âI am NOT going to write my memoirs!â: Gloria Swanson talks pictures
In this classic interview with Rui Nogueira from our Spring 1969 issue, the great Gloria Swanson is on majestic form as she reflects on a storied life spent as one of the greatest stars of Hollywoodâs Golden Era â a time before the pictures got small.
19 February 2021
Sadie Thompson (1928)
Acting is a very strange word. I guess everyone is acting all of their lives â lawyers, doctors, people who donât even realise that theyâre acting. âAll the worldâs a stageâ and everybody is acting in it.
So, what is acting? Iâve thought about it a great deal. Some people go through a career just playing themselves. Like Tallulah Bankhead was always Tallulah Bankhead, no matter what she played, with the exception of one performance: in The Little Foxes. There she wasnât Tallulah, she was the character. I would say that Cary Grant is always Cary Grant. Heâs very charming, but whether heâs playing a cowboy or playing a diplomat, heâs always Cary Grant. Thatâs one type of acting, where the personality overpowers the character youâre playing.