Gloria Swanson

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty one, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:26

Our Castaway this week is one of the great figures in the world of films.

Presenter0:31

Glorious Wanson.

Presenter0:33

Miss Swanson, how important to you is music?

Gloria Swanson0:35

Oh, I can't live without it.

Gloria Swanson0:37

I just cannot, and I don't understand anyone who can.

Presenter0:41

Now we've heard you sing in one or two films.

Presenter0:44

Have you any other musical skills? Do you play the piano?

Gloria Swanson0:47

No, I don't know one note from another. I don't even know.

Gloria Swanson0:51

Which key I sing in?

Gloria Swanson0:54

I really don't.

Presenter0:55

Do you play records a lot?

Gloria Swanson0:57

Um, I haven't in the last few years.

Gloria Swanson1:00

But before that

Gloria Swanson1:02

I did, and I had quite a nice collection.

Gloria Swanson1:05

But I have been using a certain station.

Gloria Swanson1:08

In New Jersey, when I wake up in the morning, I press a button at my bed.

Gloria Swanson1:13

And the radio starts and that's it, and there's practically no commercial on it at all.

Presenter1:18

Well now you have just eight records while you're on this island. What's the first one you've chosen?

Gloria Swanson1:23

I love you so much I hate you.

Presenter1:26

Now what's that?

Gloria Swanson1:27

It was made and composed here in London. It was the first picture that uh Olivia worked in. It was a talking picture, as far as I know, it may have been his first picture.

Gloria Swanson1:38

And it was a nice uh story called

Gloria Swanson1:41

perfect understanding and that part of it, the song when I sang this, I Love You So Much, I Hate You, we were in a punt on the Thames near Maidenhead. And uh it was a song that uh

Gloria Swanson1:54

It was quite pretty and um very meaningful to the story.

Speaker 42:00

You have done to me Hacred and love are one to me

Speaker 42:12

You turn my love to hate and then

Speaker 42:18

Make me come here, Jonathan.

Presenter2:24

Your own recording of I Love You So Much, I Hate You from your only British picture, I think, perfect understanding. Which ear was that made in?

Gloria Swanson2:32

1932.

Gloria Swanson2:34

the year I had my child here in Ten Farm Street.

Presenter2:37

Ruh?

Gloria Swanson2:37

Yes, little girl.

Presenter2:40

You tell us in your book, which we'll talk about presently, you were born just a matter of days before the last century ended in Chicago. Your father was attached to the United States Army. Does that mean a fair amount of moving around?

Gloria Swanson2:53

Oh yes, from the time I was eight eight and a half, we moved all the time.

Gloria Swanson2:59

So I was in sixteen different grammar schools.

Presenter2:59

Yeah.

Gloria Swanson3:02

When I was north in the States I was put back a grade and when I was in the south I was put forward a grade. So I was like on a treadmill, always in the same grade. But it didn't matter because I was drawing pictures in my book anyway. I wasn't learning anything.

Presenter3:14

You weren't really bothering with your studies.

Gloria Swanson3:16

No.

Presenter3:17

Do you remember the first movie you ever saw, and where was it?

Gloria Swanson3:22

No, I can't tell you the name of it, except I know that instead of a lion like MGM had for.

Gloria Swanson3:28

Sort of a logo. It had a bear, polar bear, so I think it was a Swedish picture, and that was in Puerto Rico.

Gloria Swanson3:35

And it was truly a flicker.

Gloria Swanson3:37

You know what I mean? It really flicked on and all.

Presenter3:39

Oh yes.

Presenter3:41

You were, I think, fifteen when you first visited a film studio. Was that in Chicago?

Gloria Swanson3:46

I was a little younger than then. I was about fourteen and a half, and it was summer time and no school.

Gloria Swanson3:51

and that was in Aisen A in Chicago.

Presenter3:53

What did you see going on?

Gloria Swanson3:55

Well, there was a scene uh of a sort of some people that had just got married.

Gloria Swanson4:01

I remember Gerda Holmes was a star, she was a lovely woman, and Richard Trevor was the man.

Gloria Swanson4:08

who is in the picture and uh a lot of lights and excitement and screaming and carrying on and, you know, the electricians and the director.

Gloria Swanson4:18

And I just with big eyes, I was very shy in those days, and of course I looked very odd because I had olive complexion to begin with.

Gloria Swanson4:27

and here I had a suntan from Puerto Rico.

