Biography

Gloria Swanson was born Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Chicago, Illinois. She was destined to be perhaps one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era. Her personality and antics in private definitely made her a favorite with America's movie-going public. Gloria certainly didn't intend on going into show business. After her formal education in the Chicago school system and elsewhere, she began work in a department store as a salesclerk. In 1915, at the age of 18, she decided to go to a Chicago movie studio with an aunt to see how motion pictures were made. She was plucked out of the crowd, because of her beauty, to be included as a bit player in the film The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (1915). In her next film, she was an extra also, when she appeared in At the End of a Perfect Day (1915). After another uncredited role, Gloria got a more substantial role in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). In 1916, she first appeared with future husband Wallace Beery. Once married, the two pulled up stakes in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles to the film colony of Hollywood. Once out west, Gloria continued her torrid pace in films. She seemed to be in hit after hit in such films as The Pullman Bride (1917), Shifting Sands (1918), and Don't Change Your Husband (1919). By the time of the latter, Gloria had divorced Beery and was remarried, but it was not to be her last marriage, as she collected a total of six husbands. By the middle 1920s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. It has been said that Gloria made and spent over $8 million in the '20s alone. That, along with the six marriages she had, kept the fans spellbound with her escapades for over 60 years. They just couldn't get enough of her. Gloria was 30 when the sound revolution hit, and there was speculation as to whether she could adapt. She did. In 1928, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role of Sadie Thompson in the film of the same name but lost to Janet Gaynor for 3 different films. The following year, she again was nominated for the same award in The Trespasser (1929). This time, she lost out to Norma Shearer in The Divorcee (1930). By the 1930s, Gloria pared back her work with only four films during that time. She had taken a hiatus from film work after 1934's Music in the Air (1934) and would not be seen again until Father Takes a Wife (1941). That was to be it until 1950, when she starred in Sunset Boulevard (1950) as Norma Desmond opposite William Holden. She played a movie actress who was all but washed up. The movie was a box office smash and earned her a third Academy Award nomination as Best Actress, but she lost to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950). The film is considered one of the best in the history of film and, on June 16, 1998, was named one of the top 100 films of all time by the American Film Institute, placing 12th. After a few more films in the 1950s, Gloria more or less retired. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared mostly on television. Her last fling with the silver screen was Airport 1975 (1974), wherein she played herself. Gloria died on April 4, 1983, in New York City at the age of 84. There was never anyone like her, before or since.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Denny Jackson

She was born in Chicago in 1899 to a Polish-Alsatian mother and a Swedish-Italian father. She arrived in Hollywood with her first husband, actor Wallace Beery but were only married a few weeks before they separated, she began her career in 1914 as an extra at Essanay Studios in Chicago, she was an uncredited stenographer in 'Chaplin's 'His New Job'. He'd turned her down for a lead role feeling that she lacked the comedy spirit, In Hollywood Wallace signed a contract with Mack Sennett and insisted his wife was hired as well. She was in several romantic comedies with Bobby Vernon and was photographed in a swimsuit with Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties for publicity stills for A Pullman Bride but not as one of the Beauties. This and having to cuddle Mack Swain on a beach finished her for the chaotic slapstick films of Sennett, A brief spell at Triangle then Cecil B. DeMille gave her the lead in Don't Change Your Husband in 1919 for Paramount., He encouraged her to be seen in Extraordinary Outfits and she became the epitome of Hollywood glamour, She became Paramount's top box office star every year until she left in 1927 for United Artists, Before that she was in France making Madame Sans-Gene and returned to the States with her 3rd husband Marquis Henri de la Falaise, At UA she produced her own films with millionaire Joseph P Kennedy (father of JFK) as financial backer. Her husband was made head of the Paris office paving the way for a divorce and for Joseph and Gloria's affair, Joseph hired Erich Von Stroheim to direct her in Queen Kelly which put a glitch in her career, His passion for unnecessary detail in and re shooting scenes that had already been passed caused the costs to double the budget with no sign of completion so she fired him then had to spend some $200,000 trying to put the completed footage into shape with some new footage and British director Edmund Goulding's attempt to turn it into a talkie, The film had some screenings in Europe but was unseen in the States where it was abandoned as an expensive failure, Her adjustment to sound was smooth and The Trespasser, directed by Edmund Goulding earned her an Oscar nomination but a series of poor choices including Perfect Understanding in 1952 made at the newly opened AIP Studios at Ealing with a young Laurence Olivier caused her to fade away, She left Hollywood and became a successful businesswoman with occasional interest in returning to the screen, In 1937 she was in talks with Columbia about a screenplay based on a top Broadway play that producer David O, Selznick was willing to sell, Harry Cohn, Columbia's head turned it down saying that if Selznick was willing to give it up it couldn't be any good, It went to Warners who made it into one of Bette Davis's most successful films as Dark Victory.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5