Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson (1899–1983) was one of the biggest stars of the American silent screen and among the highest-paid actresses of the 1920s. A glamorous leading lady for Cecil B. DeMille and Paramount, she was known for her dramatic range in films such as Male and Female (1919) and Sadie Thompson (1928), the latter bringing an Academy Award nomination. Decades later her career was famously revived by her role as the faded silent star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950).