SWANSON, GLORIA (1899-1983)
Price: $175.00
Description:American actress, producer, and businesswoman. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for an Academy Award as Best Actress, most famously for her 1950 return in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, which also earned her a Golden Globe Award.
DS – DOCUMENT SIGNED – Signed autobiography Swanson on Swansonpublished in 1980. Hardbound. Original dust jacket. Not price-clipped. Jacket and interior clean and fresh. Graded: very good.
Swanson was born in Chicago and raised in a military family that moved from base to base. Her schoolgirl crush on Essanay Studios actor Francis X. Bushman led to her aunt taking her to tour the actor’s Chicago studio. The 15-year-old Swanson was offered a brief walk-on for one film as an extra, beginning her life’s career in front of the cameras. Swanson was soon hired to work in California for Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios comedy shorts opposite Bobby Vernon. She was eventually recruited by Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount Pictures, where she was put under contract for seven years.
In 1925, Swanson joined United Artists as one of the film industry’s pioneering women filmmakers. She produced and starred in the 1928 film Sadie Thompson, earning her a nomination for Best Actress at the first annual Academy Awards. Her sound film debut performance in the 1929 The Trespasser, earned her a second Academy Award nomination. After almost two decades in front of the cameras, her film success waned during the 1930s. Swanson received renewed praise for her comeback role in Sunset Boulevard (1950). She only made three more films, but guest starred on several television shows, and acted in road productions of stage plays.