Andrew Lloyd Webber Musical Based on Tragic 1950 Film Opened 33 Years Ago

From Some Like It Hot to Sunset Blvd., filmmaker Billy Wilder certainly made a stamp on Hollywood during the 20th century.

The latter ultimately became a staged production more than four decades after its theatrical release, courtesy of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Sunday, July 12 marked exactly 33 years since Sunset Boulevard the musical opened in London, with Patti LuPone portraying the infamous Norma Desmond role originally brought to life on the big screen by Gloria Swanson.

After Webber, 78, saw the film in the early 1970s, he became inspired to write a title song for a theatrical adaptation, according to his official website. Speaking on the process of creating the songs, he said, “I began composing the score shortly after the opening of Aspects of Love in London in 1989. I tried various versions of the title song, but came back to the original idea I had in the early 70s, albeit in a very different style and form.”

Webber continued, per his website, “I stayed with my late ’70s draft of the moment where Norma returns to Paramount, ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye.’ Otherwise mostly everything has been written since 1989.”

These days, fans can enjoy the Original Broadway Cast Recording from 1994 on Spotify.

Back in 1951, Sunset Blvd. the film won three Academy Awards, though it nominated for a whole lot more. As film buffs well know, it also stars William Holden — and by the turn of the century, the American Film Institute ranked the tragic dark comedy near the top of its “Greatest American Movies of All Time” list.

Rotten Tomatoes, meanwhile, calls it “arguably the greatest movie about Hollywood.” Here’s the official synopsis:

“An aging silent film queen (Swanson) refuses to accept that her stardom has ended. She hires a young screenwriter (Holden) to help set up her movie comeback. The screenwriter believes he can manipulate her, but he soon finds out he is wrong. The screenwriter’s ambivalence about their relationship and her unwillingness to let go leads to a situation of violence, madness and death.”