Gloria Swanson is most remembered today for her role as "Norma Desmond" in Billy Wilder's noir sound classic Sunset Boulevard (1950), but Swanson during her heyday was heralded as filmdom's leading fashion queen, as proclaimed by director Cecil B. DeMille in such silent motion pictures as Male and Female (1919), Why Change YourHusband (1921), and The Affairs of Anatol (1922). Throughout that decade and well into the 1930s Swanson set fashion standards on and off the screen in creations designed by such illustrious couturieres as Mitchell Leisen, Paul Iribe, Norman Norell, Sonia Delaunay, Max Ree, Capt. Edward H. Molyneux, Coco Chanel, Rene Hubert, and later Edith Head. In the 1950s she designed and managed her own line of ready to wear fashion patterns called Forever Young for women of a discernable age. Gloria Swanson: Hollywood's First Glamour Queen is a photographic tribute to this extraordinary woman. Focusing on sense of style and fashion, the book contains hundreds of personal and professional photographs, many never-before-published, and running biographical commentary by biographer Stephen Michael Shearer, author of the definitive book of the star, Gloria Swanson: TheUltimate Star (St. Martin's Press-Macmillan).
Stephen Michael Shearer is an actor, a former model, and the author of three highly regarded film biographies: Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life (University Press of Kentucky, 2006), Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr (St. Martin's Press, 2010), and Gloria Swanson: The Ultimate Star (St. Martin's Press, 2013). His book on Patricia Neal is currently in post film production and stars Hugh Bonneville as Roald Dahl. His second book on Hedy Lamarr has recently been used for the basis for the PBS/American Masters feature documentary "Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story," produced by Susan Sarandon in which he appears.
"In this excellently detailed account of actress Gloria Swanson's life, we see a young starlet grow into the unforgettable 'Norma Desmond' from Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. ... With a glimpse into the lives of the full range of film stars, an examination of the tribulations in Hollywood through World War II, and a complete look at Swanson's robust life, this well-written title is sure to please any reader with a passion for classic Hollywood movies." -- "Library Journal" "Shearer succeeds brilliantly in not missing a moment of 1920s Hollywood starlet Gloria Swanson's gilded, imperfect life. ... Shearer's riveting, weighty biography is a powerful paean to the silent movie era, its renowned stars and directors, and to Gloria, who was as famous for her acting as for her liveried butlers, generous gifts, and extravagant Parisian shopping sprees." -- "Publishers Weekly"