Gloria Swanson4:30

And I was always

Gloria Swanson4:33

wearing something that no one else would wear, and I must have stood out like a sore thumb because

Gloria Swanson4:39

When I said that Oh, isn't this exciting? three people grabbed me and said What's your name and telephone number? and the next day called me to come back to the studio.

Presenter4:48

You were hired yourself.

Presenter4:50

How much were you paid for a day's work?

Gloria Swanson4:52

Three dollars and a quarter, and then later on I was visiting my father, who was then stationed in Governor's Island in New York.

Gloria Swanson5:00

And a letter came that was forwarded to me from S and A asking me to come back and be in in what they call guaranteed stock. That meant that ye they guaranteed you four days' work a week whether you worked or not, which was uh thirteen dollars and a quarter. And if you worked a fifth day, then you got another extra three dollars and a quarter.

Speaker 45:21

Uh

Presenter5:21

Right.

Gloria Swanson5:22

But just imagine what you could buy for three dollars and a quarter in those days.

Presenter5:26

You rehearsed for a while w with with Charlie Chaplin in in Chicago.

Gloria Swanson5:30

Yes, and I was no good, and he fired me.

Gloria Swanson5:34

I was no, I didn't like it. I was a very sort of a straight-laced young lady and I didn't like the scene and I didn't think it was funny.

Presenter5:41

Was it because of your Chicago experience that you went to Hollywood?

Gloria Swanson5:45

No, no, no, no. My father was transferred from Governor's Island to Manila.

Gloria Swanson5:52

So he went on to Manila and my mother and I were to follow, which we did, and we went uh by train from Chicago to Los Angles and then we were going to take the boat to the Philippines from there. But we never got to that because my mother and father separated.

Presenter6:09

And you stayed on and

Gloria Swanson6:11

I stayed on and I

Presenter6:11

Data on

Gloria Swanson6:13

had a letter to a singing teacher which I never used.

Presenter6:17

Movie actors weren't popular in in California in those early days.

Gloria Swanson6:19

No.

Gloria Swanson6:22

No, to be a motion picture what they called player or star or whatever they mentioned, then I don't remember.

Gloria Swanson6:28

was like uh imagine being in um

Gloria Swanson6:31

I don't know, burlesque or something. It wasn't anything I wanted to be. I didn't want to be a movie star. I just was having a some kind of a

Gloria Swanson6:41

Playing cookie from school, you see, when I first went out there.

Gloria Swanson6:45

But I wanted to be an opera singer.

Gloria Swanson6:48

But somehow I got uh way laid and I got on the merry-go-round of the picture business and couldn't get off.

Presenter6:55

You were playing in in Max Sennett comedies. You were indeed once tied to the railroad tracks by the villain in one movie.

Presenter7:02

It actually happened.

Gloria Swanson7:04

Well, I suppose uh you could say not actually. I'm sure I could have got out of the chains if I

Gloria Swanson7:10

wanted to. The worst part of it was that the train had to run over where I was between the ties.

Gloria Swanson7:18

And I didn't like that because I have claustrophobia.

Presenter7:22

You show great dedication at the story you tell that in spite of the fact that you couldn't swim, you dived off a dock.

Gloria Swanson7:30

Mm-hmm.

Presenter7:30

At night, fifteen feet into the sea.

Gloria Swanson7:33

Quite true. Because I wanted to be a dramatic actress and not a comedy.

Gloria Swanson7:38

I I I was dooza when I was playing comedy. I think that's why I was funny.

Gloria Swanson7:44

I loathed comedy. I had no sense of humour.

Gloria Swanson7:47

That I had to learn later on.

Presenter7:50

Well, that shows dedication, doesn't it? Let's have your second record.

Gloria Swanson7:53

Let's have your say.

Gloria Swanson7:54

Thank you.

Presenter7:56

What shall we have?

Gloria Swanson7:57

Well, why don't we have oh, yes, let's have too much mustard.

Presenter8:01

Too much mustard.

Gloria Swanson8:02

I was fifteen years old when I danced to that tune in nineteen fourteen.

Presenter8:35

Too much mustard, although on this recording it's called Tremoutade and the recording's by the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra.

Presenter8:44

I suppose the big event in your early career must have been meeting Cecil Bede Mill.

Gloria Swanson8:49

Oh.

Presenter8:49

Of course.

Presenter8:50

How many films did you make for him?

Gloria Swanson8:52

Six. Consecutive ones.

