I just found this interview with the then 66 year old Gloria Swanson, made for French television in 1965. In many ways its real value is to show what a truly deep character actress she was. I say this because the real Swanson could not be less like Norma Desmond, who she played fifteen years earlier in ‘Sunset Blvd.’, in every way. One assumes with a role like Desmond that it was tailored to some extent to Swanson’s persona–after all, Swanson’s career and Desmond’s are distinctly similar. (They even show footage of her unfinished Von Stroheim directed film ‘Queen Kelly’ in S.B.). One might be forgiven for assuming, then, that Swanson’s performance as Norma Desmond was a matter of ‘turning up the volume’ on Swanson’s actually personality–making something that was there intentionally larger and something of a caricature of the real Swanson.

But one would be mistaken to think so. Swanson in this interview bares so little resemblance to the grandiose, self-indulgent, overly dramatic Norma that it becomes clear that her performance had pretty much nothing to do with her actual life and persona and was in fact created from the ground up, as fully invented and technically accomplished as any classically trained actor (which she was not) would be capable of delivering. The real Swanson, as you’ll see, was charming, refreshingly low-key and matter of fact, absolutely comfortable in her own skin without dramatic flourishes. And what skin! She’s as fetching, attractive and well aware of her appeal as a woman forty years her junior might be. She sits coquettishly on a divan, feet tucked underneath her, and exudes serene sexual confidence. As someone whose only interest in silent films is in the comedies of the era, I’ve never known much about her pre-‘Sunset Blvd.’ career except the basics. I urge you to read her fascinating Wikipedia entry. It’s the story of a very modern woman of her era–something she continued to be well into her old age. She was an early proponent of Yoga, macro-biotic diets and other things then considered eccentrically faddish but now very much in the mainstream. And did you know she was married for a few horrific hours to Wallace Beery when she was a teenager? See? I told you it was a fascinating Wiki entry…