half her age an insult, so they departed. They had considered pairing
Montgomery Clift with her. According to Wilder,
George Cukor then suggested Swanson, one of the most fêted actresses of the silent era, known for her beauty, talent, and extravagant lifestyle. The similarities ended there; Swanson made a handful of sound films. She accepted the end of her film career and, in the early 1930s, moved to New York City, where she worked in radio. In the mid-1940s, she worked in television and on the New York stage and had last appeared in the 1941 film
Father Takes a Wife. Though Swanson was not seeking a movie comeback, she became intrigued when Wilder discussed the role with her. and she signed a contract for $50,000 (). In a 1975 interview, Wilder recalled Swanson's reaction with the observation, "There
was a lot of Norma in her, you know." Wilder harks back to Swanson's silent film career when Norma shows Joe the film
Queen Kelly, an earlier Gloria Swanson film directed by
Erich von Stroheim, who himself portrays Norma's former director and husband Max von Mayerling.
Queen Kelly was not released in the United States for over 50 years after Swanson walked off the set. Montgomery Clift was signed to play Joe Gillis for $5,000 per week for a guaranteed twelve weeks, but withdrew just before the start of filming, claiming his role of a young man involved with an older woman was too close to the one he had played in
The Heiress (1949), in which he felt he had been unconvincing. An infuriated Wilder responded, "If he's any kind of actor, he could be convincing making love to
any woman." Clift himself was having an affair with singer
Libby Holman, 15 years his senior, which some have suggested was his real reason for withdrawing from the film. Forced to consider the available Paramount contract players, Wilder and Brackett focused on William Holden, who had made an impressive debut a decade earlier in
Golden Boy (1939). Following an appearance in
Our Town (1940), he served in the military in
World War II, and his return to the screen afterward had been moderately successful. Holden was enthusiastic about the script and eager to accept the role. He did not know at the time that his salary of $39,000 () was much less than had been offered to Clift. For the role of Betty Schaefer, Wilder wanted a newcomer who could project a wholesome and ordinary image to contrast with Swanson's flamboyant and obsessive Desmond. He chose
Nancy Olson, who had recently been considered for the role of
Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's
Samson and Delilah. DeMille, often credited as the person most responsible for making Swanson a star, plays himself, with his scenes filmed on the set of
Samson and Delilah at Paramount Studios. He calls Norma "young fella", which had been his nickname for Swanson. Norma's friends who come to play
bridge with her, referred to by Joe as "the waxworks", were Swanson's silent-era contemporaries
Buster Keaton,
Anna Q. Nilsson, and
H. B. Warner, portraying themselves.
Hedda Hopper also played herself, reporting on Norma Desmond's downfall in the film's final scenes. The film had the option to be shot in color, but it was instead shot in black and white to be more reflective of the noir genre. Wilder was adamant that the corpse of Joe Gillis be seen from the bottom of the pool, but creating the effect was difficult. The camera was placed inside a specially constructed box and lowered under water, but the result disappointed Wilder, who insisted on further experiments. The shot was finally achieved by placing a mirror on the bottom of the pool and filming Holden's reflection from above, with the distorted image of the police officers standing around the pool forming a backdrop. Swanson recalled in her biography that the costumes were only "a trifle outdated, a trifle exotic." The overstated decadence of Norma Desmond's home was created by set designer
Hans Dreier, whose career extended back to the silent era. He had also been commissioned to complete the interior design for the homes of movie stars, including the house of Mae West.
William Haines, an interior designer and former actor, later rebutted criticism of Dreier's set design with the observation, "
Bebe Daniels,
Norma Shearer, and Pola Negri all had homes with ugly interiors like that." By 1949, it was owned by the former wife of
J. Paul Getty. The house was later featured in
Nicholas Ray's
Rebel Without a Cause (1955). It was demolished by the Gettys in 1957 to make way for the construction of an office building. During filming, considerable publicity was given to the health-conscious Gloria Swanson's youthful appearance, which made her look the same age as Holden. Wilder insisted that the age difference between the characters be delineated, and instructed makeup supervisor
Wally Westmore to make Swanson look older. Swanson argued that a woman of Norma Desmond's age, with her considerable wealth and devotion to self, would not necessarily look old, and suggested Holden be made up to appear younger. Wilder agreed, and Westmore was assigned this task, which allowed Swanson to portray Norma Desmond as more glamorous a figure than Wilder had originally imagined. ==Score==