10 Actors Who Made Comebacks In INSANE Movies

An oldie but a goodie now with Gloria Swanson, who made a name for herself as a star of Hollywood's silent era in the 1920s, even earning two Best Actress Oscar nominations in the period.

However, Swanson struggled to transition into the sound era of the 1930s, with a number of prominent flops causing her to accept that her career as a starlet had ended.

After 1941's Father Takes a Wife, Swanson was absent from feature films for almost an entire decade, until she appeared in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, a seminal noir offering about a former silent era star attempting to stage a comeback.

The similarities between player and part were not lost on anyone, least of all Swanson, who while not actively seeking a Hollywood comeback was persuaded to star in the noir drama by Wilder.

Sunset Boulevard was ultimately a major success. Hailed today as one of the greatest films of all time, Swanson herself received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her fearlessly full-throated performance as the deranged Norma Desmond.

Ironically, despite the film causing Swanson to receive major offers left and right, she turned most of them down due to them being too similar to Norma. 

Swanson appeared in just a handful of movies in the decades that followed, preferring instead to focus on stage acting.

Though Swanson chose not to fully capitalise on her renewed success, that made it no less jolting a comeback for a performer who had effectively accepted defeat.