"I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille!" Director Billy Wilder created one of his most enduring masterpieces in this dark, glittering, poison-pen letter to all things Hollywood, told in flashback by screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden), whose final job is playing paid companion to egocentric, aging silent-film goddess Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). With Erich von Stroheim. Academy Award Winner for Best Screenplay (Wilder, Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr.) and Score (Franz Waxman). The original Schwab’s drugstore figures prominently in the film, as do Paramount Studios and the still-standing Alto Nido apartments.