Gloria SwansonFilmography

Judy Garland's Hollywood

Synopsis: Though many fans will always fondly recall Judy Garland's wonderful portrayal of young Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Garland herself was apparently most proud of the role she played in A Star Is Born. In this film, which opened in 1954, Garland portrayed an actress who sees her career blossom as Read More

Hollywood

Synopsis: Produced for Britain's Thames television in 1979, Hollywood is a 13-part overview of the silent film era, lovingly assembled by historian Kevin Brownlow and David Gill. Each episode runs one hour, and each concentrates on a separate aspect of the art of the silent cinema. Chapter titles include Read More

American Documents [Video Series]

Synopsis: A patriotic series of historical documentaries, each program makes extensive use of archive photos, rare newsreel footage and excerpts from Hollywood films. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

American Documents, Vol. 1: The Age of Ballyhoo

Synopsis: "Ballyhoo" is an Irish noun that became a verb in the United States, where carnival barking evolved into sensational, showy advertising. As this program shows, Hollywood during the Jazz Age of the 1920s perfected the art of ballyhoo. This is the first installment in the 13-volume American Read More

Killer Bees

Actors: Kate Jackson, Gloria Swanson

Synopsis: Killer Bees a made-for-TV thriller, directed by Curtis Harrington, is the story of a strong willed woman with a curious power. Madame von Bohlen (Gloria Swanson) matriarch of a family and controller of the family wine business rules her family with an iron hand. What is becoming increasingly Read More

Airport 1975

Actors: Charlton Heston, Karen Black, George Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Susan Clark

Synopsis: In the wake of the 45-million-dollar gross of the original Airport (1970), Universal was all but required by an act of Congress to produce Airport '75. Charlton Heston heads the all-star cast as Alan Murdock, the former test pilot who must keep a disabled 747 from crashing in flames. The crisis Read More

The Age of Ballyhoo

Chaplinesque: My Life and Hard Times

Synopsis: This biographical documentary examines the early life and career of Charlie Chaplin. A repeated feature of American Public television, the film is narrated by Gloria Swanson. Some of Chaplin's early short films are shown in excerpt, but they are taken out of context so that the roles can be Read More

Who Is Jennifer

Synopsis: In this drama, a teenager discovers that an old woman may actually be his long-lost mother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Beverly Hillbillies: The Gloria Swanson Story

Synopsis: Silent screen star Gloria Swanson received $2500 for her guest appearance in this episode -- a mere bagatelle by today's standards, but a veritable fortune back in 1966. The premise: Seeing Swanson moving her valuables out of her Beverly Hills home (she's planning to move to an even bigger Read More

The Love Goddesses

Synopsis: One subject that has always been popular in the movies -- and is likely to stay that way for a long time to come -- is beautiful women, and this 1965 documentary explores the history of the Hollywood sex symbol, from the earliest days of Thomas Alva Edison's first silent films to such Read More

The Eternal Tramp

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Behind the Locked Door

Actors: Gloria Swanson, James MacArthur, Lynn Loring, Whit Bissell

Synopsis: Wealthy Mrs. Daniels (Gloria Swanson) is convinced that Dave Snowden (James MacArthur), the current boyfriend of her daughter, Bonnie (Lynn Loring), is just another fortune hunter, even though Dave insists upon marrying Bonnie after Mrs. Daniels disinherits her. But when Dave runs out of money, he Read More

Candid Hollywood

Hedda Hopper's Hollywood

Synopsis: Originally aired as an NBC special on Sunday, January 10, 1960, this program went head-to-head with the hit Ed Sullivan Show and had the star power to garner decent ratings. This video features gossip columnist Hedda Hopper interviewing some of the top entertainers of the day. Highlights include Read More

When Comedy Was King

Synopsis: Robert Youngson's second feature-length compilation of silent comedy highlights (the first was The Golden Age of Comedy), When Comedy Was King covers the years 1914 to 1929. Using snipettes from the 1929 Charley Chase 2-reeler Movie Night as a framing device, Youngson offers vintage clips from the Read More