Presenter8:52

One sec.

Presenter8:54

Was he a very impressive man?

Gloria Swanson8:56

Oh, tremendous. He was a powerful man.

Gloria Swanson8:59

with a very strong personality and a very

Gloria Swanson9:02

Direct eye, and he was a brilliant man, he was an intellect.

Presenter9:06

Yes.

Gloria Swanson9:07

Which is something odd out there.

Presenter9:08

And of course a great show.

Presenter9:11

Did he get you to play one of his celebrated bathroom scenes that

Gloria Swanson9:15

Yes, that was in male and female and of course bathroom scene, tub scene, you know, I was covered right yeah, I

Gloria Swanson9:22

had more clothes on and you could see less of me than if I had been in an evening gown.

Presenter9:27

In one film, you'll start opposite the great heart throb, Rudolph Valentino.

Presenter9:33

Was he a good actor? Was he easy to work with?

Gloria Swanson9:35

Well

Gloria Swanson9:36

Yes, but he was the picture he made with me.

Gloria Swanson9:39

or was right after the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Presenter9:42

Yeah.

Gloria Swanson9:43

And uh otherwise prior to that he had just extra work.

Gloria Swanson9:48

I didn't find him, um

Gloria Swanson9:51

Well, everybody was swooning over him. I just found him a very nice man, a foreigner with good manners.

Gloria Swanson9:58

Which they all seem to have, no matter whether they're peasants or what they are.

Gloria Swanson10:03

and uh we used to find each other sometimes riding on Sundays, which was the only day we had off.

Gloria Swanson10:08

Because we worked six days a week in those days and sometimes

Presenter10:11

Seven.

Gloria Swanson10:12

Certainly not just till five o'clock. We didn't have any union hours.

Gloria Swanson10:17

And so we would work sometimes very late just to finish a set or a sequence of something.

Presenter10:22

The film You Made Together was scripted by Eleanor Glenler.

Gloria Swanson10:25

It was indeed.

Gloria Swanson10:27

She did my first starring picture away from mister DeMille called The Great Moment.

Gloria Swanson10:32

And

Gloria Swanson10:33

Hasn't she was a naughty lady of certain age?

Gloria Swanson10:37

And she wrote a story in which

Gloria Swanson10:39

I was out in the desert and I had gypsy blood.

Gloria Swanson10:42

And so I got bitten by a snake, guess where?

Presenter10:45

I don't know.

Gloria Swanson10:46

Yes, in the breast.

Presenter10:47

Like Cleopatra.

Gloria Swanson10:48

Yeah.

Gloria Swanson10:50

So of course you can imagine what the sensors were doing that by the time we really made the picture, the the bite was way up on my shoulder because the lady man had to open it and, you know, suck the poison out.

Presenter10:57

Uh

Speaker 410:57

Got it.

Presenter10:57

Ah

Gloria Swanson11:02

So

Gloria Swanson11:03

We well, she was an extraordinary woman, and and she was the first color therapist I ever met in my life. She traveled with her own colors, they were cardinal colors.

Presenter11:10

Uh

Gloria Swanson11:13

purple and red, and she had her draperies and she had her cushions with her.

Gloria Swanson11:18

and she even had her bed

Gloria Swanson11:20

changed to the corner of the room so that she could have her head to the north.

Presenter11:25

And this really did something for her.

Gloria Swanson11:27

Well, so she said, and then the moment she met anyone she would say, I see you in your past life, you know. Poor Sam Wood, he was a bull fighter. I was from Egypt and I don't know where what she ever told him.

Gloria Swanson11:39

But they must have had seances together'cause he was involved that way, more or less.

Presenter11:45

We got your third record. What's that going to be, Miss Watson?

Gloria Swanson11:48

Wraps it in in blue, the Gershwin thing. I happened to be at the concert when he did that at Carnegie Hall.

Presenter11:55

Where are you?

Gloria Swanson11:55

And and guess who was conducting? Paul Whiteman was conducting.

Gloria Swanson12:00

Gershwin was at the piano, and I was sitting up in the balcony with Gershwin's father, who was a character of all characters, and it was a night I'll never forget, because it was the first time that it was played in public.

Presenter13:10

Rhapsody in blue with Gershwin at the piano and Paul Whiteman in his orchestra just the way you heard it in the Carnegie Hall.

Gloria Swanson13:16

Yeah.

