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Auction History Result 2h121 GLORIA SWANSON linen 1sh 1920s stone litho art of glorious Gloria at her best, ultra rare! Date Sold 12/9/2018 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Linenbacked One-Sheet Movie Poster (1sh; measures 27" x 41" [69 x 104 cm]) (Learn More) Gloria Swanson was born Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Chicago, Illinois in 1899. At 15, she happened to tour a movie studio in Chicago, and asked to appear in a movie, and that gave her the acting "bug". She appeared in minor roles in slapstick movies for Essanay, but in 1916, she was hired by Keystone and then Triangle, and she starred in over 20 movies in 1916 to 1918. In 1919, she signed with Cecil B. DeMille, and starting making elaborate melodramas, rather than the light comedies she had been making. She also began wearing really wild outfits and accessories in her movies (practically costumes!). In 1928, she had one of her best remembered roles, as Sadie Thompson (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), directed by Raoul Walsh from the W. Somerset Maugham (the part would later be played by Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth). In 1929 she had a role in Trespasser (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), and she starting filming Queen Kelly directed by Erich von Stroheim and produced by Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. (the father of the famous Kennedy brothers, with whom she had a long term affair). This was intended to be von Stroheim and Swanson's masterpiece, but they clashed over the way her character was portrayed, and there were massive cost overruns, and von Stroheim was fired, and an alternate ending was filmed, and that altered version had a limited release in Europe only (many years later a reconstructed version of von Stroheim's original vision was created [with still photos in part]). Swanson survived the transition to talking movies, but she could see her career was winding down, and she began acting more on stage, and painting, sculpting, and writing a syndicated column. After 1934, she only made one movie until 1950, when she took the lead role as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film; screenwriter Charles Brackett says the role was intended for Swanson from the start, while director Billy Wilder says they first offered it to virtually every other leading silent actress!). The movie has a marvelous script (of a once famous silent actress having an affair with a much younger man, and dreaming of a "comeback" that will never come), and the casting of Swanson and Holden is perfect, and the additional casting of von Stroheim and DeMille add much to the movie. It is a virtually perfect movie! Swanson had six husbands over her life, marrying the first time on her 17th birthday (to Wallace Beery!) and the last time when she was 77, which lasted until she passed away in 1983 at the age of 84. In her day she was as big a star as Hollywood has ever known If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that we auctioned this poster unbacked 17 years ago. The person who bought it had it backed, and now, 17 years later, has re-consigned it to us, so it is still the only example of this poster we have ever auctioned. It is unclear exactly when the poster dates from. The distributor (Enterprise Distributing Corporation) was in existence from at least 1915 to 1922. It seems likely this poster would date from the very early 1920s, and that this company made a deal to show Gloria Swanson's movies (likely her Paramount movies), and that they created this poster for theaters that showed the movies they distributed. If anyone knows more about this, please e-mail us and we will post it here. What IS linenbacking? Learn More Overall Condition and Pre-Restoration Defects with Quality of Restoration: very good. The poster had small paper loss at the top two crossfolds and tiny paper loss at the bottom crossfold. It had a few small tears and tiny bits of paper loss on small parts of the folds, and it had small paper loss in the top blank corners and in the center of the top blank border. Overall, the poster was in very good condition prior to linenbacking. The poster was nicely backed, and displays well! Note that the restorer left a tiny bit of excess linen around all four sides of the poster (they left a small border in order to protect the poster from handling damage, but they did not leave a larger border, to allow it to more easily fit in a frame). Learn More about condition grades 
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