Mio figlio Nerone

Actors: Alberto Sordi, Gloria Swanson, Vittorio De Sica, Brigitte Bardot

Synopsis: Mio Figlio Nero boasts one of the most eccentrically diverse casts in motion picture history. Silent movie queen Gloria Swanson hams it up as Agrippina, the mother of infamous 1st-century Roman emperor Nero. Her little boy grows up to become Alberto Sordi, who plays the notorious lyre-plucker and Read More

Three for Bedroom C

Crew: Costume Designer

Actors: Gloria Swanson, James Warren, Fred Clark, Hans Conried, Steve Brodie

Synopsis: An aging movie star and her precocious daughter hide out in the train berth of a scientist during a cross-country journey from New York to LA in this romantic comedy. The whole mess begins when the actress receives an urgent wire demanding that she immediately return to Hollywood to star in a new Read More

Sunset Boulevard

Actors: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich Von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark

Synopsis: Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard ranks among the most scathing satires of Hollywood and the cruel fickleness of movie fandom. The story begins at the end as the body of Joe Gillis (William Holden) is fished out of a Hollywood swimming pool. From The Great Beyond, Joe details the circumstances of Read More

Down Memory Lane

Actors: Steve Allen, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, Donald Novis, Gloria Swanson, Mabel Normand

Synopsis: Down Memory Lane is a pastiche film comprised of old comedy footage from the Mack Sennett studios. The vintage clips are tied together by a thin continuity wherein TV host Steve Allen hopes to boost his ratings by screening excerpts from Sennett's silent and talkie two-reel comedies. Among the Read More

Father Takes a Wife

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Swanson, John Howard, Desi Arnaz, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: Silent screen queen Gloria Swanson returned to films after a seven-year absence in RKO Radio's Father Takes a Wife. Adolphe Menjou costars as a middle-aged widowed shipping magnate known as Senior, who falls in love with celebrated actress Leslie Collier (Gloria Swanson) and marries her after a Read More

Music in the Air

Actors: Gloria Swanson, John Boles, Douglass Montgomery, June Lang, Al Shean

Synopsis: The 1932 Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein Broadway hit Music in the Air was brought to the screen two years later by Fox Studios. Temperamental Bavarian prima donna Frieda (Gloria Swanson) and equally volatile lyricist Bruno (John Boles) spend half their time quarrelling and the other half making Read More

Perfect Understanding

Crew: Producer

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Laurence Olivier, John Halliday, Nigel Playfair, Michael Farmer

Synopsis: Star Gloria Swanson also co-produced this British film, a romantic comedy/drama that teamed her with a young Laurence Olivier. Judy Rogers (Swanson), an American vacationing in England, meets aristocrat Nicholas Randall (Olivier) and the two fall in love. They agree to marry but insist they'll Read More

Indiscreet

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Ben Lyon, Monroe Owsley, Barbara Kent, Arthur Lake

Synopsis: Divesting herself of her own production company, silent-screen queen Gloria Swanson entered into a two-picture deal with producer Joseph M. Schenck, which paid her a straight (and very hefty) salary for both productions. The first film completed under this arrangement was the trivial romantic Read More

Tonight or Never

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Melvyn Douglas

Synopsis: Though frequently credited to impresario David Belasco, the play upon which Tonight or Never is based was actually penned by Lili Havatny. Gloria Swanson stalks through the proceedings as an opera prima donna who goes through men like tissue paper. While on holiday in Venice with her elderly Read More

What a Widow!

