The Silver Screen Oasis

Judith and anyone else who knows:
I've never read any of the bios of Joan Crawford's life, but could you tell me if she ever sought out any psychiatric help for herself? I'm not kidding. From what little I know about her, that tough childhood and endless climb to the top seemed to have made her, at best, eccentric.
Thanks in advance for any info.
Moira

Moira:

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I read that the adopted son disagreed heatedly with his sister on the book she wrote. He said Joan wasn't nearly as bad as Sister dearest claimed. Anybody else know for sure?

Anne

I read an interview with Marsha Mae Jones, and she said she witnessed FIRST HAND Crawford's cruelty to her children. I will try to find Moira's post that has the link to the interview, and edit this message with it included.

Nancy

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428736/bio ...

Anne wrote:I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I read that the adopted son disagreed heatedly with his sister on the book she wrote. He said Joan wasn't nearly as bad as Sister dearest claimed. Anybody else know for sure?

I might have misinterpreted Moira's question, but I think she wasn't referring to Christina's writings. Alleged parental cruelty aside, this gal had a tough life beginning in abject proverty. She had a driving ambition and obsession with her public image.

And I'm betting she did not seek psychoanalytic assistance. It was chic to do so in the late 1940's and into the 1950's, but it seems to have caught on more with the new MGM crowd (like those at Gene Kelly's volleyball games), rather than the older Hollywood regime where Miss Crawford belonged.

By the way, I've seen Christina Crawford speak, and even she has many good things to say about her mother. I thought she had a rather balanced view of the star.

Yeah, like Moraldo said...

I wasn't necessarily thinking of the whole Christina Crawford controversy, (which may have done more good than harm even if exaggerated, since it made people much more aware of the reality of child abuse). I was thinking more of Joan Crawford's hard-won career, her insecurities and attempts to make herself over repeatedly throughout her career as well as her good performances as a nutjob in such films as Possessed (1948). I would've thought that she might've been intrigued by the subject of psychology enough to pursue it a bit more, and not just as background for her character.

Truthfully, I can't watch Crawford or Bette Davis in that Grand Guignol period of their careers. Whenever something like the Baby Jane film or worse comes on, I hightail it off the tube asap. I know, lots of people do enjoy this hoot-worthy flicks. I'm a wimp and I like 'em better when they play recognizable humans of some sort.

Here's a link to that Marcia Mae Jones article with that reference, Nancy.

The entire issue is quite interesting. The Biography Channel episode on Crawford was, I think, positive on the whole, and produced a great many colleagues who had nothing but good to say about her. I think that episode also featured one of Crawford's twin daughters who also had only good things to say about her mother, and who claimed she wasn't aware of any strife between her mother and Christina.

At this point, we don't really know what was going on in the Crawford household, and just how much enmity Christina really felt toward her mother, justified or not. I am not in any way defending cruelty toward children, but having been a child, having children of my own, and having been a nursery school teacher, I know that what seems horrible to you when you are a child is sometimes not all that earth-shattering to you when you are an adult. Also - I can't think of too many worse punishments a child can visit on her mother than to think and/or say "You were a bad mother!" None of us wants to ever hear that - it cuts like a knife.

It remains true: every family is unhappy in its own way.

By the way -- when I was in college I worked with a woman who had an aunt who worked for a Hollywood studio in some capacity, and this co-worker always had lots of gossip from her aunt about various stars, much of which I have discovered over the years to have apparently been true. The aunt said that Crawford's cleanliness mania stemmed from having had a bout of venereal disease in her early days, and having developing a resulting horror of germs. Is this old news to you all? I think the point here is not that Crawford may have had VD, but that this story about her was circulating and considered common knowledge in Hollywood. Maybe people around her just wanted to believe the worst.

My daughter tells me that she heard from a Joan Crawford page on MySpace that one of Joan's twins has died as the result of a complications of a liver transplant. Has anyone heard anything about this? I can't find anything in any news sources online so far.

The bad news just keeps on coming.

I remember in one of the books I have on Bette Davis (maybe I'd Love to Kiss You?) Davis relates a story about the making of "Baby Jane" and says that Crawford often had the twins on the set with her, just as Davis had B.D. (talk about ungrateful children...) and that Crawford told B.D. to stay away from her children as she didn't want them corrupted. Isn't that crazy?

traceyk wrote:I remember in one of the books I have on Bette Davis (maybe I'd Love to Kiss You?) Davis relates a story about the making of "Baby Jane" and says that Crawford often had the twins on the set with her, just as Davis had B.D. (talk about ungrateful children...) and that Crawford told B.D. to stay away from her children as she didn't want them corrupted. Isn't that crazy?

