Despite the success of their latest endeavor, Wilder and Brackett parted ways after Sunset Boulevard. They had an argument during the production of a montage sequence in the film, and Wilder swore never to work with Brackett again. He kept his word.

Wilder went on to direct many other films, including Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), Some Like it Hot (1959) and 1960's multiple Academy Award winner, The Apartment. He would win a total of 7 Academy Awards, including the prestigious Irving J. Thalberg Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1987. His last directorial effort would be 1981's Buddy Buddy.

Brackett would go on to launch Marilyn Monroe into stardom with 1953's Niagara, then launch a successful career as a producer of such films as 1956's The King and I and 1962's State Fair. His film version of Titanic (1953) would earn him an Academy Award for Best Story and Screenplay. His four Academy Awards includes an honorary Oscar for outstanding service, given in 1957.

The cast members' later efforts have been chronicled in the previous section (The Cast).

Gloria Swanson, however, embarked on an attempt to turn Sunset Boulevard into a stage musical in the 1950s. She enlisted the British team of Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley to create the score and lyrics. Erich Von Stroheim was approached to reprise his role of Max, but he declined. Gerald Palmer was brought in as producer. Jose Ferrer was approached to direct the program. However, in 1957, Paramount, who owned the copyright on the film, refused to give Swanson permission to stage her endeavor. Swanson was shocked. The music was never released, but recordings of its entire score would be preserved at the Gloria Swanson Archives at the University of Texas.

But that was not the end of Sunset Boulevard, the musical. On July 12th, 1993, Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of the film opened at the Adelphi Theater in London, starring Patti LuPone and Kevin Anderson. It would subsequently open in Los Angeles and on Broadway with Glenn Close in the leading role, giving theater-goers a chance to relive the magic that was created by Wilder and Brackett over forty years earlier. Although both the Broadway and London productions closed in 1997, the music lives on with regional productions and cast albums.

The film, as we very well know, will live forever.

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