August 20th
For the month-long Summer Under the Stars celebration, TCM is devoting August 20th to an actress who electrified screens for almost 50 years.
Like so many entertainers who achieve such a high level of stardom, Joan Crawford’s storied life and career had so many twists and turns, her biography was as dramatic as the very films she appeared in such as Mildred Pierce (1945), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), and more.
According to some sources, Crawford was born on March 23rd in San Antonio, Texas in the early 1900s. Her exact birth year has long been debated, with most references listing anywhere from 1904 to 1908. The childhood of Lucille Fay LeSueur was marked with instability and tragedy. After her father abandoned the family, mother Anna was left to support young Lucille and her brother. Upon Anna LeSueur’s remarriage to Henry Cassin, the family relocated to Lawton, Oklahoma, before settling in Kansas City, Missouri. Her young daughter grew up thinking Cassin was her biological father. Going by the nickname “Billie,” Lucille would attend various boarding schools and some college, but would not complete her post-secondary education.
Ambition, a bit of good luck and a good chunk of hard work would eventually get Lucille LeSueur into films and transform her life forever.
After dancing in various troupes throughout the country (including a stint on Broadway), she sought out Loews Theatre publicist Nils Granlund. Not only did he get her a gig with another musician’s act, but also a screen test, which was given to producer Harry Rapf (who produced 1939’s The Ice Follies of 1939 and was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer saw Lucille’s potential, and she would be signed to a contract in 1924 for $75 per week. However, as many who have dabbled in performing know, sometimes one’s given name doesn’t exactly exude star power, and the studio thought it fit to change it. A “name the star” contest sponsored by a film magazine invited readers to bestow a brand-new moniker on the newest face in Hollywood. While the original winning entry of “Joan Arden” was disqualified due to the name already being used by another, the runner-up became the default winner. From that point on, Lucille LeSueur was Joan Crawford.
In many of her roles, Crawford seemed to take from a bleak and unhappy early life full of poverty and strife, along with a strong will and determination to succeed. From feisty and ferocious, to fancy-free and light-hearted, whatever emotion her character was supposed to be expressing, whatever motivation that role was trying to demonstrate, she poured every single ounce of energy into it.
Throughout her career, while she was certainly glamorous, as fitting to the fashion of the times, many of the roles she undertook were that of the underdog. She played ambitious women who had to scrape and claw their way into a profession or marriage of choice, and if lines were crossed into something unscrupulous or illegal to achieve those goals, so be it.
Often, the juiciest characters an actor can portray are the ones with some ulterior motive or deplorable behavior and Joan certainly took up that cause in 1939’s The Women. Directed by George Cukor and based on the play by Clare Boothe Luce, Crawford plays the brazen Crystal Allen, a perfume counter associate embroiled in an affair with the husband of Mary Haines (Norma Shearer), and she makes no qualms to her romantic rival about her designs. Rounding out the ensemble cast is Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine, Mary Boland and Paulette Goddard. Subject matter aside, this formula was successful, as it would be remade in 1956 as The Opposite Sex with yet another Joan taking the part named and modeled after the original: Joan Collins.
In the case of her portrayal of Ethel Whitehead in The Damned Don’t Cry (1950), there’s a bit of a conundrum. Ethel is in a marriage with Roy (Richard Egan), a man who is a bit of a brute, who demands that his wife return a bicycle she purchased for their son. The son is tragically killed in an accident, and while her husband shows a rather callous reaction to her pain, Ethel sees it as a sign that she must free herself from a marriage and life that would never and could never fulfill her. Over the course of the film, she reinvents herself several times. First as a working, single woman doing what it takes to get by to a society darling, all with some backing from her underworld boss and other associates. In this second new identity as socialite Lorna Hansen Forbes, Crawford’s interpretation of that aspect never displays an overtly evil or malicious streak. The character simply does what she feels is necessary to achieve that better life. Yet, despite her best effort to erase the ghost of Ethel, she can never escape who and what she is.
