Gloria Swanson ‘Lived Extravagantly’ and ‘Spent Wildly’ (Exclusive)

In a 1957 interview with reporter Mike Wallace, Hollywood legend Gloria Swanson, 58, sits in a chic costume topped with an elaborate off-the-shoulder bow, her white-gloved palms twirling a flower in her lap. As Wallace prods her with questions on her expertise, her age, and if she’s completed with Hollywood after her best-known function as fading actress Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Gloria smiles calmly. “Wait a minute, am I by way of with Hollywood or are they by way of with me?” she asks. “I’d like to do photos. I’m one of many individuals who believes in romance, and I don’t suppose that has any age.”

Gloria would go on to show that, for her, it was true. She rose to fame as a glamorous star of silent films and had legions of followers. “She lived extravagantly. She traveled with entourages. She spent wildly,” Stephen Shearer, creator of the brand new e-book Gloria Swanson: Hollywood’s First Glamour Queen, tells Nearer. “In these days, the general public needed us to reside like kings and queens. And why not? We had been in love with life,” mentioned Gloria, who had six husbands, quite a few lovers and three kids.

As she aged, she refused to dwell on her dimming celeb. As a substitute, she took TV elements, grew to become a sculptor and designed a clothes line bought at Saks Fifth Avenue known as Without end Younger. “Gloria represented a picture of glamour,” says Shearer, “She by no means lived up to now as Norma Desmond did. Gloria at all times lived for the longer term.”

Inside Gloria Swanson’s Scandal

Barely 5-feet tall, with luminous eyes and the aura of a star, Gloria began in silent movies at 14, first in her native Chicago after which in Los Angeles, working with such legends as Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and Cecil B. DeMille. She grew to become increasingly well-known — at one level she reportedly acquired 10,000 fan letters every week. And Gloria reveled within the highlight, touring, spending like loopy, taking lovers and dressing in Chanel couture. “She knew she needed to reside a way of life to current that picture,” Shearer explains, “so she might perpetuate her profession and her way of life.”

By 26, she was being provided million-dollar contracts and had married her third husband, the French marquis Henri de la Falaise. She had a daughter and an adopted son together with her second husband, director and producer Herbert Somborn. Somborn had divorced her in 1923 after accusing her of getting 13 affairs. “Gloria at all times was a sensualist,” Shearer says. The following scandal led studios so as to add a morality clause to her contracts.

Whereas married to Henri, she met Joseph Kennedy, who provided to assist Gloria together with her rising cash issues. Their chemistry was plain.“His mouth was on mine earlier than both of us might communicate,” she later wrote of their first encounter. However Kennedy didn’t assist her financially. As a substitute, says Shearer, “he mishandled her cash and mainly padded his personal checking account.”

Gloria Swanson Honed in on Her Future

Gloria stayed targeted on the longer term. “She at all times was in a position to make use of her identify, her clout, her legend and picture to maintain earnings coming in,” Shearer says. Although her movie profession cooled, she skilled a resurgence with 1950’s Oscar-winning Sundown Boulevard. She continued to behave on stage and TV, was a prolific painter and sculptor, and “she had good, loving relationships together with her kids and grandchildren,” says Shearer.

Gloria died in 1983 at age 84, and she or he by no means misplaced her sparkle. “Her picture is one thing you possibly can’t take your eyes off of,” Shearer tells Nearer. “Hollywood won’t ever be what it was when Gloria Swanson was the primary glamour queen.”