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Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American black comedy film noir directed by Billy Wilder and co-written by Wilder, Charles Brackett and D. M. Marshman Jr. It is named after a Sunset Boulevard that runs through Hollywood.
The film stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star who draws him into her deranged fantasy world, where she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen. Erich von Stroheim plays Max von Mayerling, her devoted butler, and Nancy Olson, Jack Webb, Lloyd Gough, and Fred Clark appear in supporting roles. Director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper play themselves, and the film includes by silent-film stars Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson.
Praised by many Film critic when first released, Sunset Boulevard was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (including nominations in all four acting categories) and won three. It is often ranked among the greatest movies ever made. As it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989, Sunset Boulevard was included in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 1998, it was ranked number 12 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 best American films of the 20th century. In 2007, it was 16th on their 10th Anniversary list.
Six months earlier, Joe, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter, tries to interest Paramount Pictures in a story he submitted. Script coverage Betty Schaefer harshly critiques it, unaware that Joe is listening. Later, while fleeing from repossession seeking his car, Joe turns into the driveway of a seemingly deserted mansion inhabited by forgotten silent film star Norma Desmond. Learning that Joe is a writer, Norma asks his opinion of a script she has written for a film about Salome. She plans to play the role herself in her return to the screen. Joe finds her script abysmal but flatters her into hiring him as a script doctor.
Joe moves into Norma's mansion at her insistence and sees that Norma refuses to believe that her fame has evaporated. Her butler, Max, secretly writes all of the fan mail she receives in order to maintain the illusion. At her New Year's Eve party, Joe realizes that she has fallen in love with him. He tries to let her down gently, but Norma slaps him and retreats to her room, distraught. Joe visits his friend Artie Green and again meets Betty, who thinks a scene in one of Joe's scripts has potential. When he phones Max to have him pack his things, Max tells him Norma has cut her wrists with his razor. Joe then returns to Norma, and their relationship becomes sexual.
Norma has Max deliver the edited Salome script to her former director Cecil B. DeMille at Paramount. She starts getting calls from Paramount executive Gordon Cole but refuses to speak to anyone except DeMille. Eventually, she has Max drive her and Joe to Paramount in her 1929 Isotta Fraschini. DeMille welcomes her affectionately and treats her with great respect but tactfully evades her questions about the script. Max then learns that Cole only called her because he wants to rent her Isotta Fraschini for use in a film.
Preparing for her imagined comeback, Norma undergoes rigorous beauty treatments. Joe secretly works nights in Betty's office, collaborating on an original screenplay, and she eventually confesses she has fallen for him. After learning of Joe's moonlighting, Max reveals he was once a respected film director who discovered Norma, made her a star, and became her first husband. Following their divorce, he abandoned his career to become her servant.
Norma discovers a manuscript with Joe and Betty's names on it and phones Betty, insinuating that Joe is not the man he seems. Overhearing the call, Joe invites Betty to the mansion to see for herself. When she arrives, he pretends that he is satisfied being a gigolo so that she can be with Artie. However, after she tearfully leaves, he packs to return to his old newspaper job in Dayton, Ohio. He bluntly informs Norma that there will be no comeback, that Max writes all of her fan mail, and that she has been forgotten, though Max refuses to break her delusions. Joe disregards Norma's threat to kill herself as she brandishes a gun; as he leaves the house, Norma shoots him three times, and he collapses into the pool.
The flashback ends, and the film returns to the present day, with Norma about to be arrested for murder. The mansion is overrun with police and reporters with newsreel cameras, which she believes are film cameras. Max pretends to "direct" her, and the police play along. As the cameras roll, Norma descends the grand staircase. Upon reaching the bottom, she stops and makes an impromptu speech about how happy she is to be making a film again. She then says, "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." and approaches the camera.
As a young man living in Berlin in the 1920s, 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, then a Los Angeles resident, found them to be a 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.Perry, p. ??
The character of Norma Desmond mirrors aspects of the twilight years of several real-life faded silent-film stars, such as the reclusive existences of Mary Pickford and Pola Negri and the mental disorders of Mae Murray, Valeska Surratt, Audrey Munson and Clara Bow. Dave Kehr has asserted that Norma Talmadge is "the obvious if unacknowledged source of Norma Desmond, the grotesque, predatory silent movie queen" of the film. The most common analysis of the character's name is that it is a combination of the names of silent film actress Mabel Normand and director William Desmond Taylor, a close friend of Normand's who was murdered in 1922 in a never-solved case sensationalized by the press.
