Background
The street Sunset Boulevard has been associated with Hollywood film production since 1911, when the town's first film studio opened there. The film workers lived modestly in the growing neighborhood, but during the 1920s profits and salaries rose to unprecedented levels. With the advent of the star system, luxurious homes noted for their often incongruous grandeur were built in the area. The stars were the subject of public fascination throughout the world as magazines and newspapers reported the excesses of their lives.
Norma Talmadge has been described as "the obvious if unacknowledged source of Norma Desmond, the grotesque, predatory silent movie queen of" the film, itself a malignant misrepresentation of Talmadge starring an actress who had been a rival in the 1920s.
As a young man, Billy Wilder was interested in American culture, with much of his interest fueled by the country's films. In the late 1940s, many of the grand Hollywood houses remained, and Wilder, now a Los Angeles resident, found them to be part of his everyday world. Many former stars from the silent era still lived in them, although most were no longer involved in the film business. Wilder wondered how they spent their time now that "the parade had passed them by," and began imagining the story of a star who had lost her celebrity and box-office appeal.
Read more about this topic: Sunset Boulevard (film)
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