Glenn Close, star of stage and screen, was born on this day in 1947.
In the above interview (Stephen Colbert seems genuinely curious about his guest, doesn't he?), mention is made of the Broadway revival of Sunset Boulevard, in which Close plays the mentally unstable former silent film star Norma Desmond, a role she had first tackled in the 1990s...
...to much acclaim.
A clip from that earlier production:
Jane Goodall couldn't have delivered a better eulogy.
Before it was an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Sunset Boulevard was a 1950 motion picture directed by the great Billy Wilder. Though she didn't sing, Gloria Swanson, above, was the first person to play Norma Desmond. A classic line from that classic movie:
"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
Or course, Norma, whether played by Gloria or Glenn, had no way of knowing just how small those pictures were going to get.
"All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my close-up."
