"I don't know why there was such a storm," she said a few years ago, "I only wanted to be helpful to a girl as young as I once was at Pickfair." She was referring to the chilly reception she met from Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr., on her marriage to his son. Douglas that she should move both bowl and doily. When the fingerbowls were brought, Miss Crawford explained, quite unnecessarily, to young Mrs. Douglas and his then bride, Catherine, as well as Lunt and Fontanne. Johnson's guests included Supreme Court Justice William O. Miss Crawford caused a commotion during a White House dinner when President and Mrs. Though they were seated at different Shakespeare benefit tables, she rushed over to congratulate her one-time husband, Franchot Tone, when he won an acting award. Though she never went back to the state, never took talk of it seriously she was one of Joseph Papp's early backers for his free Shakespeare in New York's Central Park. We'd walk through every step from the door, down aisles, up stairs to stage center. I interviewed her on several of her film program and never failed to rejoice that she insisted on full rehearsals. She preferred driving places in her chauffeured limousine and would have sumptuous picnic baskets for stops by the roadside. For an over night trip she'd have as many as a dozen suitcases, and was accompanied by both a secretary and a maid. "The public knows me as a star and I dress that way," she said, even in her later years. She was always hospitable to the press and travel instructions went out ahead of her: bars would be specifically equipped, Vodka not to be omitted, there would be a private phone by her bed, and 10 minutes before anything was to start, she was ready and waiting. There were such films as "The Damned Don't Cry," "Harriet Craig," "This Woman Is Dangerous," "Sudden Fear," "Torch Song," "Johnny Guitar," "Queen Bee" and "Autumn Leaves."īy the 1960s, she was turning to melodrama and some were memorable, especially "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" costarring Bette Davis, and "The Caretakers." She did some television and a few years ago took over a serial role of her adopted daughter, Christina, when the daugher was ill.īut it was not MGM, nor PR nor even luck that made Crawford. Cheyney," "The Shining Hour."Īfter the 1945 Oscar, the movie Crawford developed a more hard-bitten shell. This began another range of parts - the self-educating woman, either single or married, who was always trying to improve herself, her job, her manners, her social position, what today would call "upwardly mobile." Three were such roles in "Mannequin," "Foresaking All Others," "No More Ladies," "The Last of Mrs. She wanted acting parts.Ī great step for the next movie Crawford was as Wallace Beery's secretary in "Grand Hotel," in which she ranked alongside John and Lionel Barrymore and Greta Garbo in an allstar cast. The initial movie Crawford was as a 1920s flapper, the live-it-up girl of "Dancing Daughters," "Blushing Brides," "Modern Maidens," "Untamed," "Paid" and "Laughing Sinners." But Crawford wasn't satisfied. ![]() The next year she won a small part in a silent MGM picture, "Pretty ladies." The studio liked her, changed her name to Joan Crawford, gave her a new contract and the full PR treatment. After that chorus girl job in Missiouri, she landed in New York where she wound up in another chorus, for "Inocent Eyes" of 1924. ![]() She was born Lucile Le Sueur on March 23, 1908, in San Antonio, Tex. What one did not see was her clickety-click mind that could remember not only names of people she had met briefly years before, but what, at a large cocktail party, her guests were drinking. Large eyes, eyebrows that changed shape and position over the years, a wide mouth like a gash of red on always pale skin, high cheekbones and broad shoulders were her visible characteristics. It was a career that would make her one of the most recognizable women in the world, an Oscar-winner for "Mildred Pierce" of 1945, a style-setter for worldwide fashions, and the wife of three noted actors, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Franchot Tone and Philip Terry each of whom she woudl divorce. She had settled in New York at the time of her marriage to Alfred Steele, chairman of the baord of Pepsi-Cola, who died within hours of a visit the couple made to Washington in 1959.įor the past several years, while continuing on the Pepsi board, she had made public talks on programs featuring scenes from major films in her career that began in the chorus of a touring company in Missiouri while she was still in her teens. Though inactive in recent months, the film star had had no history of heart trouble. One of her two household maids had found Miss Crawford's body at about 10 a.m. Cowan, in making the announcement at her home. "It's the end of an era and a legend," said her lawyer, Edward S. Joan Crawford died yesterday at the age of 69 after a heart attack in the bedroom of her Upper East Side New York apartment.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |