Many years ago, I had the pleasure of editing a book by Joan Crawford, who, like Norma Desmond, was still a big star; it was just the movies that had gotten smaller.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
To be quite honest, I've been very blessed when I've worked with Hollywood. The studios that have purchased my work to be adapted to film have really liked the work and wanted to stay as close as they could to what the book was.
I didn't want to spend the rest of my life playing Norma Desmond over and over again.
I loved all those classic figures from the '30s and '40s... Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, Rita Hayworth. They had such glamour and style. I loved the movies of those times too - so much attention paid to details, lights, clothing, the way the studios would develop talent.
I connected very much with all the work of Joan Crawford because she started as a flapper. She used to dance and sing and she was very cute. She had something that was so different from what she is at the end of her life and she started in the silent movies and then went into the talkies.
Learning how to edit movies was a real breakthrough.
Editing is not a part of the filmmaking process I've ever been privy to as an actress.
This is my one beef with Hollywood: It's great for movie sales, but they've created this fiction for us that, when you have a hard thing in your life, it's going to get fixed, and then your life will be awesome! Forever!
Movies are an editor's medium.
Much of my publishing life was consumed by the memoirs of movie stars - or by attempts to get them to write a memoir.
I'm not someone like Norma Desmond who's harking back to her younger days.