Remembering Gloria Swanson in.... Norma Desmond - I am a Star Scene Sunset Boulevard (stylized onscreen as SUNSET BLVD.) is a 1950 American film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett. It was named after the thoroughfare with the same name that runs through Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, California. The film stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star who draws