Glenn Close | ChicanePictures

Twenty years on, Glen Close reprises her Tony Award-winning role as the deluded screen star Norma Desmond and makes her much-anticipated West End debut in Lonny Price’s ‘semi-staged’ production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s SUNSET BOULEVARD for it’s five week run at the London Coliseum. Based on the classic Academy Award-winning 1950 noir film, stylised on screen as SUNSET BLVD., written and directed by Billy Wilder, starring Gloria Swanson, the black comedy is cited as one of the greats of American cinema.

Lloyd Webber’s musical version with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton premiered at London’s Aldephi Theatre in 1993 with Patti Lupone in the lead role before making it’s Broadway debut a year later with Glenn Close playing the fading star of the silent era living in the past in her decaying mansion on the fabled Los Angeles street.

Norma Desmond’s immortal line at the end “And now, Mr DeMille I am ready for my close-up,” has that little bit more significance with Ms Close delivering it.

Fans packed the stage door barriers on Saturday evening and surrounded the car, waiting for her exit. I managed to squeeze into a spot over the bonnet and after she had signed for the barrier areas, stood on the vehicle’s runner board and graphed some items on the roof of the car, including my sketch, which I slide across, strategically stopping in front of the star’s skedaddling sharpie. It’s a bit scrawly but it’s Glenn’s and it’s in person and it captures the moment perfectly.

Acclaimed for her versatility and widely regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation, Glenn Close returned to the Broadway Stage after a twenty year hiatus in Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance at New York City’s John Golden Theatre.

Glenn’s last outing on the Great White Way won her third Tony for playing silent screen star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. In spite of an extraordinary film and television career, theatre was where she began and remains her first love.

Glenn top lines a lustrous cast with John Lithgow as the complacent heads of a family who lose their composure when faced to confront and undefined terror that has stricken their best friends. Her “meaty role” as Agnes is the “witty, self-described harridan”.

Apart from winning three Tonys, Glenn tied the record for being the actress with the most Oscar nominations never to have won. The six time nominee has, however, collected three Emmys (14 noms) two Golden Globes (14 noms) and a SAG award (8 noms). She has also been nominated three times for a Grammy and once for a BAFTA.

The limited 18 week season ends on 22 February 2015.