Wilder and Brackett began working on a script in 1948, but the result did not completely satisfy them. In August 1948, D. M. Marshman Jr., formerly a writer for Life, was hired to help develop the storyline after Wilder and Brackett were impressed by a critique he provided of their film The Emperor Waltz (1948). In an effort to keep the full details of the story from Paramount Pictures and avoid the restrictive censorship of the Breen Code, they submitted the script a few pages at a time. The Breen Office insisted certain lines be rewritten, such as Gillis's "I'm up that creek and I need a job," which became "I'm over a barrel. I need a job." Paramount executives thought Wilder was adapting a story called A Can of Beans (which did not exist) and allowed him relative freedom to proceed as he saw fit. Only the first third of the script was written when filming began in early May 1949, and Wilder was unsure how the film would end.
The fusion of writer-director Billy Wilder's biting humor and the classic elements of film noir make for a strange kind of comedy, as well as a strange kind of film noir. There are no belly laughs here, but there are certainly strangled giggles: at the pet chimp's midnight funeral, at Joe's discomfited acquiescence to the role of gigolo; at Norma's Mack Sennett-style "entertainments" for her uneasy lover; and at the ritualized solemnity of Norma's "waxworks" card parties, which feature such former luminaries as Buster Keaton as Norma's has-been cronies.Kirgo (1979), p.276.
Wilder preferred to leave analysis of his screenplays and films to others. When asked if Sunset Boulevard was a black comedy, he replied: "No, just a picture".
The filmmakers approached Greta Garbo, whom they had worked with previously on Ninotchka (1939), but she was not interested. Wilder contacted Pola Negri by telephone, but had a difficult time understanding her heavy Polish accent. He then reached out to Clara Bow, the famed "It girl" of the 1920s, but she declined, having found the transition to sound films so difficult that she preferred to leave her film career behind her. They also offered the part of Norma Desmond to Norma Shearer, but she rejected the role due to both her retirement and distaste for the script. They were considering Fred MacMurray to play opposite her as Joe. Wilder and Brackett then visited Mary Pickford, but before even discussing the plot with her, Wilder realized she would consider a role involving an affair with a man half her age an insult, so they departed. They had considered pairing Montgomery Clift with her.Sikov, p. 286
According to Wilder, he asked George Cukor for advice, and he suggested Swanson, one of the most fêted actresses of the silent-screen era, known for her beauty, talent, and extravagant lifestyle. In many ways, she resembled the Norma Desmond character, and like her, had been unable to make a smooth transition into talking pictures. The similarities ended there; Swanson made a handful of talking pictures. She accepted the end of her film career and, in the early 1930s, moved to New York City, where she worked in radio. In the mid-1940s, she worked in television and on the New York stage and had last appeared in the 1941 film Father Takes a Wife. Though Swanson was not seeking a movie comeback, she became intrigued when Wilder discussed the role with her.
Swanson was glad for the opportunity to earn a greater salary than she had been making in television and on stage. However, she was chagrined at the notion of submitting to a screen test, saying she had "made 20 films for Paramount. Why do they want me to audition?" Her reaction was echoed in the screenplay when Norma Desmond declares, "Without me there wouldn't be any Paramount studios." In her memoir, Swanson recalled asking Cukor if it was unreasonable to refuse the screen test. He replied that since Norma Desmond was the role for which she would be remembered, "If they ask you to do ten screen tests, do ten screen tests, or I will personally shoot you." His enthusiasm convinced Swanson to participate,Swanson, pp.249-260 and she signed a contract for $50,000 ().Sikov, p. 285 In a 1975 interview, Wilder recalled Swanson's reaction with the observation, "There was a lot of Norma in her, you know." Billy Wilder – "About Film Noir . Interview July 1975. Retrieved July 21, 2005.
Wilder harks back to Swanson's silent film career when Norma shows Joe the film Queen Kelly, an earlier Gloria Swanson film directed by Erich von Stroheim, who himself portrays Norma's butler and former director and husband Max von Mayerling. Queen Kelly was not released in the United States for over 50 years after Swanson walked off the set.