Presenter13:17

You developed a project, an excellent project, to make a film of Sardou's play Madame Saint-Jeanne, a Napoleonic story, and to make it on the actual French locations. That kind of international production was was pretty rare.

Gloria Swanson13:31

Why isn't it the first?

Presenter13:32

Yeah.

Presenter13:33

The first was

Gloria Swanson13:34

Mm-hmm. And I went uh to Paris and said I wouldn't come back unless I could make it there. They wanted me to make it in the United States.

Gloria Swanson13:41

So anyway, we made it in France and uh it w it was f

Gloria Swanson13:46

A fantastic experience because the architect.

Gloria Swanson13:51

Was dead against just coming in into the Fountain Blow, Maumee Zone Compien, but especially Fountain Blow.

Gloria Swanson13:58

and the curator.

Gloria Swanson14:00

who believed himself to be a reincarnation, I'm sure, of Napoleon, because he was about my smaller than I. And he with open arms wanted all these people in costume. They had even chosen

Gloria Swanson14:13

twelve marshals that looked like the portraits of the marshals of Napoleon.

Gloria Swanson14:20

In the first day's work I remember coming out on this terrace at Fountain Blow.

Gloria Swanson14:25

in a striped black and white costume that Rennie Hubert had designed for it with a parasol the same way. And there standing in front of me were the twelve marshals.

Gloria Swanson14:34

and one of them had a bunch of roses and he came forward and handed them to me.

Gloria Swanson14:39

It was great ceremony, and then I, of course, later on, another remembrance is when one day they said.

Gloria Swanson14:46

Somebody is coming fr from the city to give you a a decoration.

Gloria Swanson14:52

And it was the palms.

Gloria Swanson14:53

which was unusual with a purple ribbon.

Gloria Swanson14:56

and here approaching me were six men in top hats, striped trousers, and cutaways.

Gloria Swanson15:02

And here they handed me this

Gloria Swanson15:04

So while I never got an Oscar for my own motion picture business, I still have treasure this because it was even more exciting, having the the red button, what do they call it thing.

Presenter15:15

Yeah.

Gloria Swanson15:15

Yeah.

Presenter15:16

It must have been most exciting doing it in front of the actual locations of Fontainebleau and Malmaison.

Gloria Swanson15:21

In the rooms. We sat on the chairs. We were in his bedroom, in his library. I have a piece of material.

Presenter15:23

We said

Gloria Swanson15:27

From behind the drape, in the back part of the draperies, the curator gave me a little piece of that, which is framed with a letter from him. But the feud that went on between the

Presenter15:35

But

Gloria Swanson15:37

the curator and the architect was a farce. It would y every day it was something else. And also, just as we would get permission from the Minister of Interior to go in, the government would fall and we'd have to come out again.

Speaker 415:50

And this this

Gloria Swanson15:50

And this this happened in three weeks. I think it fell, I don't know, seven or eight times. So we would be in, then we'd be out. Then we had to start the whole thing all over again.

Presenter15:56

We would be in

Presenter16:00

There was another first, apart from that being the first international cooperation in in production. You fell in love with one of the French technical advisers on the film, and as a result became Madame la Marquise de la Falaise de la Coudreille, and the first screen star to be ennobled.

Gloria Swanson16:17

Yes, I forgot about that, that's true.

Gloria Swanson16:21

But he was such a lovely man, and guess what? His mother was a Hennessy.

Speaker 416:26

Mm-hmm.

Gloria Swanson16:27

So it comes back here to um Lady Douglas she was, and she had a fantastic racehorse, I think it was called Gainsborough. What is all of this coming out of my

Presenter16:35

Yeah.

Speaker 416:35

Um yeah

Presenter16:35

All of this comes out of the pedal.

Gloria Swanson16:38

Yes, and another Hennessy Brandy, but they didn't like the idea of being merchants, I think, and so they didn't talk very much about that.

Presenter16:38

Another

Presenter16:45

Was it as a result of the success of Madame Sang that you decided to be your own producer?

Gloria Swanson16:51

I suppose that that was part of it, but it was also before that time.

