Joe Trivia: The 5th Golden Boy Blogathon

I have lots of favorite noir films and lots of favorite performances, but right up there near the top is William Holden’s portrayal of Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard (1950). The plot of this celebrated film centers on Joe, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter, who gets more than he bargains for when he meets has-been silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and is pulled into the dusty web of her existence. The film co-stars Erich von Stroheim, as Norma’s first husband, former director, and devoted butler; and Nancy Olson as a would-be writer who captures Joe’s heart.

The face I fell for.

When I wrote my second book, Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir, I included a chapter on William Holden and I must confess that I developed quite a crush on him. By the time his chapter was complete, I had a full-on obsession and set about getting every Holden film, photograph, and book I could get my hands on. My passion has long since cooled, but he will always hold a very fond place in my heart, so I’m delighted to honor Mr. Holden as part of the 5th Golden Boy Blogathon. And because one of my favorite things to do is learn and share trivia about classic film, I’m celebrating by imparting some trivial tidbits related to William Holden and Sunset Boulevard. I hope you enjoy them . . .

Holden said in a 1971 interview that his favorite role was Joe Gillis.

In her autobiography, Gloria Swanson wrote that Holden was “brilliant in our picture, and I adored him.”

Billy Wilder, the film’s director, once called Holden “the ideal motion picture actor.”

“The perfect person . . . at the perfect moment in life.”

Nancy Olson, who co-starred with Holden in three other films in addition to Sunset Boulevard (including another noir that year, Union Station), said that Holden was “the perfect person for Joe Gillis at the perfect moment in life. His career was beginning to slide. He was playing roles like the husband in Apartment for Peggy where the picture was about Peggy and not about him. Low-budget, churned-out films. He was already drinking too much, and he was just a little frayed around the edges.”

Holden was not the first choice to play Joe. Initially, Montgomery Clift was cast in the part, but he quit two weeks before production started. Fred MacMurray, Gene Kelly, and Marlon Brando were all considered before the role was given to Holden.

When filming on Sunset Boulevard began, William Holden was 31 years old. His character was supposed to be 25, so make-up was applied so that he would look younger.

Keep your eyes peeled for the goof in this scene.

Watch for this goof: in the scene where Norma is reclining beside the swimming pool in her leopard-skin garb, Joe emerges from the pool and dries off his face, neck and chest. Norma tells him to turn around so that she can dry his back, but when he does, we see that his face, neck and chest are wet again. (That must’ve been some pool!)

A well-circulated story involves the kiss between Holden and Nancy Olson near the end of the picture. As the story goes, Billy Wilder yelled “Cut!” but the kiss continued until Holden’s jealous wife Brenda Marshall, who happened to stop by the set, screamed for them to stop. According to Nancy Olson, however, Wilder never called “Cut,” and the whole thing was a practical joke that everyone was in on – including Brenda Marshall – except Olson. “It was a prank, of course it was!” Olson told author Sam Staggs for his 2002 book Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard.

Holden’s performance was critically acclaimed.

Holden received unanimously rave reviews for his performance. In a typical review, the critic for the New York Times wrote that Holden “is doing the finest acting of his career. His range and control of emotions never falter, and he engenders a full measure of compassion for a character who is somewhat less than admirable.”

Holden, along with Swanson, reprised his role as Joe Gillis in a September 1951 radio adaptation of the film on Lux Radio Theater.

Holden earned $30,000 for his role in Sunset Boulevard. (By comparison, he received $750,000 almost 25 years later for a supporting part in the 1974 disaster film, The Towering Inferno.)

And finally, while some of the lines uttered by Gloria Swanson are now legendary, Holden delivered a number of memorable quotes as well. Here are just a few:

“It was a great big white elephant of a place.”

“Finally, I located that agent of mine – the big faker. Was he out digging up a job for poor Joe Gillis? Huh. He was hard at work at Bel-Air making with the golf sticks.”

“It was a great big white elephant of a place. The kind crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades. It was like that old woman in “Great Expectations.” That Miss Havisham in her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil, taking it out on the world, because she’d been given the go-by.”

“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.”

“You don’t yell at a sleepwalker.”

“It was all very queer. But queerer things were yet to come.”

“You don’t yell at a sleepwalker – he may fall and break his neck. That’s it: she was still sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career.”

“So they were turning after all, those cameras. Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.”

If you’ve never seen William Holden’s performance in Sunset Boulevard, I envy you having that experience ahead of you. And if you have, it may be time to pull it out and give the film a rewatch. It – and Holden – only get better with time.

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This post is part of the 5th Golden Boy Blogathon, hosted by Virginie Provonost at The Wonderful World of Cinema, Michaela at Love Letters to Hollywood, and Emily at The Flapper Dame. Visit their blogs to read all of the great tributes to this unforgettable actor!

You’ll be glad you did.

~ by shadowsandsatin on April 15, 2022.