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Saturday, June 18, 2022, 1:30pm Castro 👏
Now, don’t revoke my Gay Card, but I’ve actually never seen Sunset Boulevard all the way through. All the same, the story of how Gloria Swanson — who was initially quite different from Norma Desmond — in the process of trying to adapt the film for Broadway, came more and more to mirror her character, falling for a much younger man who was clearly not available. That younger man was Richard Stapley (subsequently known as Richard Wyler), who, along with his boyfriend and work partner Dickson Hughes, worked with Swanson to develop the musical. (Hughes had a knack for musical composition, and Stapley had a knack for lyrics, so they made a good team.) Sadly, the experience drove the three of them apart.
All three have long since passed away, but Jeffrey Schwarz found numerous film clips and audio recordings of interviews with the protagonists, including TV performances of numbers from the musical, figuratively and sometimes literally in boxes in the attic. Worth seeing even if you’re not a 1950s classic movie buff.
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