Nancy Olson, 96, Says Her Oscar-Nominated Role inSunset BoulevardMade Her Leave Hollywood: ‘Movie Stars Are Sad Creatures’

Mar. 15, 2025

Nancy Olson in ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (left) in 1950; Nancy Olson in 2020 (right).Photo:Alamy; Amanda Edwards/Getty

Alamy; Amanda Edwards/Getty

It’s not often your first Oscar nomination makes you want to turn away from acting — but that’s what happened toSunset Boulevardstar Nancy Olson.

Olson, 96, opened up about her experience with the film and its effect on her career on the Feb. 6 episode ofThe Hollywood Reporter’sIt Happened in Hollywoodpodcast.

The movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a Best Supporting Actress nod for Olson, who was only 22. But it only won three: for the score, production design and screenplay.

“I did not expect to win, and I did not win,” Olson said on the podcast. “I felt very rewarded being nominated, and that was quite enough.” She added that she had a feeling she wouldn’t win when she was seated at the back of the audience.

Nancy Olson in the 1950s.John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty

John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty

Still, she said, “Gloria Swanson andBilly Wilder, the picture, everything should have won.” And while she said the competition included some “wonderful movies,”Sunset Boulevard“has outlasted them all.”

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The movie’s legacy, she said, is that it “reveals the truth” about Hollywood and the movie industry. “It was built on commodities to sell, and the commodities were the actors and the actresses, and they were made bigger than their reality. They were figures that were used to sell motion pictures. Therefore, they were made more beautiful, more desirable, more sexual than it was possible to be.” She said it was the same as the treatment ofMarilyn Monroe.

Olson guessed that the movie was widely snubbed at the Oscars because members of the industry were “uncomfortable” at how it exposed that reality.

And because it exposed that reality, Olson ultimately realized she didn’t want that fame for herself. “Movie stars were sad creatures,” she said. “I understood Norma Desmond, and I understood Marilyn Monroe. And I wanted a life.”

William Holden (left) and Nancy Olson in ‘Sunset Boulevard’.Silver Screen Collection/Getty

Silver Screen Collection/Getty

“I knew that movie stars had a period of time, and then they were thrown away,” she said. “What more did I need to know than about Norma Desmond? I’m a doctor’s daughter from the Midwest. I said, ‘How many movie stars are happily married, have children, are part of larger families, aunts, uncles, cousins, which was my life?’ Nobody. So I couldn’t imagine existing in the world.”

Olson also said she thought the movie was Swanson’s “revenge” for being thrown away the same way Desmond was.Sunset Boulevardwas also adapted into a musical,running once again on Broadway, now starring Nicole Scherzinger.

In 1962 she married Alan W. Livingston, with whom she shared a son. “That’s a happy part of my life, are my children and grandchildren.”

Olson officially retired from acting in the mid-’80s, though she’s made a few on-screen appearances since. She wrote about her life in her 2022 memoirA Front Row Seat: An Intimate Look at Broadway, Hollywood, and the Age of Glamour.

source: people.com