Norma Desmond may not be the ideal image of a human being aging gracefully, considering she ended up murdering a bloke when confronted with her own age and reality, but the woman who portrayed her so magnificently, Gloria Swanson, had quite a different story. Swanson turned her life after ‘Sunset Boulevard’ into one glorious adventure after another, and while she never matched the once-in-a-lifetime frisson of her portrayal of Ms. Desmond, she went on to live quite a happily-ever-after, and so we take a page out of her 1972 book to revisit these wonderful photographs by Allan Warren (a fuller set of which may be found on Trey Speegle’s exquisite website here). They form the inspirational kick-off for my summer wardrobe, and since caftans forgive the most devilish of middle-age paunches I’m running with it. Aside from the free-flowing form, however, I’m transfixed by the colors – both of her outfit and the surrounding green of her Fifth Avenue apartment.
The idea of summer in New York City has fascinated me, and as much as I attempted to avoid it, there would invariably come a moment when I had to be in the city for something in the middle of summer, and I always wondered how the locals did it for the entire season. When the heat got into absolutely every stationary thing – sidewalk, street, cement, building, subway station, stairwell, and entryway – I wondered how anyone kept their cool. For someone like Ms. Swanson, it appears she stayed chill by keeping her wardrobe vibrant and alive. That brings us to a song from the 1970 musical ‘Applause’ which was a loose musical adaptation of ‘All About Eve’. Flashes of brilliance from the black-and-white past lend a summer sparkle to this last post of spring.
Like Lauren Bacall, who starred in ‘Applause’, Swanson was a show-business survivor. These photos were reportedly taken in her apartment at 4 AM after she finished a performance in one of her shows. I’ve seen an interview where she recalls getting her second wind at 11 PM. As someone who’s typically in bed at that time after sleeping through his first wind, I’m struck by the drive it takes to make one a star, and how that drive never really goes away for some people.
I’m also struck by the idea of a New York City apartment in the 1970’s – this one looks like a quieter cousin of the one held by Diana Vreeland, so boldly soaked in red, red, RED. It conjures the notion of creating little floating hubs of beauty in the midst of a city besieged by heat and humidity and the general stickiness of summer.
Such colorful fabulousness is a much-appreciated jolt in a season that hasn’t given us many hints of warmth in the last few weeks. Perhaps this post will change that as we turn the page to summer proper.
