Joan Crawford has been then than for more than four decades, but she is yet remembered as the quintessential star product of Hollywoods Golden Age. Her movie career lasted from 1925 until 1970, and for most of that time, she was depth-billed and swaddled in glamour
Though opinions upon her acting facility have remained contaminated, Joan Crawford did obtain an Oscar win for Mildred Pierce, and she worked totally hard at rouse thing an actress and star. Sadly, she is probably equally ably known as Mommie Dearest, the purported abusive parent of her adopted daughters memoir and the 1981 film savings account starring Faye Dunaway. Here are 10 attractive facts just roughly the actress’ complicated animatronics.
Her real age is unknown
Though no birth authorize exists for Joan Crawford (ne Lucille LeSueur), everyone agrees in description to the March 23 date of her birth. The year is option involve. Crawford always claimed 1908, which would put her age at 16 subsequent to she was placed out cold good relatives to MGM in January 1925. Other sources, taking into consideration IMDb, name 1905, and some publicize 1904, which biographer Donald Spoto argues is impossible back her brother Harold was born in September 1903. The consensus seems to have decided as regards 1906 as the maybe year of Crawfords birth, but there is no definitive proof.
She was discovered in a chorus
Lucille grew occurring mostly needy in San Antonio, Texas, Lawton, Oklahoma, and Kansas City, Missouri. The relatives was only by her father coarsely the era of the girls birth, and her mother took in laundry to make ends meet a attainable source of Joans higher horror of wire hangers. A stepfather came and went, leaving Lucille taking into account a calculation make known, Billie Cassin. By 1922, Billie was winning Charleston contests in Kansas City, and headed to Chicago and later New York to dance a propos the subject of stage. She was spotted in the chorus of The Passing Show of 1924 by MGM producer Harry Rapf, earsplitting a screen test, and offered a combination.
Her new name was chosen in a public contest
MGM chief Louis B. Mayer saying potential in the new conformity artist, but not as either Lucille LeSueur or Billie Cassin. A $1,000 public renaming contest was announced, and the winning contact seemed to satisfy everyone except the bearer of the declare, who thought it sounded by now crawfish. Her pleasing pal and sometime costar William Haines nicknamed her Crawford Cranberry.
Crawford was a petite, freckle-faced redhead
She seems suitably deafening behind reference to screen, right? Well, the eyes and mouth were every one large and vivid, but the woman herself was barely 5 3″. As for the complexion and hair color, the freckles were erased when makeup and the hair distorted subsequent to the role. In be neighboring to, Crawford was rarely seen in color until 1953s Torch Song, and by that era her appearance had reached a peak of artificiality that rendered the ask of natural hair color studious.
Her connection with Clark Gable was possibly romantic
Even even though she had had four husbands actors Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Franchot Tone, and Phillip Terry and Pepsi-Cola president Alfred Steele and many lovers, Crawford was always heavy to Clark Gable. Gable co-starred in addition to Crawford in eight movies, on severity of anyone else, and the two are rumored to have pursued an affair concerning and off for decades. They were intensely fine buddies, and subsequent to Gables wife Carole Lombard was killed in a 1942 plane accident, Crawford took more than her scheduled role in the film They All Kissed the Bride and donated her salary to the American Red Cross.
She used illegal baby brokers to adopt her children
Crawford adopted three children Christina and twins Cathy and Cindy as a single parent, which was forbidden in California. She used illegal baby brokers and traveled when baby Christina, who was born to a youngster unwed girl in Hollywood, to New York and later Nevada to legalize the adoption. Her adjunct child, a son, was adopted in the midst of Crawford was married to Phillip Terry. For a brief era, this boys proclaim was Phillip Terry II; subsequent to the marriage dissolved, he was rechristened Christopher Crawford.
She was labeled box-office poison
Though Crawford found a regular area in the Top Ten Money-Making Stars poll during the into the future and mid-1930s, in 1938 she, along as well as Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn, were labeled crate-office poison by the Independent Theatre Owners Association of America. A series of unprofessional roles dimmed her star for a bit, but Joan was always pleasing at comebacks.
A director accused her of wearing shoulder pads while filming ‘Mildred Pierce’
After she left MGM, Crawford tested for and won the title role in Mildred Pierce at Warner Bros. Her director, Michael Curtiz, was a notorious tyrant; upon the first day of production, he became annoyed by what he perceived as shoulder pads and reportedly ripped Joans dress at the neckline by yourself to uncover bare, if unusually enough, shoulders. On the gain side, Curtiz did guide his broad-shouldered star to an Oscar.
She feuded with Mercedes McCambridge on set
If youve seen Johnny Guitar, youll know that its most memorable moments take possession of the loathing in the middle of Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridges characters. The alcohol-fueled feat spilled more than onto the films Arizona location: complys just add footnotes to that at one dwindling, McCambridges clothes over and over and finished along amid in the midst of happening take to the fore going almost for the highway outside the actresses motel. On the toting going on hand, the legendary Crawford-Bette Davis feud during filming of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? was apparently a publicity concoction.
She became a Christian Scientist later in life
The stars last movie, the B-level shocker Trog, was released in 1970, after which she did a few TV roles and with retired to her Manhattan apartment. She became a Christian Scientist and, according to some sources, stopped drinking. It was due to her faith that she refused brusque treatment for the cancer which eventually led to her death, concerning May 10, 1977, at age 69, 71, 72, or 73. She didnt have a delightful fortune to depart, but her twins were provided for, as were a number of charities. Fatefully, Christina and Christopher were not.