Gloria Swanson: prepared for Her Close-Up exhibits how a skilled, self-confident actress negotiated an artistic course via seven many years of superstar. It additionally illuminates a little-known bankruptcy in American media background: how the robust ladies of early Hollywood remodeled their notable careers after their stars dimmed. This e-book brings Swanson (1899-1983) again into the highlight, revealing her as a fancy, inventive, entrepreneurial, and carefully smooth woman.

Swanson cavorted in slapstick brief movies with Charlie Chaplin and Mack Sennett within the 1910s. the recognition of her movies with Cecil B. DeMille helped create the celebrity approach. A glamour icon, Swanson grew to become the main talked-about celebrity in Hollywood, incomes 3 Academy Award nominations, receiving 10,000 fan letters a week, and dwelling as much as a name as Queen of Hollywood. She got mansions and penthouses, wearing fur and feathers, and flitted via Paris, London, and ny accomplishing passionate amorous affairs that made headlines and triggered scandals.

Frustrated with the studio process, Swanson grew to become down a million-dollar-a-year agreement. After a wild trip making unforgettable videos with a few of Hollywood's such a lot colourful characters--including her lover Joseph Kennedy and maverick director Erich von Stroheim--she used to be one million cash in debt. with no hesitation she went searching for her subsequent problem, starting her lengthy moment act.

Swanson grew to become a skilled businesswoman who patented innovations and received style awards for her garments designs; a normal meals activist many years earlier than it was once stylish; an exhibited sculptor; and a clothier hired through the United international locations. all of the whereas she endured to behave in motion pictures, theater, and tv at domestic and in another country. even though she had one in every of Hollywood's most renowned go out lines--"All correct, Mr. DeMille, i am prepared for my close-up"--the actual Gloria Swanson by no means seemed back.