Montgomery Clift was signed to play Joe Gillis for $5,000 per week for a guaranteed twelve weeks, but withdrew just before the start of filming, claiming his role of a young man involved with an older woman was too close to the one he had played in The Heiress (1949), in which he felt he had been unconvincing. An infuriated Wilder responded, "If he's any kind of actor, he could be convincing making love to any woman."Sikov, p. 288 Clift himself was having an affair with singer Libby Holman, 15 years his senior, which some have suggested was his real reason for withdrawing from the film.
Forced to consider the available Paramount contract players, Wilder and Brackett focused on William Holden, who had made an impressive debut a decade earlier in Golden Boy (1939). Following an appearance in Our Town (1940), he served in the military in World War II, and his return to the screen afterward had been moderately successful. Holden was enthusiastic about the script and eager to accept the role. He did not know at the time that his salary of $39,000 () was much less than had been offered to Clift.Sikov, pp. 288–289
For the role of Betty Schaefer, Wilder wanted a newcomer who could project a wholesome and ordinary image to contrast with Swanson's flamboyant and obsessive Desmond. He chose Nancy Olson, who had recently been considered for the role of Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah.Staggs (2002), p. ??
DeMille, often credited as the person most responsible for making Swanson a star, plays himself, with his scenes filmed on the set of Samson and Delilah at Paramount Studios. He calls Norma "young fella", which had been his nickname for Swanson.
Norma's friends who come to play Contract bridge with her, referred to by Joe as "the waxworks", were Swanson's silent-era contemporaries Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H. B. Warner, portraying themselves. Hedda Hopper also played herself, reporting on Norma Desmond's downfall in the film's final scenes.
Wilder was adamant that the corpse of Joe Gillis be seen from the bottom of the pool, but creating the effect was difficult. The camera was placed inside a specially constructed box and lowered under water, but the result disappointed Wilder, who insisted on further experiments. The shot was finally achieved by placing a mirror on the bottom of the pool and filming Holden's reflection from above, with the distorted image of the police officers standing around the pool forming a backdrop.
Film historian Tom Stempel writes: "In both Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, Seitz does something that has always impressed me. Both are films noir, and he finesses the fact that both are set in the sunniest of locales, Los Angeles... he brings together the light and the dark in the same film without any seams showing... he brings together the realistic lighting of Joe Gillis out in the real world with the gothic look of Norma Desmond's mansion."
Edith Head designed the costumes. Wilder, Head, and Swanson agreed that Norma Desmond would have kept somewhat up-to-date with fashion trends, so Head designed costumes closely resembling the Christian Dior look of the mid-1940s. Embellishments were added to personalize them and reflect Norma Desmond's taste.
Swanson recalled in her biography that the costumes were only "a trifle outdated, a trifle exotic." Head later described her assignment as "the most challenging of my career," and explained her approach with the comment, "Because Norma Desmond was an actress who had become lost in her own imagination, I tried to make her look like she was always impersonating someone." Head later said she relied on Swanson's expertise because "she was creating a past that she knew and I didn't." Head also designed the costumes for William Holden and the minor characters, but Wilder instructed von Stroheim and Nancy Olson to wear their own clothing.
The overstated decadence of Norma Desmond's home was created by set designer Hans Dreier, whose career extended back to the silent era. He had also been commissioned to complete the interior design for the homes of movie stars, including the house of Mae West. William Haines, an interior designer and former actor, later rebutted criticism of Dreier's set design with the observation, "Bebe Daniels, Norma Shearer, and Pola Negri all had homes with ugly interiors like that."
The bed in the shape of a boat in which Norma Desmond slept had been owned by the dancer Gaby Deslys, who died in 1920. It had originally been bought by the Universal prop department at auction after Deslys's death. The bed appeared in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) starring Lon Chaney.
