Grande Dame Guignol: Sunset Boulevard

Name:  Norma Desmond

Location: An old mansion in Hollywood California that was described like this: "The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis - out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion. "

Occupation: Formerly, the greatest silent screen actress of all time - currently; wilted and faded.

Modus Operandi: Living a Miss Havisham-like existence in a crumbling palace ... prone to watching her own films over and over again ... angry, proud and delusional ... working on a script about Salome ... has attempted suicide several times ... does not understand rejection ... kept the corpse of a dead chimpanzee in her bedroom and then had the creature buried in her garden ... does a mean imitation of Charlie Chaplin ... the original "cougar", she likes hot, out work writers ... still waiting on that call from DeMille... oh, and she just bought herself a gun, she did.

Camp Factor:  You won't know whether to laugh, cry or scream when confronted by Norma Desmond - but you'll never forget her after you meet her.  Ever the star, when it comes time for the LA police department to arrest her, they have to pretend they are filming a scene in a movie to get her out of her bedroom and down the stairs of her house.

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Played by Miss Gloria Swanson