Born Lucille Fay Le Sueur, Joan Crawford entered the world on March 3, 1904 in San Antonio, Texas. Her parents had separated before she was born and her mother married three times. By age sixteen, Lucille had known three fathers, one of whom, a vaudeville theater manager named her Billie Cassin. The year 1915 found her and her mother living in Kansas City where “Billie” worked in a laundry in order to pay for her school tuition. Despite her dismal surroundings, Lucille made her own fun. She was fond of and entered many dance contests. One such contest led to chorus work in Chicago, Detroit and New York in 1923.
She left for Hollywood on New Years Day 1925. A Photoplay contest led to the adoption of the name Joan Crawford and in 1928, with her performance in “Our Dancing Daughters,” she became a star. She had a string of successes with MGM and after 18 years, left to sign with another studio, Warner Brothers, in 1943.
She won her first Oscar for her work in Mildred Pierce (1945) Specializing in suffering, her roles always dictated that she wear pearls and hold her head high. She often took parts in which she was a woman of lower class origins who struggled to succeed (usually on the back of a wealthy man) in the big, mean old city.
She married Alfred Steele, Chairman of the Board of Pepsi Cola after making more than seventy films and stayed on with the company after his death in 1959 until 1972 when the powers that be pushed her out. “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” in 1962 renewed her career as a cinema star, but she and Bette Davis hated each other and never worked together again.
She retired from the public eye in 1974 and devoted herself to Christian Science and vodka. In her New York brownstone, she was a recluse who died on May 10, 1977. Her four adopted children received little money from her two million dollar estate and two of them Christopher and Christina received nothing “for”, as she so enigmatically wrote in her will, “reasons known best to them.”
What are some of YOUR favorite Joan Crawford movies? Please share.