|
| |
"Some People Are News and Some People Aren't": Gloria Swanson and the Press
From: Columbia University
| By:
Columbia University Oral History Research Office |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
As a star of silent film (and later talkies), Gloria Swanson (1899-1983) was always in the spotlight, both on the set and off. Swanson was the epitome of glamour and sophistication, and everything she did made headlines. In this excerpt from an interview conducted by Joan and Robert Franklin and donated to Columbia University's Oral History Research Office, Swanson talks about her experience with the press and the mind-set that made her a success in every field she pursued. |
Gloria Swanson talks about her experience with the press and the outlook that made her a success.
|
 e're in 1958, at the moment. I have many interests. I'm in the dress business, and have been for eight years. I'm about to go in the cosmetics business. I gave up the writing for UP because I felt that I was about to have a nervous breakdown. I've had people in my career say, "Oh, please, Miss Swanson, let us get this article or this interview quickly, because I have a deadline," and I used to think, My, what an excuse. But I certainly learned what a deadline was, and I got such a feeling of apprehension that somebody was going to tap me on the shoulder every moment; even when I got myself ahead two or three weeks, I still had this feeling that there was something hanging over me, and I couldn't find out what it was. I was writing a column twice a week, on any subject I wanted to discuss. I was on their special feature staff. Most of it was written abroad. But if you want to make that your career, that's a full-time job--one that I got very excited about and loved, because it is creative. But my life happens to be so that I could not devote the entire 24 hours of the day to just that.
It wasn't a gossip column, so that you just had people bringing in a lot of material to you--"I saw so-and-so, and she had a pretty hat on, and I think she's going about with so-and-so"--etc.
Because I get upset over that. I get upset every time I think a tree has to be cut down for that kind of nonsense. There are so many more important things happening in the world. |
How has the press treated me? This question I've never been asked, and I want to tell you something. I don't know why, but they've always been so wonderful to me. First of all, it's hard to believe--most people don't believe me--but except when I had my own company, the United Artists, for distribution, and my own production company, just as I had to have an accountant, I had to have a publicity department--that was for sending pictures out, when a picture was going to be shown--except for that, I have never paid one penny for one word or line in the newspaper. Now, according to the clipping bureau which I have--for many reasons: for my clothes business, because I want to know what's going on; for tax purposes; now for other interests I have, some soap boxes I'm on--I have never asked to have my picture taken or "Would you interview me?" I have even been reluctant to send flowers to columnists. I did to one whom I'd known for years, because her husband died. I've been afraid to do so, for fear they'd think I wanted something. I might have called up--as I did--Dorothy Kilgallen once to say that she'd written something wrong about my daughter. But I understand that people have press agents. It depends on who they are, whether it's a press agent or a public-relations man. They even have them in the White House. But I haven't. |
Some people are news and some aren't. I suppose if I came out of a room in a hotel, with every hair in place, they would never say I was just in there passing the time of day; while somebody else could come screaming out in a nightgown, and they would say it was perfectly all right. I have asked newspaper people why this is, and they don't know. The press has been so wonderful--I think they've kept me alive in the minds of people. Not that I have been inactive. I have been active, but then a lot of people are active and nothing much happens. |
Maybe it's because I have been active in so many fields. Could be. I really don't know. They must be friends. |
How does it feel to know everything you do is news? Well, you see, this all started when I was so young. I was an only child, and I had a voice; if I sang, I was in the lead. I was an odd-looking child. I was a very shy child. That's hard to believe. I haven't stopped talking since I was 21, but up to that time I don't think I opened my mouth. Just as well it was silent pictures. I had complexes. I thought my teeth were too big, so when I smiled I covered my mouth up. I didn't want my eyes to turn up; I wanted them to turn down. I thought my nose was too long. I was too short. And yet, somehow, a very curious thing happened. The second dramatic part that I had--rather, the first dramatic part at the Essanay, when I was about 15 years old--there were two character actors, sisters. These actresses were sitting on the sidelines. One of them was named Helen Dunbar--a perfectly charming woman. She died about 10 years ago. A beautiful-looking woman. And as I came off out of the scene, I was still sobbing, and she or her sister said as I was passing, "Young lady, one day you'll be a very good actress." |
I said, "Thank you. Yes, I know I shall be very famous." |