Gloria Swanson16:57

I was so much a part of the production of the stories and what we were doing uh as I was right in even in Los Angeles. You see

Gloria Swanson17:05

I had six pictures with DeMille. Then when I went on my own, which I didn't want to do, I was ma I made ten pictures with a director who at one time had been the uh assistant director to Cecil DeMille, and his name was Sam Wood. And so we had a writer by the name of Montejohn or Monte something or other, and the same cameraman, and it was like a unit, it was like a company, like a stock company. So when we talked about the stories we were doing, I was in on everything and had my own two cents, you know. I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

Gloria Swanson17:37

And so it turns out that the

Gloria Swanson17:39

The writers would sometimes come to where I was in between pictures. Henry said, Why do they have to come over here and bother you?

Gloria Swanson17:46

Well, I think maybe I might have an idea or two, which sometimes I did.

Gloria Swanson17:51

And so it was that I was always part of it. If something went wrong with a story,

Gloria Swanson17:57

Well, this even happened at Keystone because that's the way some of the pictures were written. Anybody could make a suggestion, didn't matter if it was a a plumber walking through the set at the time.

Presenter18:09

Record number four. What's that?

Gloria Swanson18:11

My Wonderful One. Now that's interesting, My Wonderful One.

Gloria Swanson18:16

Because it was written by Marshall Nealon.

Gloria Swanson18:19

An Irishman?

Gloria Swanson18:20

and he played by ear.

Gloria Swanson18:23

And he wrote this song because he was in love with me. And it's so funny because he.

Gloria Swanson18:29

played by ear, but he didn't know one note from another. So one time in Paris, when we were both in Paris and we met up with Irving Berlin, we got to a piano and I can remember seeing these two. Berlin only used two fingers, you know. He didn't he didn't know how to play the piano, but these tunes were going on in his head, I guess. So he was helping.

Gloria Swanson18:49

Marshal Nealand did remember.

Gloria Swanson18:52

Well, and trying to get it down on paper. So that's how it was written.

Presenter18:57

Who sings it on this record that you

Gloria Swanson18:59

No tourme.

Speaker 419:10

My wonderful one.

Speaker 419:15

Whenever I'm dreaming

Speaker 419:20

Love's love lighter gleaming I see

Presenter19:27

Mel Tormay singing Wonderful One.

Presenter19:31

Among your many celebrated silent films was one very intriguing one which was never finished, Erich von Stroheim's Queen Kelly. Now what went wrong with that?

Gloria Swanson19:41

It was written and it was okay by the Hayes office, but when he

Gloria Swanson19:46

got on the set, he went wild and he forgot what you know, he didn't pay any attention to what he'd written in the script, and he did what he wanted to do, and so he he shot.

Gloria Swanson19:56

twenty thousand feet of film, which he knew had to be cut down to three thousand.

Gloria Swanson20:02

Now, how do you manage to do that? So naturally you're over budget.

Gloria Swanson20:05

Plus the fact that he then starts on the next part of the film

Gloria Swanson20:09

That particular part was a little principality.

Gloria Swanson20:12

And it was I was a convent girl. Then my aunt dies in in Africa, and I inherit from her a dance hall.

Gloria Swanson20:20

Now, when we got to shooting that part of it, it wasn't a dance hall at all, and I went in and saw some of the scenes I wasn't in, and saw what he had done with it, and in those those days it was quite scandalous, because he had uh strange things going on in the dance hall.

Gloria Swanson20:35

And I was concerned because I knew that the Hayes office

Gloria Swanson20:39

said yes, they had okayed a dance hall, but not a brothel.

Presenter20:42

So you ha you cancelled the whole thing. You stepped in the middle of the city.

Gloria Swanson20:44

So I walked off the set because I knew what we were in for and I was responsible for the money.

Presenter20:50

Well, from the silent days to sound, right from the beginning there'd been various experimental sound systems and then

Presenter20:57

In the late twenties the the talkies arrived. Did you believe that Sound Films were going to take over?

Gloria Swanson21:04

Yes, I did, very much so.

Presenter21:06

Mm-hmm.

Gloria Swanson21:06

It had to be. There was no reason why it shouldn't be.

Presenter21:10

It's time we had another record. What do we have now?

Gloria Swanson21:12

You know, I recently had a lovely little note from Rosa Poncell.

Speaker 421:17

Yeah.

Gloria Swanson21:17

And she had invited me to something and uh I don't think she's very well at this moment. And her voice to me was one of the most beautiful. And uh one fine day is what I would love to hear again.

Speaker 421:56

We are not

Speaker 422:00

We miss all of the poor.

Speaker 422:16

Oh man.

Presenter22:28

Rose upon sale singing One Fine Day from Madam Butterfly.

