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| Lucille Fay LeSueur aka Joan Crawford |
Today, The Grandma wants to talk about Joan Crawford, one of her favourite actresses, whose characters and stories were well received by Depression-era audience and who died on a day like today in 1977.
Crawford was a diva who survived the transition to talkies and left an incredible legacy of amazing roles and unforgettable performances.
Perhaps because The Grandma also loves Bette Davis, talking about Joan Crawford is talking about the insane rivalry of two of the greatest Hollywood stars of all times.
Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, c. 1904– May 10, 1977) was an American actress. She began her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting as a chorus girl on Broadway. Crawford then signed a motion picture contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925; her career would span decades, studios and controversies.
In the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled, and later outlasted, that of MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hard-working young women who found romance and success. These characters and stories were well received by Depression-era audiences, and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars, and one of the highest-paid women in the United States.
In 1945 she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mildred Pierce, and would go on to receive Best Actress nominations for Possessed (1947) and Sudden Fear (1952). Crawford continued to act in film and television throughout the 1950s and 1960s; she achieved box office success with the highly successful horror film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), in which she starred alongside her long time rival Bette Davis.
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| Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, 1962 |
In 1955, Crawford became involved with the Pepsi-Cola Company through her marriage to company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alfred Steele. In 1970 she retired from the screen, and following a public appearance in 1974 withdrew from public life, becoming increasingly reclusive until her death in 1977.
Crawford married four times. Her first three marriages ended in divorce; the last ended with the death of husband Alfred Steele. She adopted five children, one of whom was reclaimed.
Under the name Lucille LeSueur, Crawford began dancing in the choruses of traveling revues, and was spotted dancing in Detroit by producer Jacob J. Shubert. Shubert put her in the chorus line for his 1924 show, Innocent Eyes, at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in New York City.
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Credited as Lucille LeSueur, her first film was Lady of the Night in 1925, as the body double for MGM's most popular female star, Norma Shearer. She also appeared in The Circle and Pretty Ladies (both 1925), starring comedian ZaSu Pitts. This was soon followed by equally small and unbilled roles in two other 1925 silent films : The Only Thing and The Merry Widow.
MGM publicity head Pete Smith recognized her ability to become a major star, but felt her name sounded fake; he told studio head Louis B. Mayer that her last name, LeSueur, reminded him of a sewer. The initial choice was Joan Arden, but after another actress was found to have prior claim to that name, the alternate surname Crawford became the choice. She later said that she wanted her first name to be pronounced Jo-Anne, and that she hated the name Crawford because it sounded like crawfish, but also admitted she liked the security that went with the name.
Crawford appeared in The Unknown (1927), starring Lon Chaney, Sr., who played a carnival knife thrower with no arms.
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| Joan Crawford in Frankfurt, Germany (1963) |
In 1928, Crawford starred opposite Ramón Novarro in Across to Singapore, but it was her role as Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928) that catapulted her to stardom.
After the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927 -the first feature-length film with some audible dialog- sound films, or talkies, as they became nicknamed, were all the rage. The transition from silent to sound panicked many, if not all, involved with the film industry; many silent film stars found themselves unemployable because of their undesirable voices and hard-to-understand accents, or simply because of their refusal to make the transition to talkies.
Many studios and stars avoided making the transition as long as possible, especially MGM, which was the last of the major studios to switch over to sound. The Hollywood Revue of 1929 was one of the studio's first all-talking films, and their first attempt to showcase their stars' ability to make the transition from silent to sound.
Crawford made a successful transition to talkies. Her first starring role in an all-talking feature-length film was in Untamed (1929), co-starring Robert Montgomery.
More information: Dear Mr. Gable
She become one of the most popular actresses in the world. During the early sound era, MGM began to place Crawford in more sophisticated roles, rather than continuing to promote her flapper-inspired persona of the silent era.
In 1931, MGM cast Crawford in five films. Three of them teamed her opposite the studio's soon to be biggest male star and King of Hollywood, Clark Gable. Dance, Fools, Dance, released in February 1931, was the first pairing of Crawford and Gable.
Their second movie together, Laughing Sinners, released in May 1931, was directed by Harry Beaumont, and also co-starred Neil Hamilton. Possessed, their third film together, released in October, was directed by Clarence Brown.
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| With Clark Gable in Dancing Lady, 1933 |
MGM next cast her in the film Grand Hotel, directed by Edmund Goulding. As the studio's first all-star production, Crawford co-starred opposite Greta Garbo, John and Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery, among others.
She was again teamed with Clark Gable, along with Franchot Tone and Fred Astaire, in the hit Dancing Lady (1933), in which she received top billing. She next played the title role in Sadie McKee (1934), opposite Tone and Gene Raymond. She was paired with Gable for the fifth time in Chained (1934), and for the sixth time in Forsaking All Others (1934). Crawford's films of this era were some of the most-popular and highest-grossing films of the mid-1930s.
She next starred in The Gorgeous Hussy (1936), opposite Robert Taylor and Lionel Barrymore, as well as Tone. It was a critical and box office success, and became one of Crawford's biggest hits of the decade.
She wanted to play the title role in Mildred Pierce (1945), but Bette Davis was the studio's first choice. However, Davis turned the role down. Director Michael Curtiz did not want Crawford to play the part, and he instead lobbied for the casting of Barbara Stanwyck.
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In Daisy Kenyon (1947), she appeared opposite Dana Andrews and Henry Fonda, and in Flamingo Road (1949), her character has an ultimately deadly feud with a corrupt southern sheriff played by Sydney Greenstreet.
In 1954, she starred in a cult classic, directed by Nicholas Ray, a western film, Johnny Guitar, co-starring Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge.
Crawford starred as Blanche Hudson, an elderly, disabled former A-list movie star who lives in fear of her psychotic sister Jane, in the highly successful psychological thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Despite the actresses' earlier tensions, Crawford reportedly suggested Bette Davis for the role of Jane. The two stars maintained publicly that there was no feud between them. The director, Robert Aldrich, fueling publicity rumors, explained that Davis and Crawford were each aware of how important the film was to their respective careers, and commented, It's proper to say that they really detested each other, but they behaved absolutely perfectly.
Crawford's appearance in the 1969 television film Night Gallery, which served as pilot to the series that followed, marked one of Steven Spielberg's earliest directing jobs.
Crawford died at her New York apartment of a myocardial infarction on May 10, 1977.
More information: List 25
I never go outside unless I look like Joan Crawford
the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door,
go next door.
Joan Crawford
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