Happy Birthday, Joan Crawford!

The once called «Queen of the Movies» was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1904 (although some sources cite 1905 or 1906), in San Antonio, Texas. As a child, Billie, as she liked to be called, loved to watch vaudeville acts perform and would spend hours backstage at her stepfather's opera house, mingling with the artists and dreaming of becoming a performer herself one day. After three years of dancing in the choruses of travelling revues, she was spotted by producer Jacob J. Shubert, who then offered her a spot in his latest Broadway show, Innocent Eyes. Later that year, she got a screen test with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's producer Harry Rapf and immediately secured a contract with the studio.

«My future was in Hollywood, not the theater.»
(Joan Crawford)

LEFT: Joan Crawford as a child. RIGHT: Joan Crawford c. 1926.

Credited as Lucille LeSueur, her first job in the film industry was as Norma Shearer's body-double in Monta Bell's romantic drama Lady of the Night (1925). Soon afterwards, MGM decided to change her name when the studio's publicist Pete Smith complained that her last name reminded him of a sewer. After a magazine contest, it was decided that Lucille LeSueur would be now known as «Joan Crawford.» 

 

Frustrated over the roles she was given after Lady of the Night, Crawford embarked on a campaign of self-promotion and began attending dances at various hotels in Hollywood, where she would impress everyone with her performances of the Charleston and the Black Bottom. Her strategy worked and MGM next cast her alongside Constance Bennett and Sally O'Neill as one of the title characters in Edmund Goulding's Sally, Irene and Mary (1925). The film was a hit and for the first time, the 21-year-old actress began to believe that she might actually have a future in Hollywood.

 

LEFT: Norma Shearer in Lady of the Night. RIGHT: Constance Bennett, Joan Crawford and Sally O'Neill in Sally, Irene and Mary.

After being chosen as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1926, Joan received her first top-billing role in The Taxi Dancer (1927) and was soon paired with some of MGM's top male stars, including John Gilbert, Tim McCoy, William Haines and Lon Chaney. The following year, she was cast opposite John Mack Brown in Harry Beaumont's drama Our Dancing Daughters (1928), which not only established her a serious actress, but also turned her into a symbol of modern 1920s-style femininity — the ultimate «flapper girl.»

«Joan Crawford is doubtless the best example of the flapper, the girl you see in smart night clubs to the apex of sophistication, toying iced glasses with a remote, faintly bitter expression, dancing deliciously, laughing a great deal, with wide hurt eyes. Young things with a talent for living.» 
(F. Scott Fitzgerald)

 

Joan Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters, which turned her into a model for the «flapper girl.»

In the fall of 1927, just before she started filming Rose-Marie (1928), the first of three MGM adaptations of the Broadway operetta of the same name, Joan met 18-year-old Douglas Fairbanks Jr., the son of Hollywood «King» Douglas Fairbanks and his first wife, Beth Sully. They were introduced by producer Paul Bern on the opening night of a play called Young Woodley, of which Fairbanks Jr. was the star. After the show, Joan sent Douglas a telegram congratulating him on his performance and a whirlwind romance soon began. Less than two months later, they were already engaged. On June 3, 1929, right after they finished filming Our Modern Maidens (1929), their first and only picture together, they were married in a quiet ceremony in New York City. A year and a half later, however, their marriage started to collapse, as Joan began a full-fledged love affair with Clark Gable. Joan and Douglas separated in late 1932 and she soon filed for divorce, which became final in May 1933. Although their relationship had a bittersweet ending, Joan and Douglas stayed cordial to each other for the rest of their lives and even spent time together going out to dinner.

 

LEFT: Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in Our Modern Maidens. MIDDLE: Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. after their wedding ceremony. RIGHT: Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. at Catalina Beach in California in 1929.

In the late 1920s, with the introduction of sound to motion pictures, Joan was one of the few silent screen stars lucky enough to make a successful transition to «talkies.» After a stint in MGM's star-studded musical extravaganza The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), she was cast opposite Robert Montgomery in the all-talking picture Untamed (1929), which became a box-office hit.

As the 1930s began, Crawford's flapper days were over and she began to be offered more sophisticated roles, which were able to show off her abilities as a dramatic actress. One of these movies was Dance, Fools, Dance (1931), a story about a reporter investigating the murder of a colleague. The film, which reunited her with director Harry Beaumont and paired her with up-and-coming star Clark Gable, was a hit among audiences and critics alike, and turned Crawford and Gable into one of MGM's most profitable duos. The two would star in seven more films together between 1931 and 1940, including the hugely popular Dancing Girl (1933).

