Don Black - The Greatest Star Of All lyrics

[MAX] Once, you won't remember If you said Hollywood Hers was the face you'd think of Her face on every billboard In just a single week She'd get ten thousand letters Men would offer Fortunes for a bloom from her corsage Or a few strands of her hair Today, she's half-forgotten But it's the pictures that got small She is the greatest star of all Then, you can't imagine How fans would sacrifice themselves to touch her shadow There was a maharajah Who hanged himself with one of her discarded stockings She's immortal Caught inside that flickering light beam Is a youth which cannot fade Madame's a living legend I've seen so many idols fall She is the greatest star of all [JOE, voiceover] When he'd gone, I stood looking out the window for a while. There was the ghost of a tennis court with faded markings and a sagging net. There was an empty pool where Clara Bow and Fatty Arbuckle must have swum 10,000 midnights ago. And then there was something else: the chimp's last rites, as if she were laying a child to rest. Was her life really as empty as that? [sound of NORMA sobbing]