A Portrait of Joan
by Donna Nowak
Of all the stars in Hollywood, Joan Crawford is by far my favorite.
No star past or present has ever fascinated or pleased me quite as much, and having seen and read just about everything
possible on the lady, I can say she does not disappoint as she never disappointed her fans in life. Called the “ultimate star” and honed in the heyday of the studio star system with a career
that spanned an incredible fifty years, Crawford’s position as a legend and screen icon didn’t became fully comprehensible
to me until I saw “They All Kissed the Bride,” in which she played a role originally intended for Carole Lombard. Her charm, romantic lightness, beauty and jaw-dropping glamour were astonishing. It revealed a beguiling Crawford devoid of any of the steeliness that she had come
to be associated with and made me realize there was a whole other side to this woman’s career and personality that I
didn’t know, that too few knew or remembered, apart from the bitch-goddess and latter day roles she made memorable. Curious I sought to fill in the blanks. My
admiration and gratitude has only grown for a woman whose work and persona indeed captures everything I’ve ever loved
about the golden age of Hollywood and whose strong, complex and rich image still
resonates, entertains and inspires.
Born Lucille
Fay LeSueur on March 23 in either 1904, 1905, 1906 or 1908, whichever you prefer, in San Antonio, Texas,
Crawford suffered a Dickensian childhood of abuse, neglect, overwork and – most seriously – lacking in love. Her birth father, French-Canadian Thomas LeSueur left before she was born and she
and older brother Hal relocated to Lawton, Oklahoma with their mother Anna and “stepfather” Henry “Billy”
Cassin who ran a vaudeville house and whom little Lucille adored (taking on the name Billie Cassin), although some biographical
accounts indicate that he molested her. When Cassin abandoned the family who
moved onto Kansas
City, the children were forced into grunt work in a laundry and
suffered aborted educations. In exchange for classes, Crawford worked as a drudge,
first at St. Agnes Academy and then from dawn to dusk at Rockingham where she scrubbed floors on hands and knees (leading
to a lifelong obsession with cleanliness), washed dishes and tended smaller children (her favorite part of a miserable lot)
while being ostracized by the other girls, maltreated and occasionally beaten senseless by a cruel school mistress. The young girl sought solace and escape in dancing, often sneaking out to dances even if she risked punishment. Although essentially shy, she had boundless energy, good looks, tenacity and charisma
and was immensely popular with boys. She initially found revue work which led
to being cast in the Broadway chorus of “Innocent Eyes” and eventually caught the eye of MGM exec Harry Rapf who
brought her to Hollywood. Adela Rogers St. John recalls
the early Crawford as “a generous, kindhearted, hard-working kid with nobody to back her.” Making friends among the film technicians and forming a strong alliance with gay leading man William Haines,
a friendship that would last for life, Lucille LeSueur (rechristened Joan Crawford in a contest) rose from the ashes like
a phoenix as she would again and again through numerous setbacks in her career.
Beginning in the silent
age as an extra, Crawford shot to stardom playing her own freewheeling “jazz baby” personality in “Our Dancing
Daughters.” In those silent and early sound films, she was winsome and
childlike with doll-like features and sensual, dreamy eyes -- bubbling with vivacity, ever-dancing and smiling and coquettish
in a way that explained her popularity at the Coconut Grove where her Charleston and black bottom dancing netted numerous
trophies. Yet even when the centerpiece of a youthful gang in the “beach
party” films of her day, she was refreshingly spunky, outspoken and liberated.
In “Dancing Daughters,” she says, “I want to hold out my hands and catch [all of life] – like the sunlight” and in “Montana Moon,” she snaps at new hubby,
“You can’t treat me like you treat your cattle.” By the early
30’s, shedding her baby fat and garbed in ever more haughty and fabulous creations by designer Adrian, she had evolved
into a more glamorous and elegant beauty with a marked growth in her acting. Her
silent screen experience enabled her to use her extraordinary eyes to express emotions eloquently, the camera often lingering
on the sculptured Garboesque planes of her face. Her own Cinderella story appeared
in various incarnations throughout her career and she played the mistress, prostitute and “other woman” with sympathy
and without apology. “In my fallen-women roles – and God knows there
were a lot of ‘em,” she said, “nobody saw me do the actual falling.
Sometimes I wonder if I ever played a character the audience could regard as a virgin.