Now, I promise you that I was so shocked at hearing myself say this! What made me say it? Because this was not like me. I was very quiet. I was around grown-up people. You see, I grew up on Army posts where there were probably only a few children of my age to play with, so I was therefore around my parents a lot, and other older people, with my ears just wiggling all the time listening to what they were saying, and of course never expressing an opinion. So when I heard this, I started to run. I fled. Now, there was something within me that knew something--I don't know quite what. |
Maybe if I'd been born 10 years earlier or 10 years later, I might not have had any of this, but you see, it was timing. I was born at a time when they were so glad to have anybody stand in front of a camera, it didn't matter who, if only they had two legs and could stand up. That was another thing that catapulted me into this. Because I didn't do anything about it; I didn't stand in line, I didn't beg for parts, I didn't write letters to anybody or beg for anything. It all happened. And it happened so fast to me that I suppose I took it as a natural thing. There was no struggle there. |
On the other hand, I've always had this attitude. Unless it has to do with two things: swimming, which I have a fear of, water; and being closed in. Otherwise I feel: "I can do it." A friend of mine was sewing one day, and she started to put this material out on the floor, and she was left-handed. I love material--I love anything that's expensive and beautiful. She started cutting away. I held my breath. Then I saw her get up, baste it together, put it in the sewing machine, and sew. Well, I was her houseguest. This I stood for twice, and then I couldn't stand it any longer. If she could do it, so could I. |
Now, you see, that was probably the saying. When they asked me to do that dramatic picture, although I knew I couldn't swim, I had the attitude that I could, or that I would, and that I wasn't going to die. |
One day, I had the material all ready; everything was ready but to sew--and I didn't know how to thread the sewing machine. She was working for Vogue--one of the editors on the Coast--so I called her up and said, "Jane, how do you thread this machine?" |
"Oh! Don't do a thing! I'll come right home. It's rented; you'll probably break it!" |
Once she got there, she stood at the door and just guffawed. Because here I was, with spectacles on--I'd been out in the sun, so my face had oil on it, and the glasses were down at the end of my nose--it's only because my nose turns up that they stayed on. I had only a pair of panties on, as it was a warm day, and my hair done up in a knot on top of my head. She said, "If your fans could see you, or even your own mother could see you, they wouldn't believe it." |
By this time I had found out how to thread this thing and I was going lickety-split. This girl used to bring home material at three in the afternoon and have a new dress to wear at seven. I was going to do the same thing, and I did. I made two suits and a dress. I was very pleased with myself. |
Well, that attitude may have something to do with the fact that there was never a sense of a defeat, or of "my career's left me," or a negative thought. So as a consequence I have had a very exciting life. I was in the pattern business. I was in the travel business. I've been in any form of the entertainment world, as far as radio and TV and theater goes. I've not been in a nightclub and don't intend to. Lots of my friends have said, "What about Las Vegas? I understand they've offered you so much money to go to Las Vegas." I said, "Yes, I told them I'd accept one day, after I'd learned how to ride a bicycle on a tightrope." |
None of my paintings are here. My mother has them all on one wall, and some of them are in France. But I was very excited, because I sent three of these heads that I do to Paris, because they wanted to look at them to see if they could put them in an exhibition, and they chose all three and put them in. So last December they were in a big exhibition in Paris. That's the most wonderful relaxation in the world: forgetting oneself. If you can forget yourself for five minutes, you can be really happy. |
I've had people who should know better--who have known me for some years--make the remark that the character in Sunset Boulevard was like me. I look at them completely bewildered and say, "Yes, I have a body out there, swimming; I've just shot him, and he's floating in the pool; and of course I've always lived in the past. I'm a recluse, yes, of course, and I am certainly an egocentric." You don't see any pictures of me around here, do you? And as I told you, I don't want to hear the tape back because it would bore me to have to hear myself talk. I don't suppose I've read all the way through more than a dozen things that have been written about me in my whole lifetime. I start to read them, and then I put them down. I don't have time. No--I don't live in the past. I'm too excited about what's happening now, and the future. I'm in too many other things that take up my time. When something's finished with, it's finished with--and there it is. |
I remember years ago somebody tried to get me to write my biography, and they put out a lot of papers and said, "If you'll just go through these things, we'll help you." I would walk into the room, and almost a physical illness came over me, and I'd have to walk out. Now, this I'm not enjoying one bit! |
|
| |