Well, maybe not, tracey. According to B.D., her mother's method of motherhood was to treat her daughter as an adult as soon as possible, and B.D. was permitted to smoke, drink and date at a very early age. Aside from the fact that Crawford felt immensely competitive toward Davis, perhaps she was also somewhat horrified at the way Davis treated her precocious daughter. We have to bear in mind the time frame -- even at the time of "Baby Jane," what was considered moral differed from considerations today.

At 16, B.D. married a man almost twice her age. As far as I know, they are still married, and B.D. is now a televangelist, among other things. No one's as pious as a reformed sinner, they say.

Joan Crawford.. one of these women I still haven't made my mind up about. I like to watch her films.. mainly the 30s ones. I think she was not a bad actress, she improved herself, she was a worker and she got better.

Having seen her in some of her very early films (Our Dancing Daughters, for an example), I have to admit I like her better as a Flapper-type... the older she got the more dramatic her parts and on-screen persona became. She was very good in Sadie McKee and Strange Cargo, Mildred Pierce and Possessed, and Grand Hotel has been more her film than Garbo's, imo.

About her private life.. I don't know that much about it yet, as to say, I really can give an objective statement. I only read, um, Mommie Dearest years ago , and JC The Enduring Star... which is not that much. I've got Conversations with JC and the biography by Charlotte Chandler, so, whenever I have finished my "Marlene-studies", I might go on with Crawford...

I am not really trusting everything Christina wrote about. I think parts of it are true, though. Yet, Christina is said to have confessed not so long ago that, for an example, the wire-hanger story isn't true.

Hi Lib,
You might like to peruse the thread found here that features Casey LaLonde, Joan Crawford's grandson, who was kind enough to visit with us one week last Fall. He offers a different perspective on the actress with his childhood memories and his mother's experiences as one of the children that Joan adopted. It differs markedly from Christina Crawford's account.

I know what you mean about Crawford's early films, though I am more partial to her early talkies than her flapper flicks--which are fun. The early roles that alerted me to the actress' expressive capacity (when given careful direction) were in Possessed (1931-Clarence Brown) and Letty Lynton (1932-Clarence Brown). I thought she looked beautiful and was quite moving in both films. Unfortunately, the latter is largely unseen due to copyright issues, but it does show up on youtube occasionally. In Possessed, (no relation to Joan's 1947 Curtis Bernhardt film) she is teamed with Clark Gable, her most electric on-screen partner (and off-screen inamorata for many years). Their attraction to one another was never more palpable than in this pre-code, which shows up on TCM occasionally and is on DVD.

(I think Clarence Brown is very under-rated)

moirafinnie wrote:Hi Lib,
You might like to peruse the thread found here that features Casey LaLonde, Joan Crawford's grandson, who was kind enough to visit with us one week last Fall.

I am going to read that later! Might be interesting!

moirafinnie wrote:I know what you mean about Crawford's early films, though I am more partial to her early talkies than her flapper flicks--which are fun. The early roles that alerted me to the actress' expressive capacity (when given careful direction) were in Possessed (1931-Clarence Brown) and Letty Lynton (1932-Clarence Brown). I thought she looked beautiful and was quite moving in both films. Unfortunately, the latter is largely unseen due to copyright issues, but it does show up on youtube occasionally. In Possessed, (no relation to Joan's 1947 Curtis Bernhardt film) she is teamed with Clark Gable, her most electric on-screen partner (and off-screen inamorata for many years). Their attraction to one another was never more palpable than in this pre-code, which shows up on TCM occasionally and is on DVD.(I think Clarence Brown is very under-rated)

Ah, yes, Possessed. I know, it was a great film and I liked it better than the later one. The early screen image of Joan is more.. can I say energetic?! Maybe it's not only her personality in films, but also her looks. Joan looked harder and more "manly" later... because of her eyebrows, maybe.

How often was she teamed with Gable again? 6 times? I loved them in Possessed and Strange Cargo. Strange Cargo is one of my favorite of her movies. Great performance.

I much prefer her earlier work, I feel that she is more Joan Crawford star in her later work, perhaps her directors aren't brave enough to reign her in? She's truly good in her early work and Grand Hotel is more her movie than Garbo's and she was equally as beautiful.

I read most of the Casey LaLonde-interview. And, in the end, also seeing the posts here, I recognize that all of us agree that Grand Hotel is totally her movie, not Garbo's (any extreme GG fans here, I hope not, they'll kill us ).

I do not know what keeps me of really liking Joan. I like her movies, I watch them, I collect them. I have a few books on her, I find her beautiful as a young woman, I think she has an interesting life-story (well, of the bit I know), she was a real star, a fighter, a better actress than some would think... but still... well, some people you immediately like, others you don't, and another few you just find ok... but, I haven't made my mind up on her at all... it's something in her face... hard, tough... knowing what kind of a battleship Bette Davis was never kept me from liking her, being her fan, etc... but Joan... it's complicated.