Crew: Producer

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Owen Moore, Lew Cody, Margaret Livingston, William Holden

Synopsis: The widow in question is wealthy Tamarind Brooks (Gloria Swanson), who flits from one man to another with the rapidity of a butterfly. Beginning in New York and ending in Paris, Tamarind collects men like some people collect stamps. Among her most ardent suitors are lawyer Gerry (Owen Moore) Read More

The Trespasser

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Robert Ames, Purnell Pratt, William Holden, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: The Trespasser was Gloria Swanson's first all-talking picture. All talk is right. Swanson plays a humble secretary who marries the son (Robert Ames) of a domineering millionaire (William Holden--no, not that William Holden). The father-in-law bullies Swanson into giving up his son; she agrees to Read More

Queen Kelly

Crew: Producer

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Seena Owen, Walter Byron, William Von Brincken, Madge Hunt

Synopsis: Though filmmaker Erich Von Stroheim's notorious profligacy had made him virtually unhirable in the US by 1929, screen-star Gloria Swanson still had faith in him. She poured a great deal of her own money in Von Stroheim's last silent film, Queen Kelly, and agreed to play the leading role to insure Read More

Sadie Thompson

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Blanche Frederici, Gloria Swanson, James Marcus, Raoul Walsh, Charles Lane

Synopsis: Rain, the famous John Colton-Clemence Randolph theatrical adaptation of Somerset Maugham's short story about religious hypocrisy, was such a "hot potato" in 1928 that the Hays Office, Hollywood's self-appointed censorship bureau, would not allow the play to be filmed under its original title. Read More

The Love of Sunya

Crew: Producer

Actors: Anders Randolph, Gloria Swanson, John Boles, Raymond Hackett, Robert Schable, Flobelle Fairbanks, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: Also known as The Loves of Sunya, this Gloria Swanson picture is a remake of the 1919 Clara Kimball Young vehicle The Eyes of Youth (itself based on a play by Charles Guernon and Max Marcin). Unable to choose among her many suitors, heroine Swanson consults a crystal ball. Here she is given a Read More

The Loves of Sunya

Fine Manners

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Eugene O'Brien, Helen Dunbar, Walter Goss, John Miltern

Synopsis: With Fine Manners, silent-screen superstar Gloria Swanson ended her association with Paramount Pictures; her subsequent star-vehicle productions would be made independently through Swanson's off-screen romantic interest, financier Joseph P. Kennedy. Scripted by James Ashmore Creelman (of King Kong Read More

The Untamed Lady

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Lawrence Gray, Joseph Smiley, Charles Graham

Synopsis: A novel by Fannie Hurst was tailored to the talents of Gloria Swanson in The Untamed Lady. La Swanson plays St.Clair Van Tassell, a spoiled-rotten millionairess. After several outrageous examples of wealth-flaunting, St. Clair's new husband Larry Gastien vows to "tame" her. This he does by Read More

Stagestruck

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Lawrence Gray, Gertrude Astor, Ford Sterling

Synopsis: Although she is largely remembered for her lavish screen outfits and highly dramatic vehicles, Gloria Swanson started off her career as a comedienne, and even at the height of her fame, she sometimes performed in films that played down her wardrobe and emphasized her comic ability. Stage Struck Read More

Coast of Folly

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Alec B. Francis, Dorothy Cumming

Synopsis: Although this isn't one of her top pictures, Gloria Swanson was near the peak of her career when she made it. She's excellent in a dual role, and is directed by one of her favorite collaborators, Allan Dwan. Nadine Gathway, a turn-of-the-century belle (Swanson), dumps her priggish husband and runs Read More

Stage Struck

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Lawrence Gray, Gertrude Astor

Synopsis: A fresh-faced waitress and a celebrity-obsessed cook enter into a warmhearted romance in this tender love story starring Gloria Swanson and Lawrence Gray. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide Read More

Manhandled

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Tom Moore, Frank Morgan, Lilyan Tashman, Ian Keith, Paul McAllister

Synopsis: Although an executive at Paramount came up with the racy title for this comedy-drama, the plot came from a Saturday Evening Post story by Arthur Stringer. Tessie McGuire (Gloria Swanson) is a department store clerk. When her sweetheart, auto mechanic Johnny Hogan (Tom Moore) goes to Detroit with a Read More

Wages of Virtue

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Ben Lyon, Norman Trevor, Ivan Linow