I don’t think so.”
Today, outside of Turner
Classic Movies, most audiences only know Crawford’s early work, if at all, from “Grand Hotel,” in which
her image seems an anomaly. Yet, in actuality, she resembled the flirtatious,
vivacious creature in “Grand Hotel” in the greater canon of her work than she did either the hard-shell (yet still
beautiful) dame of “Mildred Pierce” or the steelier, harshly-lipsticked gunslinger of “Johnny Guitar.” Indeed, knowing her work as intimately and thoroughly as I now do, I’ve come
to reevaluate that harsher image. By the 1950’s, Crawford was a mature
woman in an industry unkind to mature women and wanted to hold onto her hard-won leading lady status. She seemed to be a fundamentally decent person -- generous and loyal and a good friend to many, somewhat
idealistic and romantic -- who had tragically been damaged. She approached her
job in movies with, for the most part, a professional attitude and sense of commitment, although her alcoholism later in life
and the traumas of failed marriages and a studio that was willing to cast her out after she made millions for it understandably
led to less desirable behavior during some periods of her life. (In the early
40’s, frustrated by sub-standard scripts, Crawford made the bold and difficult move of leaving her home at MGM and immediately
was invited to join Warner Brothers. Thus began a golden period with the new
studio where she finally enjoyed choice scripts and established her iconic look, although she would continue to regard her
days at MGM as her happiest.)
Crawford was
a star and temperamental. She also seemed very eager to please and be liked,
whole-heartedly devoted and grateful to her fans, indeed corresponding avidly and signing autographs to the point of exhaustion. She had four husbands, countless love and sexual relationships, and adopted five children,
one of whom was traumatically taken back by his birth mother. Whatever difficulties
she might have had with her older children, she seemed to have achieved a close relationship with her two younger daughters. Even after adopting a more severe look
with exaggerated lip line and brows in the mid-1950’s, her characters are
rarely forbidding and never entirely without sympathy. Crawford, wanting audience
approval, wouldn’t allow for it. In good or bad films, she gave her 200%
and one believed every tear (and I believe she did, too). She continued to embody
the woman and underdog maneuvering in a man’s world and surmounting the odds through drive, ambition, sass and sex appeal.
In a Crawford film one can find all the schmaltzy, elegant, classy artistry
cinema’s golden age embodied. Bejeweled gowns on beautiful people, sumptuous
apartments, tony enunciations, sassy dialogue, colorful character actors, stunning lighting and musical scores, huge MGM casts
storming the Bastille in song, unabashed and shameless romanticism. Even her
entrances are notable. Think of her being led to the courtroom in “A Woman’s
Face,” her back to the audience, face veiled by a Fedora. Think of her
in the distance in her white glittering gown (fitting her trim dancer’s body like a glove) in “Humoresque”
and then the close up when all the men bend to light this glamorous creature’s cigarette. Think of the shoes with ankle straps and the mink with linebacker shoulder pads on the rain-slicked docks
in “Mildred Pierce.” It isn’t until suspenseful moments later
that you actually see her face since her back is to the camera and she in shadows.
In Crawford’s universe, utility never comes at the expense of glamour
and smoking isn’t bad for your health. Her smoking techniques are as creative
and diverse as her hats and shoes. Rare are the times when Crawford isn’t
dressed to the nines. She moves through her celluloid world, strong and bold
and sexy, with the authority of a queen. She stands up to and often eclipses
the most formidable of men, but remains a lady. She is at once earthy Proletarian
and haughty film goddess. “I dropped out of school when I was 14,”
she told friend Carl Johnes, “and everything I’ve learned was from scripts I’ve read and listening to everybody
older and wiser.”
I embrace the struggle, the glamour, the beauty, the chutzpah, the courage,
the charm, and resilience embodied in Joan Crawford, immortalized in glorious black and white (and in rare cases –
Technicolor), this brazen broad who encourages and inspires me as she doubtless emboldened and comforted her largely female
audiences throughout her career, this star who remains surprisingly vital, natural and contemporary in the creakiest of her
films. Professor Drew Caspar said, “Even now, years later, decades later,
you can’t take your eyes off of her on the screen.”
I echo the construction
workers who, according to a New York Times piece, looked her up and down after
she shook hands all around and greeted them before entering her building, “They don’t make ‘em like you
anymore, baby!”
They sure don’t.
***
