He cites how she often used elements from her life to give authenticity to her performances, often powerfully, as in A Woman's Face (1941) and Harriet Craig (50). She's funny playing a bitch in The Women (39), delivering caustic dialogue superbly. He's perhaps the only critic who considers Crawford an accomplished screwball comedienne. In discussing her poor choice of roles in the 1950s, he omits the arrogant demands that cost her the lead in the acclaimed and popular From Here to Eternity (53). Spoto cannot praise her work enough, but modern audiences laugh out loud at her hammy melodramatics.
#Joan crawford house after alfred steele movie
The movie was a huge box-office success, and earned Crawford a third Oscar nomination. He opens the book with an account of watching her in Sudden Fear (1952), when he was 11. But her poor or mediocre performances outnumber the good ones. With careful casting and a good director, she could be effective. She was more limited than most great stars of her era. Spoto's evaluation of Crawford's skills as an actress are, to be kind, generous. After that interview was published, the company announced her election to its Board of Directors, gave her an annual salary, a secretary, and access to their corporate jet. Parsons revealing the company's harsh treatment of her. In truth, the new CEO disliked her (and she him) but Crawford gave an emotional interview to gossip columnist Louella O. While he accurately reveals that Steele's unexpected 1959 death left Crawford deeply in debt, Spoto suggests that Pepsi Cola voluntarily came to her financial rescue. He discusses her marriages to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Tone, minor actor Philip Terry, and Pepsi Cola CEO Alfred Steele, as well as her longterm affair with Clark Gable, her brief fling with Spencer Tracy, her troubled romances with attorney Greg Bautzer and with director Vincent Sherman, but says nothing about Yul Brynner, her rumored seduction of the gay Rock Hudson, or her possible liaison with openly lesbian director Dorothy Arzner. Crawford's revenge was swift: she hosted her teenage goddaughter's wedding in her own home, then called the stunned parents to give them the "happy" news. Crawford's friends Katherine Albert and Dale Eunson wrote the often unflattering screenplay, even though they had named their daughter Joan in her honor and she was the girl's godmother. Similarly, he fails to mention her reaction to The Star (52), in which Davis played an actress modeled on Crawford. It began with Crawford's 1935 marriage to actor Franchot Tone, with whom Davis was passionately in love, and continued long after their teaming in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). (The bibliography omits Shaun Considine's definitive Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud.) Davis' resentment and dislike of Crawford is well documented. Despite considerable evidence, he dismisses stories of a feud.
Both contested their mother's will and received a settlement.īut Spoto ignores much regarding Crawford's relationship with her colleagues, most famously Bette Davis. Her rebellious adopted brother Christopher, also disinherited, supported his sister's claims in exchange for money. Infuriated over having been disinherited, she took a hatchet to her image. It's evident that Christina, a failed actress, resented her mother's success. He documents many inconsistencies in Christina's statements, in Mommie Dearest and in published interviews, about her mother. Most of Crawford's $2 million estate went to charities. Although both were beneficiaries of their mother's will, their legacies were modest, $77,500 each. Spoto quotes Crawford's two youngest adopted daughters, twins Cathy and Cindy, who deny their sister's allegations, insisting their mother was loving, generous, affectionate, and a sensible disciplinarian. These early sections of Possessed (the title of two distinct Crawford films) are the best, helping us understand the drive that turned this ignorant, boisterous, flamboyant chorus girl/flapper into one the screen's most enduring stars, one who influenced generations of women and gay men. Her formal education was limited, something that haunted her all her life. He recounts her physically and emotionally abusive Dickensian childhood. Spoto proves that Crawford was born Lucille Le Seuer in 1906, not 1908 as she claimed, and not 1904 as her daughter asserted. The latest is Donald Spoto's Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford (William Morrow, $25.99). Over the last decades, however, more nuanced information about the actress has emerged, mitigating much of the harm done by the book and the 1981 film starring Faye Dunaway. The 1978 publication of Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford's vicious memoir about her adoptive mother, classic Hollywood's Joan Crawford, seemed to have permanently damaged the superstar's reputation.
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