Synopsis: Although Gloria Swanson was known as a clotheshorse, occasionally her studio would allow her to rely purely on her acting ability instead of the fashions she wore (they didn't do this very often, of course). The star dresses down for this drama, based on the novel by Percival Wren (which bears a Read More

Humming Bird

Actors: Gloria Swanson, William Ricciardi, Cesare Gravina, Mario Majeroni

Synopsis: Glamorous Gloria Swanson dressed down for this story of a little Parisian thief. Toinette (Swanson) is the leader of a band of thieves called "the Wolves of Montmartre." Dressed like a boy, she is known only as the Humming Bird and is wanted by the police. American reporter Randall Carey (Edward Read More

Her Love Story

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Ian Keith, George Fawcett, Mario Majeroni

Synopsis: Gloria Swanson was near the peak of her career when she made this film, and while it isn't one of her best -- a Graustarkian tale by Mary Roberts Rinehart wasn't really up her alley -- it certainly had a lot of spectacular touches. Swanson wears a 100,000-dollar bridal outfit (that was more than Read More

A Society Scandal

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Rod La Rocque, Ricardo Cortez, Allan Simpson, Ida Waterman

Synopsis: This society comedy-drama was given witty direction by Allan Dwan, and was based on The Laughing Lady by respected playwright Alfred Sutro. When Marjorie Colbert (Gloria Swanson) is neglected by her husband, Hector (Allan Simpson), she spends time befriending Harrison Peters (Ricardo Cortez). Read More

Prodigal Daughters

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Ralph Graves, Vera Reynolds, Theodore Roberts, Louise Dresser

Synopsis: Part of this romantic comedy was shot in a palatial Beverly Hills mansion, which happened to belong to the film's star, Gloria Swanson. Swanson plays a flapper, Swifty Forbes, who along with her sister, Marjory (Vera Reynolds), lead wild lives, much to the chagrin of their wealthy parents (Theodore Roberts Read More

Zaza

Actors: Gloria Swanson, H.B. Warner, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Lucille La Verne, Mary Thurman

Synopsis: As a play, Zaza had been around for some 30 years and had already been filmed once before when Allan Dwan updated it and made it into a star vehicle for Gloria Swanson. His direction brought out Swanson's spontaneous side and although her performance was a bit uneven, she liked working with him so Read More

Hollywood

Actors: Luke Cosgrave, George K. Arthur, Ruby Lafayette, Eleanor Lawson

Synopsis: The premise is clichéd -- it's the usual tale of a pretty girl from the sticks trying to break into movies -- but this satire gives it a number of unexpected turns. In addition, just about every star in Hollywood -- not just those at Paramount, the releasing studio -- has a cameo at one point or Read More

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Huntly Gordon, Charles Green, Paul Weigel

Synopsis: This romantic drama gave filmgoers everything they expected from a Gloria Swanson picture -- fancy settings, gorgeous clothes, and a story that wasn't too taxing on the brain. It was adapted from the stage play by Alfred Savior, which starred Ina Claire on Broadway. John Brandon, an American Read More

My American Wife

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Antonio Moreno, Josef Swickard, Eric Mayne, Gino Corrado

Synopsis: Gloria Swanson is My American Wife in this farfetched but entertaining romantic drama. Married to Argentinian horse rancher Josef Swickard, Gloria is romanced by handsome aristocrat Antonio Moreno. This one has the whole shootin' match: duels, blood feuds, midnight trysts, and a pulse-pounding Read More

Madame Sans-Gene

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Madeleine Guitty, Emile Drain, Charles de Roche, Warwick Ward, Suzanne Bianchetti

Synopsis: Based on a 1907 play by Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau, much ado was made of Madame Sans-Gêne when it was being filmed because it was a joint effort between the United States and France. The French government allowed the movie to be shot at various historical locations, including the Palace of Read More

Beyond the Rocks

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, Edythe Chapman, Alec B. Francis, Robert Bolder