Wilder also made use of authentic locales. Joe's apartment is in the Alto Nido, a real apartment block in central Hollywood that was often home to struggling writers. It is located at 1851 Ivar Ave. and Franklin Ave. west of the Hollywood Freeway. The scenes of Gillis and Betty Schaefer on Paramount's back lot were filmed on the actual studio back lot, and the interior of Schwab's Drug Store was carefully recreated for several scenes. The exterior scenes of the Desmond house were filmed at a house on Wilshire Boulevard built during the 1920s by the millionaire William O. Jenkins. Jenkins and his family lived in it for only one year before then leaving it abandoned for more than a decade, which earned it the nickname "Phantom House".'Wilshire Phantom House Soon to be Only Memory", Los Angeles Times, February 24, 1957 By 1949, it was owned by the former wife of J. Paul Getty. The house was later featured in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955). It was demolished by the Gettys in 1957 to make way for the construction of an office building. Sunset Boulevard film locations , The Worldwide Guide To Movie Locations, 2013
During filming, considerable publicity was given to the health-conscious Gloria Swanson's youthful appearance, which made her look the same age as Holden. Wilder insisted that the age difference between the characters be delineated, and instructed makeup supervisor Wally Westmore to make Swanson look older. Swanson argued that a woman of Norma Desmond's age, with her considerable wealth and devotion to self, would not necessarily look old, and suggested Holden be made up to appear younger. Wilder agreed, and Westmore was assigned this task, which allowed Swanson to portray Norma Desmond as more glamorous a figure than Wilder had originally imagined.
A suite from the film's score, as well as an arrangement by the conductor John Mauceri of various cues in sonata form are published by Sony Music.
In Hollywood, Paramount arranged a private screening for the various studio heads and specially invited guests. After viewing the film, Barbara Stanwyck knelt to kiss the hem of Gloria Swanson's skirt. Swanson later remembered looking for Mary Pickford, only to be told, "She can't show herself, Gloria. She's too overcome. We all are." Louis B. Mayer berated Wilder before the crowd of celebrities, saying, "You have disgraced the industry that made and fed you! You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood!" Upon hearing of Mayer's slight, Wilder strode up to the mogul and retorted with a vulgarity that one biographer said was allegedly because Mayer, who was Jewish, suggested that Wilder, who was also Jewish, would be better off being sent back to Germany, an extraordinary sentiment so soon after the war and the Holocaust, in which Wilder's family perished. In 2020 Olson recounted that friends who had attended the screening told her that Wilder had simply told Mayer "Go fuck yourself."
The few other criticisms were not so venomous. According to one often-told but later discredited anecdote,Ankerich, Michael G. (2013). Mae Murray: the girl with the bee-stung lips (lack of capitalization sic per colophon), The University Press of Kentucky. According to Kevin Brownlow's foreword (page ix), the "rigorous work" of Ankerich "indicates that Murray never made this remark." actress Mae Murray, a contemporary of Swanson, was offended by the film and commented, "None of us floozies was that nuts."Staggs (2002), pp. 161-163
The film earned an estimated $2,350,000 at the U.S. box office in 1950 ($ in dollars ).'The Top Box Office Hits of 1950', Variety, January 3, 1951
Some critics accurately foresaw the film's lasting appeal. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that future generations would "set themselves the task of analyzing the durability and greatness" of the film, while Commonweal said that in the future "the Library of Congress will be glad to have in its archives a print of Sunset Boulevard."
In a rare negative review of the film, The New Yorker deemed it "a pretentious slice of Roquefort" containing only "the germ of a good idea". Despite praising it as a "great motion picture" with "memorable" acting, Thomas M. Pryor wrote in The New York Times that the use of the dead Joe Gillis as narrator was a plot device "completely unworthy of Brackett and Wilder".
Film writer Richard Corliss describes Sunset Boulevard as "the definitive Hollywood horror movie", noting that almost everything in the script is "ghoulish". He remarks that the story is narrated by a dead man whom Norma Desmond first mistakes for an undertaker, while most of the film takes place "in an old, dark house that only opens its doors to the living dead". He compares von Stroheim's character Max with the concealed Erik, the central character in The Phantom of the Opera, and Norma Desmond with Count Dracula, noting that, as she seduces Joe Gillis, the camera tactfully withdraws with "the traditional directorial attitude taken towards Dracula's jugular seductions". He writes that the narrative contains an excess of "cheap sarcasm", but ultimately considers it a valuable part of Joe's characterization as a hack writer.Corliss, p. 147 David Thomson notes the irony of having Gillis tell the story: "The man who can't dream up a viable story line becomes the best pitch he'll ever hear. He is the story and it is Billy Wilder's sour valedictory to let the ghost of Gillis tell the story, facedown in the gelid swimming pool exactly the Hollywood reward that Joe gets only in his dreams. And so this breathtaking portrait of Hollywood failure is wrapped up in rueful, ruined success."
