Norma’s friends who come to play bridge with her, described in the script as “the waxworks”, were Swanson’s contemporaries H. B. Warner, Anna Q. Nilsson, and Buster Keaton, all silent film greats.

Sunset Boulevard (1950) dir. Billy Wilder

Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond

Sunset Boulevard (1950) dir. Billy Wilder

The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis — out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion.

Sunset Blvd. (dir. Billy Wilder, 1950)

Gloria Swanson in Zaza (Allan Dwan, 1923)

Vintage portrait photos of Gloria Swanson for ‘Sadie Thompson’ (1928).