Movies

Get Ready for Your Close-Up on ‘Sunset Boulevard’ the Movie: 22 Rare Photos of the 1950s Classic

The 1950 film inspired Broadway’s hottest play—see rare shots from the movie set that started it all

By Abbey Bender June 11, 2025

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1. Fancy furs

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Gloria Swanson looks every bit the diva while draped in furs by legendary Hollywood costume designer Edith Head. Head was presented with a challenge in creating Norma Desmond’s costumes, as she had to capture the character’s delusions and merge contemporary style with elements of the silent era that her character was stuck in.
2. Charismatic costars

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You’d never know how dramatically things end for Swanson and Holden’s characters from this charming on-set shot!
3. In bloom

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Here, Swanson gives side-eye as she takes a smoke break by some flowers. Like her character, the actress rose to fame as a silent film star, and she felt that her comeback cast a long shadow, leading her to be typecast, saying, “I had a huge specter in the spotlight with me. She was about ten feet tall, and her name was Norma Desmond.”
4. The director and his muse

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Director Billy Wilder and Swanson make for a dynamic duo. Wilder, who also directed classics like Double Indemnity, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, originally considered Mae West, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Pola Negri, Norma Shearer and Mary Pickford for the role of Norma.
5. Boudoir luxury

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Norma lives in an elaborately decorated mansion befitting her delusional glamour. Here, the camera captures Swanson as she lays in her luxurious bed. The bed, which was shaped like a boat, had previously been used as a prop in a number of silent films.
6. Spa day

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In Sunset Boulevard, we see Norma undergo beauty treatments as she plans to make her big comeback, but of course, it’s all for naught. Here, we see Swanson being filmed as two attendants hold a magnifying glass to her face and apply lotion, in a scene that wouldn’t be so out of place for an aging movie star today.
7. Mr. DeMille

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Silent film director Cecil B. DeMille famously played himself in the film and inspired one of its best-known lines (“Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up”). Adding to the meta quality, Swanson starred in a variety of DeMille’s films during the silent era, so the director and the actress shared a real-life connection.
8. Parasol protection

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Swanson appears somewhat alarmed as she poses behind a parasol while flanked by Wilder and Erich von Stroheim, who played her butler. Like DeMille, von Stroheim was also a silent film director in real life, and his character was Norma’s ex-husband and a former director.
9. Diva on set

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Swanson looks fabulous as she reclines in a director’s chair while talking to DeMille. The actress said that, “Working for Mr. DeMille was like playing house in the world’s most expensive department store.”
10. Swanson smiles

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Swanson spends much of Sunset Boulevard pulling faces, but here, she’s all smiles as Wilder embraces her. While Swanson’s character was chaotic, Wilder revealed, “When I gave her the script, she said, I must do this, and she turned out to be an absolute angel.”
11. A kiss for milady

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As an actor, von Stroheim was known for playing stern, imposing figures, but here, he takes a moment to be gentlemanly, as he kisses Swanson’s hand while Holden looks on. Swanson and von Stroheim had a rocky history, as they clashed during the making of his 1929 film Queen Kelly, in which she played the title character, and he was even fired from it during production. Adding to the layers of drama, there’s a scene in Sunset Boulevard where which Norma shows that earlier film.
12. Dressing room drama

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Here, Swanson and DeMille take in the scene in a dressing room. In the film, her character visits the director on the set of his biblical epic Samson and Delilah, and the set of the 1949 DeMille film was reconstructed to make Sunset Boulevard’s depiction of behind-the-scenes life even more accurate.
13. Costume party

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In this shot from Sunset Boulevard’s Samson and Delilah set, Swanson poses with costumed actors from the earlier film.
14. Armored up

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Here, Swanson chats with Henry Wilcoxon, an actor who briefly reprised his Samson and Delilah role in Sunset Boulevard. Wilcoxon acted in many of DeMille’s films and later served as his associate producer.
15. A spiffy accessory

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In this cute moment from the set, Swanson admires a brooch on Wilder’s blazer.
16. Smoke break

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In the ’50s, smoking on film sets was commonplace, and here, Holden offers Wilder a cigarette.
17. Silent stars

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In a memorable scene, Swanson plays bridge with fellow real-life silent films stars Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and H.B. Warner. Here, they all pose with Holden and DeMille.
18. The Great Stone Face

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Silent film star Keaton’s deadpan expression earned him the title of the Great Stone Face, and you can certainly see it here, as he looks stoically at the paper Swanson’s happily holding up for him.
19. Bridge buddies

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Here, Wilder gives direction to the silent film stars as they play bridge. Holden’s character dismissively calls the group of former stars “the waxworks,” and Swanson said she “howled with laughter” when Keaton muttered, “waxworks is right,” during filming.
20. Two directors

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During the making of the film, Swanson sits between Wilder and DeMille, directors of two different generations. Wilder saw the self-referential casting of DeMille and other figures of the silent era as a key part of the film, saying, “I used stars wherever I could in Sunset Boulevard . . . The picture industry was only fifty or sixty years old, so some of the original people were still around. Because old Hollywood was dead, these people weren’t exactly busy. They had the time, got some money, a little recognition. They were delighted to do it.”
21. The infamous pool

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Sunset Boulevard opens with Holden’s character dead in Swanson’s pool and then moves into an extended flashback showing how he came to meet that dark fate. In this image, the crew films the actors as they lounge poolside. The production used a real Hollywood mansion for filming, but the pool was specifically built to fit the script.
22. An iconic gesture

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Swanson’s gesture and costume are instantly recognizable as cinematographer John F. Seitz films Sunset Boulevard’s unforgettable final scene.

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