Gloria Swanson: From Silent Film Icon to Hollywood Legend

Gloria Josephine May Svensson was born on March 27, 1897, in Chicago. The daughter of a military man, she spent much of her childhood moving frequently. In 1913, she began working as an extra at Essanay Studios. That same year, she met Wallace Beery, her first husband.

Her film debut came in The Song of Soul (1914). Gloria made a brief appearance in Charlie Chaplin’s His New Job, but soon realized comedy was not her main focus.

After divorcing Beery, she worked with renowned director Cecil B. DeMille in films like Don’t Change Your Husband (1919), For Better, For Worse (1919), Male and Female (1919), and Something to Think About (1920).

With the arrival of sound films, she starred in The Trespasser (1929) and What a Widow! (1930), but her popularity began to decline. Her major comeback came with Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), where she played a silent film actress struggling to accept her faded fame — a role mirroring her own life.

Her final film appearance was in Airport (1979), where she played herself. One of her early films, Beyond the Rocks, in which she starred alongside Rudolph Valentino, was considered lost for many years before being rediscovered in 2004.

In her personal life, Gloria Swanson was married seven times. Her most notable relationship was with Joseph Kennedy, father of John F. Kennedy. She had three children, two of whom were adopted.

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Carla Marinho Leal

Writer, traveler and above all, curious about many subjects. She has studied cinema since 2002 and is a Specialist in Cinematographic Studies from UNICAP. Founder of the blog Purviance and the website Cinemaclássico. She loves Charles Chaplin, Raj Kapoor and constantly browses films from all over the world.

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