Gloria Swanson
Motion Pictures Category Star
- Ceremony was on February 8, 1960
Gloria Swanson
Television Category Star
- Ceremony was on February 8, 1960
Gloria Swanson
As Norma Desmond from Sunset Blvd. (1950)
- Gloria Swanson is portrayed here as the beautiful yet tragic 'Norma Desmond' in the Hollywood classic drama, Sunset Blvd. (1950)
- A true star of the silver screen, Swanson epitomized glamour in the early days of Hollywood. Starting out in black and white silent films, she successfully transitioned into talkies' winning standing ovations and accolades with every performance
- Swanson once entered a real lion's den for a film with director Cecil B. DeMille. Afterwards, he always called her Young Fellow' as she had more courage than any man he ever knew
Born Gloria May Josephine Svensson on March 27, 1897 in Chicago, IL
Died April 4, 1983 in New York, NY
Gloria Swanson
A screen legend dies at 84
Photostery From UPI and Free Press files
Gloria Swanson was an actress and a woman of the world, and fulfilling those roles brought her to Detroit several Times over her long show business career. That career ended with her death Monday at age 84.
There was her starring role in "Let Us Be Gay" at Detroit's old Shubert Lafayette back in 1943. She gave a spirited performance as a divorcee who, called upon to lend aid in a romantic emergency, worked her way out of an embarrassing situation to a happy conclusion," wrote Free Press drama editor Len G. Shaw, She returned to the same theater in "A Goose for the Gander" in 1944.
Then there was a 1949 stop to promote her movie "The Heiress" and a 1950 stop to plug for U.S. Savings Bonds. Both were nondescript visits, but typical of the later stages of her career when she was a star to be seen and could draw people by the sheer magnetism of her name.
Her last visits, in 1975 and 1976, weren't all that different. In 1975, she returned to provide narration for her silent film "Queen Kelly," being rerun at the Royal Oak Theatre. In 1976, it was to promote a cameo appearance in the film "Killer Bees." On Channel 7's "A.M. Detroit," host Dennis Wholey, after viewing a film clip, blurted out "You can act!" Swanson responded coolly: "So I've been told By experts - like Mr. (Cecil B) DeMille."
But at the end, she seemed a women who preferred to cling to her illustrious past. Talking about her lite to the Free Press in 1976, she remarked, "Things have changed in an ugly way, not a happy, beautiful way."
- John Smyntek
Free Press Entertainment Editor
