Finally Ready for It's Close-Up

Years before Andrew Lloyd Webber got his hands on it, there was another musical journey down Sunset Boulevard ... and it was to star the original Norma Desmond herself, Miss Gloria Swanson.

Titled Boulevard! (don't you just love it when they add an exclamation point to a title whenever they musicalize it?), the ill-fated project was never produced (Paramount refused to grant the stage rights), but Swanson did record it ... and now, over fifty years later, those recordings will finally be available to the general public to hear for the first time. The cast album -- titled Gloria Swanson in "Boulevard!" -- will be released May 12 exclusively through Stage Door Records.

Song titles include "Those Wonderful People", "Off With the Old", "Take a Crack at the Zodiac" and "Hand It to the Glands"(!?). In addition to the complete "concept musical", the two CD set also includes rare bonus tracks comprised of Swanson songs from her earlier films The Trespasser, Indiscreet and Perfect Understanding.