Presenter22:33

Well, after making a number of very successful sound films, in the nineteen forties you began

Presenter22:39

An equally successful stage career.

Presenter22:42

You'd virtually never acted on stage before, had you?

Gloria Swanson22:45

Yes, that's correct. Because when I left California in thirty eight, every producer wanted me to come on the stage. I'm talking about New York now.

Presenter22:53

Yeah.

Gloria Swanson22:54

Moved permanently to New York in'thirty eight.'

Gloria Swanson22:57

But I was so terrified that I'd open my mouth and nothing would come out, that I'd have to remember the all the words.

Gloria Swanson23:05

So I would run away and before signing a co I just wouldn't sign a contract. So they got bored and tired with this thing.

Gloria Swanson23:12

Finally some young man came and wrote me a letter and said, I understand some Hungarian author is translating one of his plays for you, and I think in the meantime I I want to speak to you seriously about something, because I think it would be good for you. So he came over and his name was Harold Kennedy.

Gloria Swanson23:28

and he used to do a lot of summer stock things, and so he said to me

Gloria Swanson23:32

Don't you think it's important to find out whether you like the theatre, and more important that you find out whether the theatre likes you?

Gloria Swanson23:40

Well, that's all I needed. Challenge, you see? So he whipped out of his pocket a long list of plays that had

Speaker 423:43

Yeah.

Gloria Swanson23:46

Been in New York, and that I could take. And he said, You'll go up to a little place where no critics, no one will know anything about it.

Gloria Swanson23:53

And there you will open up and do this play, and I suggest you do this one because you have three leading men in it and you don't have to carry the burden of it.

Gloria Swanson24:01

That's exactly what we did, but I was so terrified that you could have stuck hat pins in me and I wouldn't have known it.

Speaker 424:07

Of known

Gloria Swanson24:08

So terrified that I had the entire cast

Speaker 424:08

The f

Gloria Swanson24:10

Num.

Gloria Swanson24:11

They were throwing up backstage before the they went on the first night.

Gloria Swanson24:15

And when I got on the stage I opened my mouth and then something did come out, and from then on it was a ham. And I even had to kill them they were so nervous.

Presenter24:21

And I

Presenter24:24

From your stage career you you return to the screen to make one excellent and important picture, Sunset Boulevard.

Gloria Swanson24:31

The S.

Presenter24:32

Now that was a triumph of the picture.

Presenter24:35

Bastor Keaton, Erich von Stroheim had you forgiven him for Queen Kelly by now?

Gloria Swanson24:40

Of course. I'm a very forgiving person. I never hold anything against anyone.

Presenter24:45

So you've done quite a lot of television?

Presenter24:49

Lot of theatre work now. You paint, sculpt, design clothes.

Gloria Swanson24:53

I'm a good cook.

Presenter24:55

And a businesswoman?

Gloria Swanson24:56

You're

Presenter24:56

You have a factory or you had a factory.

Gloria Swanson24:58

Did have a factory and closed business, you name it.

Presenter25:03

Another record.

Gloria Swanson25:04

Oh yes.

Gloria Swanson25:05

Well, let's have a nice, soothing waltz.

Gloria Swanson25:09

Shahwe the Emperor's Walls.

Presenter25:11

Stries?

Gloria Swanson25:12

Yes, please.

Presenter26:12

The Emperor Wolfs by Johann Strauss. Cadian conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Now, this book you've written, Swanson on Swanson, it's a good thick book.

Gloria Swanson26:22

Well, naturally you know my age that I brag about because I think it's uh the biggest joke ever played on me that I should be eighty two years old and it's been a very full, full life. I came in screaming in a blizzard.

Gloria Swanson26:38

in Chicago at the turn of the century, and I'm still in a blizzard.

Presenter26:44

You write very honestly about yourself, and there's surprisingly little scandal about other people.

Gloria Swanson26:50

Well, I never was a I when I was writing for the United Press I said

Gloria Swanson26:55

I'll write, but I will not write a gossip column. That's the last thing I would want to do.

Presenter27:02

You write a lot about your own marriages. There have been six now.

Presenter27:07

And you give your recipe for

Presenter27:10

Being as youthful as you are, you are very careful about what you eat.

Gloria Swanson27:14

Yes.

Gloria Swanson27:15

Well, I think you are very careful if you want your automobile to run properly. You better be careful what kind of ink you put in it.