If her roles as Crystal and Ethel could be construed as deliciously contemptible by today’s standards, the part that’s often considered by filmgoers nowadays to be her best-known role (and won Crawford her only Academy Award) was certainly the most altruistic. In 1945’s Mildred Pierce, she played the titular character, a fierce hard-working single mother trying (once again) to make a decent life for herself and her family, while facing the wrath of her difficult, self-absorbed daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) and equally self-involved second husband, Monte (Zachary Scott). Mildred Pierce was Crawford’s first film since leaving MGM, and she bested Greer Garson, Ingrid Bergman, Gene Tierney and Jennifer Jones for the Best Actress Oscar. Based on the novel by James M. Cain, this would also be adapted into a 2011 HBO miniseries starring Kate Winslet as Mildred, which earned her a Primetime Emmy award.
As Crawford grew older, the parts that she was known for (those of women who often faced adversity head on) were fewer, but that wasn’t about to deter her. She would team up with longtime rumored rival Bette Davis in the 1962 psychological thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Directed by Robert Aldrich, Crawford and Davis portray the reclusive Hudson sisters. Davis as Jane, a former child star losing her grip on reality and Crawford as Blanche, the formerly successful sibling who was now a paraplegic and the brunt of her sister’s cruelty and wrath. Equally frightening and powerful, with moments of palpable suspense, the role of Blanche was a departure from Crawford’s customary oeuvre. Certainly, thanks in part to the ramped-up notion of the two leads’ supposed rivalry, this film would end up a smash hit.
Once her film career began to wane, Crawford once again applied that hard-working, tough cookie mentality to an entirely different profession. Crawford married Pepsi-Cola CEO Alfred Steele in 1955 and became an ambassador of sorts for the soft drink company. Following Steele’s death in 1959, Crawford stayed on with Pepsi, joining their board of directors. She would retire from her work with Pepsi in 1973.
Yes, Crawford was a fighter, who worked extremely hard to achieve a level of success, yet her personal and family life seemed to have just as many hurdles and triumphs. With several marriages under her belt, she had a deep desire for motherhood. It wasn’t in the cards for her to have biological children so she would adopt her first child, daughter Christina in 1940. Three other children would follow: son Christopher and fraternal twin daughters Cathy and Cindy.
Joan Crawford died in May 1977, and while we would think it would close the chapter of such an illustrious life and career, a mysterious statement in her will would keep her name on our lips for years to come.
With a single sentence in the will stating that she intended to disinherit her two eldest children, Christina and Christopher, there came a rebuttal one year later from Christina Crawford that would shock the masses. Christina’s bombshell memoir, “Mommie Dearest,” was published in 1978, and it was packed with disturbing accusations against her mother. Among the many claims made in the book, Christina Crawford alleges Joan was mentally and physically abusive, and was more focused on maintaining a good public image over parenting. Without a doubt, Christina Crawford’s accounts are heartbreaking and very difficult to fathom. While some believe the book was written simply as a ploy for revenge, and there have been countless articles written about the subject from multiple points of view, we must keep in mind that the public will never know what truly transpired between Crawford and her children.
Joan Crawford the actor would eventually be transformed into Joan Crawford the character in two productions. In the infamous 1981 film Mommie Dearest (very loosely based on the book), Faye Dunaway starred as Crawford, with Diana Scarwid and Mara Hobel as the teenaged/adult and young Christina, respectively. While it was critically panned during its original release, it is now considered by many to be a cult classic. 36 years later, Jessica Lange played Crawford opposite Susan Sarandon’s Bette Davis in the 2017 Ryan Murphy anthology series Feud: Bette and Joan, which depicted the two stars’ alleged conflict during the filming of Baby Jane? Lange and Sarandon would each receive Primetime Emmy, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations for their roles.
Regardless of one’s opinion on Joan Crawford the person, one could never say that she did not diligently (and most would say passionately) attempt to maintain her status as that of a consummate professional, thus enjoying such a long, successful career in film, and later television. Although we may not ever fully understand the woman behind the name, we cannot question or deny her undeniable talent, initiative, and the body of work that she left behind.