Synopsis: This picture did great at the box office, and no wonder -- Paramount's biggest star of the day, Gloria Swanson, co-starred with Rudolph Valentino (whose fame was so new that his first name was still being spelled "Rodolph"), in a story written by the most famous trashy novelist of the day, Elinor Glyn Read More

Her Husband's Trademark

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Richard Wayne, Lucien Littlefield, Charles Ogle

Synopsis: Because the drab Under the Lash failed at the box office, Paramount was more than happy to put their star, Gloria Swanson, into a more glamorous role here. She plays the stunning Lois Miller, who weds wheeler-dealer James Berkeley (Stuart Holmes). But Lois is nothing more than a trophy wife who he Read More

Her Gilded Cage

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Dave Powell, Harrison Ford, Anne Cornwall, Walter Hiers

Synopsis: This picture was one of several that Sam Wood directed for Gloria Swanson, and its lavishness shows the influence of Cecil B. DeMille -- not long before, Wood had been DeMille's assistant (and Swanson, for that matter, had been his star). Unfortunately, fancy sets and gowns was just about all it Read More

Trip To Paramountown

Actors: Wallace Reid, Marion Davies, Thomas Meighan, Betty Compson, May McAvoy

The Impossible Mrs. Bellew

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Robert Cain, Conrad Nagel, Richard Wayne, Frank Elliott

Synopsis: As Gloria Swanson's star rose higher and higher, Paramount endlessly repeated the formula that brought her fame -- take a glamorous woman who wears lots of fancy gowns and place her in romantic and domestic situations of high drama. Swanson was not terribly happy being on this treadmill and this Read More

Great Moment

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Milton Sills, Arthur Hull

Synopsis: Author Elinor Glyn knew how to generate publicity, and she created quite a bit when Paramount decided to film this story. In one scene, the girl (played by Gloria Swanson) has been bitten by a rattlesnake, and to save her, her co-star (played by Milton Sills) must suck the poison out of the wound Read More

The Affairs of Anatol

Actors: Wallace Reid, Gloria Swanson, Elliott Dexter

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's much-maligned cinemadaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's The Affairs of Anatol holds up better than its reputation suggests. Wallace Reid stars as New York socialite Anatol DeWitt Spencer, who after only a few day's marriage has become bored with his new bride Vivian (Gloria Read More

Don't Tell Everything

Actors: Wallace Reid, Gloria Swanson, Elliott Dexter, Dorothy Cumming, Genevieve Blinn

Synopsis: According to trade paper Wid's, "If it happened that you got into your seat just after the introductory titles had been run off...you would probably go out fully impressed that Don't Tell Everything was a DeMille production." The reason for that, Gloria Swanson says in her autobiography, is Read More

Under the Lash

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Mahlon Hamilton, Russell Simpson, Lillian Leighton

Synopsis: What was Paramount thinking when it cast glamorous Gloria Swanson as a drab South African wife in this plodding drama? Deborah (Swanson) is married to a straight-laced Boer farmer, Simeon Krillet (Russell Simpson), who believes that the only book one needs is the Bible and who rules by the lash. Read More

Why Change Your Wife?

Synopsis: One of the best of Cecil B. DeMille's sophisticated sex comedies of the silent era, Why Change Your Wife? hinges upon a marriage of opposites. Husband Thomas Meighan has a fondness for wine, women and song; wife Gloria Swanson is the intellectual bookish type (we know this much because she wears Read More

Something to Think About

Synopsis: During the late teens and early '20s, filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille reveled in much cinematic pomp and circumstance, mixing epic past-life fantasies with James M. Barrie in Male and Female and blending high society with sex in the domestic scenarios of Don't Change Your Husband and Why Change Your Wife? Read More

Male and Female

Actors: Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson, Lila Lee, Bebe Daniels, Theodore Roberts

Synopsis: Don't let that title fool you: Male and Female is really James M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton, as interpreted by Cecil B. DeMille. Thomas Meighan plays Crichton, the very proper butler in the British household of Lord Loam (Theodore Roberts). When masters and servants go on a yachting Read More