Gloria Swanson27:23

Because you wouldn't think of putting the wrong, you know

Gloria Swanson27:27

Rubicon Senate with that

Gloria Swanson27:29

Having trouble?

Presenter27:30

Surely.

Presenter27:31

We got to record number seven. What's that?

Gloria Swanson27:33

Oh, Connie Tuller pay ye.

Gloria Swanson27:35

I would like very much to hear that.

Gloria Swanson27:38

again because it's one I used to sing on the set and hum and

Presenter27:42

Connie Tulip from uh Minho Singers.

Gloria Swanson27:45

Yes, from anything else.

Gloria Swanson27:47

Frederike von Stade.

Speaker 427:57

Very honorable.

Speaker 428:03

We live with the war.

Speaker 428:07

Be the rosy and

Speaker 428:13

The reals he was so clearly here.

Speaker 428:24

To this is all within a lizard.

Presenter28:50

Frederica von Stader singing Connetoule Pay from Mignon by Toma.

Presenter28:57

Now, how are you going to manage on this desert island, Miss Swanson? Could you rig up some sort of shelter, do you think?

Gloria Swanson29:02

Of course.

Presenter29:04

Ever done any fishing?

Gloria Swanson29:05

Yes, I like to fish.

Presenter29:07

Would you try to escape?

Gloria Swanson29:09

It would depend on just when I went there, whether I was ready for that sort of thing or not.

Presenter29:14

You'd play it rather cautiously.

Gloria Swanson29:16

I certainly would.

Presenter29:17

I think that's very wise. We've now got your last record. What will that be?

Gloria Swanson29:22

Why don't we do something that I sang myself, which is Love Your Magic Spell is Everywhere? It was written by an Englishman.

Gloria Swanson29:29

And it was in my first talking picture, and it's more or less associated with me like my theme song.

Presenter29:36

Now your first talking picture was the trespasser, right?

Gloria Swanson29:38

Yeah.

Presenter29:39

And who was the Englishman who wrote the song?

Gloria Swanson29:41

Edmund Goulding.

Presenter29:42

Oh, the director?

Gloria Swanson29:43

Yes, and he he wrote the s the uh script too.

Gloria Swanson29:48

Well, we all had a hand at that one, but

Gloria Swanson29:50

Um it was like a farce the way he wrote this because he was a person who couldn't remember once he'd said a thing, that was the end of it.

Gloria Swanson29:58

So when he worked over at MGM they had they had people following him around no matter where he went.

Gloria Swanson30:04

and he had microphones all over his office.

Presenter30:04

And they have

Gloria Swanson30:07

And so th this was very difficult for me to get this down, and it's too long a story to tell you now, but it was really.

Gloria Swanson30:15

like a farce to get him to keep whistling until we could get somebody at my house that wrote music.

Presenter30:21

Well, here's the song that he he whistled. Love, your magic spell is everywhere from the trespasser.

Speaker 430:37

Do you well and far?

Speaker 430:41

You lift me and I love and faith.

Speaker 430:48

Yeah.

Presenter30:54

Love, your magic spell is everywhere

Presenter30:57

If you could take only one disk out of the eight you've chosen, which would it be?

Gloria Swanson31:02

It must be Rosa Poncell's voice, because that is one of the great voices, and I loved it so much.

Presenter31:07

Rose uponcell singing One Fine Day

Presenter31:10

And you're allowed to take one luxury to the island, any one thing of no practical use.

Gloria Swanson31:16

Guess what that's gonna be?

Gloria Swanson31:19

It's gonna be a telephone.

Gloria Swanson31:22

Uh

Presenter31:22

Hello?

Presenter31:23

Well, you can have the telephone, but I'll warn you that the island telephone service is terrible, so I can't guarantee who you're going to get through to.

Gloria Swanson31:31

All right.

Presenter31:33

and one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already there.

Gloria Swanson31:37

The Prophet by Gebron

Presenter31:40

The Prophet by Gibran. I don't know that.

Gloria Swanson31:42

Do down?

Gloria Swanson31:43

Well, you'd say it would be partly the Bible and partly

Gloria Swanson31:47

Great philosophy and and poetry, very beautiful.

Presenter31:51

I shall look forward to getting hold of a copy. And thank you, Gloria Swanson, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Gloria Swanson31:58

Thank you.

Presenter31:59

Goodbye, everyone.

Gloria Swanson32:00

Goodbye, and lots of love to all of you wonderful people out there in the dark.

Speaker 332:12

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.