 

LEFT: Robert Montgomery and Joan Crawford in Untamed. RIGHT: Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in Dance, Fools, Dance.

 

To capitalize on her dramatic skills, Joan was put to work in the all-star production of Grand Hotel (1932), along with some of MGM's biggest stars at the time, including Greta Garbo and John and Lionel Barrymore. The film was a critical and commercial success and went on to win Best Picture at the 5th Academy Awards, thus becoming her biggest hit to that date. After Grand Hotel, she was loaned out to United Artists to appear in the drama Rain (1932), in which she played prostitute Sadie Thompson. The film, although ambitious, was a critical and commercial flop, and for the first time in her career, Crawford received hate mail.

Joan followed Rain with another flop, the World War I romance drama Today We Live (1933), which teamed her with Gary Cooper, for the first and only time, and New York stage actor Franchot Tone. Crawford and Tone hit it off right away and eventually married in 1935. However, this marriage was also doomed not to last long and the couple divorced four years later. They rekindled their relationship in the mid-1960s and Tone even proposed marriage again, but Crawford politely declined.

 

LEFT: Joan Crawford in Grand Hotel. MIDDLE: Joan Crawford in a publicity still for Rain. RIGHT: Franchot Tone and Joan Crawford in Today We Live.

After the failure of Rain and Today We Live, MGM decided to reshaped the path of Joan's career and featured her in a string of glossy pictures that required little of her in terms of acting, but which ultimately cemented her position as «Queen of the Movies.» Films like the aforementioned Dancing Lady, Sadie McKee (1934), Love on the Run (1936) and The Gorgeous Hussy (1936), all of which featured Tone as well, were among the biggest box-office successes of the decade.

However, in the late 1930s, Crawford's popularity started to decline. After she was called «Box-Office Poison,» she demanded Louis B. Mayer to give her a film that would showcase her talents better. She was then cast in George Cukor's all-female comedy-drama The Women (1939), opposite Norma Shearer and Rosalind Russell. The picture was a smashing hit and put Crawford's career back on track.

 

Joan Crawford in publicity stills for Sadie McKee, The Gorgeous Hussy and The Women, respectively.

Though she followed The Women with other successful films, including Strange Cargo (1940), her eighth and final film with Clark Gable, and A Woman's Face (1941), co-starring Melvyn Douglas and for which she was critically acclaimed, she was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the roles she was being offered. As a result, in 1943, Crawford parted ways with MGM, after 18 years of collaboration, and signed a contract with Warner Bros. soon after. Her time at Jack Warner's studio, however, did not begin very auspiciously. After refusing every role she was given and being denied the one that she actually wanted to do (an adaptation of Edith Warton's 1911 novel Ethan Frome), Crawford decided to take herself off salary until a suitable role could be found for her.

 

LEFT: Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in Strange Cargo. RIGHT: Joan Crawford and Melvyn Douglas in A Woman's Face.

For over a year, Crawford did not appear on screen. Instead, she played the role of a dutiful housewife and dedicated her time to her growing family. In 1940, months after her divorce from Tone, she adopted a daughter named Christina and, in 1942, she married her third husband, actor Phillip Terry. The following year, the couple adopted a son, Phillip Jr., whose name Crawford later changed to Christopher after her divorce from Terry in 1946. She would adopt two more children in 1947, twins Cindy and Cathy.

 

During her down time, Joan also contributed to the war efforts. She hosted Sunday lunches for servicemen at her house, organized a day-care centre for women who worked at the war plants, and she was also one of the many celebrities who donated their services at the Hollywood Canteen, a club created by Bette Davis and John Garfield which offered food, dancing and entertainment for servicemen of all allied countries.

 

LEFT: Joan Crawford with Phillip Terry and their kids at their home in 1944. RIGHT: Joan Crawford at the Hollywood Canteen.

 

After a cameo appearance in the star-studded production of Hollywood Canteen (1944), Crawford went back to the screen in the most stellar of ways when she was cast as the title role in Michael Curtiz's Mildred Pierce (1945), based on the James M. Cain novel about a long-suffering mother who does everything in her power to provide a better life for her amoral and ungrateful daughter. Mildred Pierce was an outstanding critical and commercial success upon release, and Crawford went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Actress. She did not attend the ceremony, as she was confined to bed due to illness.