Don't Change Your Husband

Synopsis: This was Gloria Swanson's first film for director Cecil B. DeMille and it went a long way in establishing her as a star. Considered deliciously racy in its day, Don't Change Your Husband is an amusing battle between the sexes that takes place in the sumptuous upper-class society of the post-WWI Read More

Wife or Country

Synopsis: Gretchen Barker (Gretchen Lederer) has gotten herself involved with a group of German spies in the U.S. This is particularly unfortunate since her husband, Dale (Harry Mestayer), gives up his law practice to help the government track down enemy agents. She's also jealous of the closeness between Read More

For Better, for Worse

Synopsis: Director Cecil B. DeMille tones down his usual elegance and instead focuses on the drama of America during the Great War. Sylvia Norcross (Gloria Swanson) is being courted by two men, Edward Meade (Elliot Dexter) and Richard Burton (Tom Forman). Both Edward and Richard have enlisted, but Edward, a Read More

Station Content

Synopsis: Kitty Manning (Gloria Swanson) lives with her husband, Jim (Lee Hill), a telegraph operator, at a remote railway station. After her baby dies, she can no longer stand the loneliness of the place and joins a musical show as a chorus girl. While Jim is making his way up in the railway company, Kitty Read More

Society for Sale

Synopsis: William Desmond, he of the dazzling smile and sleek physique, was starred in the Triangle feature Society for Sale. Desmond plays "Honorable" Billy, an aristocratic Englishman who finds himself a pauper overnight. Hoping to recoup his family fortunes, Billy agrees to marry, sight unseen, a wealthy Read More

The Secret Code

Synopsis: In 1918, movie theaters were overloaded with spy dramas, so to be of any interest at all, this one had to have a twist, and it did: the picture's villainess Lola Walling (Rhy Alexander) crochets her secret code messages into mufflers, which she sends to the enemy. Agent Lola has lost out to Sally Read More

Shifting Sands

Synopsis: Gloria Swanson was still being referred to as a former Keystone star when this drama was released. Here she is struggling artist Marcia Grey, who repulses the advances of rent collector Von Holtz (Harvey Clark). He vindictively has her framed for a theft, and she is sent to jail. When she is Read More

You Can't Believe Everything

Synopsis: This pseudo-(Cecil B. DeMille) farce starred Gloria Swanson, whose actual association with DeMille was still several months in the future. Swanson plays Patricia Reynolds, a lovely lass who spends her every waking hour fending off would-be seducers. Hoping for a little peace and quiet, Patricia Read More

Her Decision

Synopsis: The ever-ascending star of Gloria Swanson received another boost with the Triangle feature Her Decision. Swanson plays stenographer Phyllis Dunbar, who loses her handsome sweetheart Bobbie Warner (Darrel Foss to her capricious younger sister Inah (Ann Kroman). On the rebound, Phyllis marries her Read More

Everywoman's Husband

Synopsis: Very much her mother's daughter, Edith Emerson (Gloria Swanson intends to keep her new husband Frank (Joe King) by following her mom's advice and "managing" Frank's every move. To escape the domineering Edith, Frank spends more and more time at the office. Before long, he has inaugurated an affair Read More

A Pullman Bride

The Danger Girl

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Bobby Vernon

Teddy at the Throttle

Synopsis: This silent video features Teddy, the Great Dane who rescues Gloria Swanson from a villain. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Nick of Time Baby

The Ambition of the Baron

The Sultan's Wife

His New Job

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin began his new job at Essanay Studios, who lured him away from Keystone with an offer of $1250 a week plus a bonus of $10,000, with a parody film on his former employer. It features two actresses at the beginning of their careers in minor roles -- Gloria Swanson and Agnes Ayres. Read More

The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket

The Broken Pledge

Story of the Silent Serials Girls in Danger

Synopsis: Narration and music accompany this two part collection of clips. The moments that left you hanging are collected in this program which features selections from 14 silent serials. ~ All Movie Guide Read More