| Academy Awards | Best Motion Picture | Paramount Pictures | ||
| Best Director | Billy Wilder | |||
| Best Actor | William Holden | |||
| Best Actress | Gloria Swanson | |||
| Best Supporting Actor | Erich von Stroheim | |||
| Best Supporting Actress | Nancy Olson | |||
| Best Story and Screenplay | Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman Jr. | |||
| Best Art Direction – Black-and-White | Art Direction: Hans Dreier and John Meehan; Set Decoration: Samuel M. Comer and Ray Moyer | |||
| Best Cinematography – Black-and-White | John F. Seitz | |||
| Best Film Editing | Arthur P. Schmidt and Doane Harrison | |||
| Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture | Franz Waxman | |||
| Blue Ribbon Awards | Best Foreign Film | Billy Wilder | ||
| Bodil Awards | Best American Film | |||
| Cahiers du Cinéma | Best Film | |||
| Directors Guild of America Awards | Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures | |||
| DVD Exclusive Awards | Best Overall New Extra Features – Library Release | John Barbour | ||
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Motion Picture – Drama | |||
| Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Gloria Swanson | |||
| Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture | Erich von Stroheim | |||
| Best Director – Motion Picture | Billy Wilder | |||
| Best Screenplay – Motion Picture | Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman Jr. | |||
| Best Original Score – Motion Picture | Franz Waxman | |||
| Best Cinematography – Black and White | John F. Seitz | |||
| Jussi Awards | Best Foreign Actress | Gloria Swanson | ||
| Nastro d'Argento | Best Foreign Director | Billy Wilder | ||
| Best Foreign Actress | Gloria Swanson | |||
| National Board of Review Awards | Best Film | |||
| Best Actress | Gloria Swanson | |||
| National Film Preservation Board | National Film Registry | |||
| New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Film | |||
| Best Director | Billy Wilder | |||
| Best Actress | Gloria Swanson | |||
| Online Film & Television Association Awards | Film Hall of Fame: Productions | |||
| Picturegoer | Best Actor | William Holden | ||
| Best Actress | Gloria Swanson | |||
| Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Written American Drama | Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman Jr. | ||
Of the various films that have attracted Academy Award nominations in all four acting categories, Sunset Boulevard is one of only three not to win in any category, the others being My Man Godfrey (1936) and American Hustle (2013). At the time its eleven Oscar nominations were exceeded only by the fourteen received by All About Eve, which won six awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Many critics predicted that the Best Actress award would be given to Gloria Swanson or Bette Davis for All About Eve and were surprised that the recipient was newcomer Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday. Bette Davis believed that her and Swanson's comparable characters effectively "cancelled each other out", allowing Holliday to win. Swanson recalled the press's reaction following Holliday's win: "It slowly dawned on me that they were asking for a larger-than-life scene, or better still, a mad scene. More accurately, they were trying to flush out Norma Desmond."
Sunset Boulevard was dramatized as an hour-long radio play on the September 17, 1951, broadcast of Lux Radio Theater with Gloria Swanson and William Holden in their original film roles.Staggs (2002), p. 297
American Film Institute included the film on these lists:
The two men briefly reunited in October 1951 to face charges that they had plagiarism Sunset Boulevard. Former Paramount accountant Stephanie Joan Carlson alleged that in 1947 she had submitted to Wilder and Brackett, at their request, manuscripts of stories, both fictional and based on fact, she had written about studio life. She claimed that one in particular, Past Performance, served as the basis for the Sunset script, and sued the screenwriters and Paramount for $100,000 in damages, $250,000 in punitive damages, $700,000 based on the box office returns, and an additional $350,000 for good measure, for a total of $1,400,000. Carlson's suit was dismissed after two and a half years. In 1954, a similar suit was filed by playwright Edra Buckler, who claimed material she had written had been the screenplay's source. Her suit was dismissed the following year.Sikov, pp. 310–311
Brackett's Hollywood career continued after his split with Wilder. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Titanic (1953), and wrote Niagara (1953), the breakthrough film for Marilyn Monroe as a dramatic actress. It was Wilder, however, who realized Monroe's comedic abilities in The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot. Brackett's career waned by the end of the decade, though he did produce the Oscar-nominated film The King and I (1956). He received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1958.