«I decided that if I got it, I would feel goddam sure that I deserved it, not just for that one film, but for some other damned fine performances I'd given. Whether the Academy voters were giving it to me, sentimentally, for Mildred or for 20 years of effort, the hell with it, I deserved it.»
(Joan Crawford)

 

LEFT: Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce. RIGHT: Joan Crawford with her Academy Award.

Though she followed Mildred Pierce with two equally successful performances — Humoresque (1946), opposite John Garfield, and Possessed (1947), co-starring Van Heflin, for which she received her second Academy Award nomination — by the late 1940s, the scrips that were given to her were less than riveting. In 1952, Joan asked Warner Bros. to be released from her contract and the studio agreed. 

 

After her departure from Warners, she became an independent player and was cast alongside Jack Palance in RKO's noir Sudden Fear (1953). The film was a hit and earned both stars Academy Award nominations. Unfortunately, she followed Sudden Fear with such unenthusiastic performances as Torch Song (1953) and Johnny Guitar (1954), although the latter gained critical acclaim in later decades.

 

Joan Crawford with John Garfield, Van Heflin and Jack Palance in Humoresque, Possessed and Sudden Fear, respectively.

On New Year's Eve 1954, Crawford met Pepsi Cola magnate Alfred Steele and they were immediately taken with each other. He was as accomplished and ambitious in his field as she was in hers, and the two seemed to be the perfect match. They were married in May 1955 at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, and Joan finally found much-needed stability in her personal life, after a string of unsatisfactory love affairs. She also became an active part of Pepsi and frequently travelled with her husband to promote the company.

Even though she was now the «First Lady» of Pepsi-Cola, she continued to work on film, as her need for recognition as an actress and a star was still very much alive in her. Her most notable film during this period was perhaps opposite Rossano Brazzi in the British drama The Story of Esther Costello (1957), for which she received considerable praise. In 1959, Steele died of a heart attack at the couple's New York apartment and Joan was left almost penniless. Shortly after her husband's death, she was offered a small role in Fox's romantic drama The Best of Everything (1959), starring Hope Lange. Crawford's role was very small (only seven minutes long), but she received positive reviews. Besides, it was work and that was all she needed.

 

LEFT: Alfred Steele and Joan Crawford on their wedding day in May 1955. MIDDLE: Joan Crawford and Rossano Brazzi in The Story of Esther Costello. RIGHT: Joan Crawford in The Best of Everything.

Three years later, she was cast alongside Bette Davis as one of the leads in Robert Aldrich's psychological thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), about a crazed, aging film star who torments her crippled sister in a decaying Hollywood mansion. Legend goes that Crawford and Davis loathed each other, but that did not keep the film from becoming a smashing success, both financially and critically.

After What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Joan struggled to find decent work on film, so she turned to television. Although she had been appearing on television since 1953, from the 1960s onward her appearances in the small screen became more frequent and included guest spots on several popular shows, including CBS's sitcom The Lucy Show (1962-1968) and soap opera The Secret Storm (1954-1974), and NBC's espionage drama The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968) and Western The Virginian (1962-1971). 

 

LEFT: With Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. MIDDLE: Joan Crawford in The Lucy Show. RIGHT: Joan Crawford in The Virginian.

In the early 1970s, Crawford began to shy away from public life and her final public appearance was in 1974, at an event to honour former co-star Rosalind Russell. After being horrified by the unflattering press pictures of herself released the next day, she swore never to be seen in public again. During the final years of her life, she barely left her apartment, save to visit some friends and neighbours and her daughter Cathy. By mid-1977, all her connections with the outside had been shut off and when she gave away her beloved pet dog on May 8, she knew that her life was nearing the end. Two days later, on May 10, Joan Crawford died from a heart attack at the age of 73, leaving behind an enduring legacy in the film industry.

«I have always known what I wanted, and that was beauty... in every form.» 
(Joan Crawford)

 

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SOURCES:

Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography by Lawrence J. Quirk (The University Press of Kentucky, 2002)

«America's Real Sweetheart - A Biography of Joan Crawford» by Stephanie Jones at The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia

TCM's article on Joan Crawford's 100th birthday