Fade In, Fade Out

An imagined encounter between William Holden and Gloria Swanson—two actors forever fused by one film, Sunset Boulevard, crossing paths by chance at a sun-drenched hotel pool in the spring of 1951. The movie is still smoldering in Hollywood’s memory, but the reel has long since ended. He’s tan, taut, halfway between leading man and a bottle of bourbon. She’s regal in a turban and sunglasses, still Norma Desmond to waiters and strangers.

Scene: A quiet luxury hotel in Palm Springs. Mid-morning.
The pool is a shimmering blue rectangle of forgotten promises. Palm fronds sway like gossip in the breeze. Most guests are still at breakfast. The world is taking its time today.
William Holden, lean and lounging with a paperback he isn’t reading, nurses a hangover behind Ray-Bans. His swimsuit is tight, his conscience looser.
Gloria Swanson emerges like a mirage in silk, turban wrapped tight, sunglasses enormous, posture sharper than ever. She carries herself like royalty traveling incognito—which is to say, badly.
She walks past Holden’s chair. Stops. Smiles without lowering her glasses.

SWANSON:
Well, if it isn’t Mr. Gillis, alive and chlorinated.
HOLDEN (looks up, squints, breaks into a grin):
Gloria. I’ll be damned. You vacation like a queen who just exiled herself.
SWANSON:
And you tan like a man who’s escaping applause.
HOLDEN:
You caught me. I'm hiding from press, producers, and three ex-girlfriends who think they’re in a script I never read.
SWANSON:
And yet you didn’t dive into the deep end.
HOLDEN:
Only when I’m drunk.

She sets down her towel on the lounger next to his. Sits with the kind of grace you can’t fake—or rehearse.

SWANSON:
You know they still write about Sunset Boulevard like it just happened? As if we’re both still up there in that old house, rotting with Max and the memories?
HOLDEN:
It’s the damnedest thing. I get more fan letters now than I did when I was supposed to be charming. People like me better dead in a pool than alive in Technicolor.
SWANSON:
And I get asked if I was Norma Desmond.
HOLDEN:
Were you?
SWANSON (smiles faintly):
No. I just knew her intimately. Like an old dress that never quite fits, but you can’t bear to throw away.
HOLDEN:
You didn’t play her. You resurrected her.
SWANSON:
You weren’t so bad yourself. You made cynicism look boyish.
HOLDEN:
That’s because I was still young enough to believe in bitterness. Give me ten years and I’ll believe in nothing at all.

A waiter walks by with two iced teas. Swanson lifts a finger and they arrive like clockwork. She always had timing.

HOLDEN:
Funny thing. We filmed a tragedy, and people watch it like a thriller.
Who's gonna snap first?
The has-been? The hustler? The butler with a gun?
SWANSON:
Or the audience, realizing Hollywood never needed them to begin with.
HOLDEN:
You bitter?
SWANSON:
No. I won. I lived long enough to become a myth.

They sip in silence for a moment. Only the rustle of the palms and the soft splash of some kid cannonballing far off.

HOLDEN:
Ever wonder what would’ve happened if Norma didn’t shoot me?
SWANSON:
Of course. You’d have gone back to Betty Schaefer. Married her. Written something honest. Drank yourself into obscurity by forty.
HOLDEN:
That accurate?
SWANSON:
You tell me.

He chuckles. Then shrugs. Then stares at his drink like it owes him something.

HOLDEN:
You know what I hated most? That I understood her. That part in the middle—when she’s human. When she’s just lonely and trying.
SWANSON:
You think the audience understood her?
HOLDEN:
No. They understood the house. The tragedy. The glamour. But her? No. She was too real to be believable.
SWANSON:
Exactly. I should’ve been more of a cartoon. Then they’d have forgiven me.

They both laugh now. Not bitterly. Just knowingly. Two people who walked through fire and learned to admire the ash.

HOLDEN:
We ever work together again?
SWANSON:
You’d be the man trying to save me.
HOLDEN:
And you’d be the woman who knows it’s too late.
SWANSON:
But we’d dance once, before the end.
HOLDEN:
Always.

A long pause. The sun glints off the pool. Neither blinks.

SWANSON:
It’s strange, isn’t it? That film brought me back. And it chained me to a ghost.
HOLDEN:
Hell of a ghost, though.
SWANSON (softly):
We made something that refused to die.
HOLDEN:
So did Norma.

She stands now, towel gathered, head high.

SWANSON:
Well, Joe. I’m ready for my vacation.
HOLDEN:
Don’t get lost in the sunset.
SWANSON (smirks):
Darling—I am the sunset.

She walks off. The pool ripples. Holden watches her go, then finally lies back in his chair and closes his eyes—not to sleep, but to remember.

Fade out.
Credits roll in rippling water and echoes of a voice saying, “Alright, Mr. DeMille…”