William Holden began receiving more important parts and his career rose. He won the Best Actor Oscar for Stalag 17 (1953), also directed by Wilder, and by 1956 he was the top box-office attraction in the United States. Holden and Wilder also rejoined forces for Fedora (1978), another film critical of Hollywood.
Before the film was released, Nancy Olson had grown disenchanted with film as a career partly because the themes of Sunset Boulevard resonated with her, and also because she had become engaged to songwriter Alan Jay Lerner and decided to move to New York with him. Nevertheless, Olson's pairing with William Holden was considered a success, and she appeared opposite him in several films during the 1950s, although none of them repeated their earlier success; she returned to Hollywood to make several other films, including The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and Son of Flubber (1963), in which she was paired with Fred MacMurray.
Similarly, Gloria Swanson was not able to leverage her own success in Sunset Boulevard. Although offered scripts, she felt that they all were poor imitations of Norma Desmond. Imagining a career that would eventually reduce her to playing "a parody of a parody," she virtually retired from films.
Sunset Boulevard was shown again in New York City in 1960, and drew such a positive response that Paramount arranged for a limited re-release in theaters throughout the United States.
Films that discuss Sunset Boulevard in their screenplays or pay homage in scenes or dialogue include Soapdish (1991), The Player (1992), Gods and Monsters (1998), Mulholland Drive (2001), Be Cool (2005), and Inland Empire (2006). The ending of Cecil B. Demented (2000) is a parody of Sunset Boulevard's final scene.
In this version, the romance between Gillis and Schaefer was allowed to blossom, and rather than shoot Gillis at the end, Norma gave the couple her blessing, sending them on their way to live "happily ever after."
Although Paramount gave verbal permission to proceed with the musical, there was no formal legal option. In the late 1950s, Paramount withdrew its consent, leading to the demise of the project.
In 1994, Dickson Hughes incorporated material from Boulevard! into a musical Swanson on Sunset, based on his and Stapley's experiences in writing Boulevard!.
This attempt is chronicled in the 2021 documentary Boulevard! A Hollywood Story.
John Kander and Fred Ebb were also approached by Hal Prince to write a musical of Sunset Boulevard.
In 2016, Close reprised the role in London's West End, followed by a 12-week run at the Palace Theater in New York City from February 2 to June 25, 2017.
Sunset Boulevard played one night at the Royal Albert Hall on December 3, 2021. The production was directed by Jordan Murphy and conducted by Alex Parker, and it starred Mazz Murray.
In 2023, Nicole Scherzinger revived the role of Norma Desmond in a 16-week run from September at London's Savoy Theatre, in a production directed by Jamie Lloyd. The production transferred to Broadway's St. James Theatre with an opening night on October 20, 2024.
A film adaptation of the musical, with Close and Lloyd Webber producing, and Close playing Norma, is in development at Paramount Pictures, with Rob Ashford directing and Tom MacRae writing. Filming was originally set to begin in late 2019, but was delayed three times due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Paramount putting the project on hold in October 2021. In May 2024, Close revealed that the film is still moving forward, but with Ashford no longer attached as director. In 2025, Scherzinger revealed that there were talks to have her play Norma in the film.Carson, Lexi. "Nicole Scherzinger on How Her 'Pop Star Mentality. Prepared Her for Sunset Blvd., 'Manifesting' a Film Adaptation and First Tony Nom", The Hollywood Reporter, May 8, 2025
The song "Floating" on the album Outskirts by Canadian country-rock band Blue Rodeo references the movie in its chorus line 'I feel like William Holden floating in a pool.' The album's liner notes explain the connection to the film.
The 1996 song Sunset Boulevard by the Spanish songwriter Javier Álvarez includes the verses Los años de papel te vuelven a cegar / Como a Norma Desmond en Sunset Boulevard ("The paper years blind you again / as they Norma Desmond in 'Sunset Boulevard'".)
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