READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP

Don't know why, but I'm having mild apoplexy regarding both the movie and the musical "SUNSET BOULEVARD". This campest/maddest and saddest of movies/musicals is fabulous. Not only is the movie good but the backstage gossip and drama would have kept Heather Locklear in business for years!

We all (I hope!!?) know the story of the out of work writer, Joe Gillis, who stumbles on an old mansion on Sunset Boulevard. This is the home - I must sound like David Frost in "Through The Keyhole?! - this si the home of silent movie queen, Norma Desmond. They work together as Norma envisages a return to her people in the dark and he plans a career on the coat-tails of this hasbeen. Joe falls in love with studio worker, Betty and Norma shoots him dead as he leaves her mansion. The press are called and Norma in her maniacal state descends the staircase, deluded that she's back on the film set and says the immortal line about being ready for her close-up. Fade to black!

There's a whole book devoted to the legend of Sunset Blvd. This is what I'm reading through just now and find it beyond excellent, the same guy wrote a book detailing "All About Eve". What's interesting now is that actresses over say 40 are uber keen to play Norma in the musical version. We've had Patti LuPone, Betty Buckley, Glenn Close, Elaine Paige, Diahann Carroll, nearly Faye Dunaway and strangely enough, Petula Clark!

I'm also loving the drama from the Musicality album version of "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from the musical which is when Norma returns to the studio and is enchanted by the surroundings and feels as though she's back at home.

Turns out all they asked her back to the studio for was to see if they could borrow her car, no wonder Norma shot someone, I'd be fucking raging too!