Joan Crawford: A star when ‘star’ meant something

  The name Joan Crawford conjures up two antithetical images, one the glamorous movie star of Hollywood’s Golden Age, the other the abusive, sadistic mother of "Mommie Dearest," the book by adopted daughter Christina Crawford. ''Not the Girl Next Door: Joan Crawford, A Personal Biography,’’ by Charlotte Chandler (2008, Simon & Schuster) might go some distance in rehabilitating the public’s perception of the legendary star. The book is a sympathetic portrayal of the actress through the eyes of people who knew her — ex-husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., friend and fellow actress Myrna Loy, and daughter Cathy Crawford LaLonde, just to name a few. The author also interviewed Crawford herself, near the end of her life.
   ''People expect to see Joan Crawford, not the girl next door. If they want to see the girl next door, let them go next door.’’— Joan Crawford
   Through sheer hard work and strict self-discipline, Joan Crawford came from nothing to make herself into a star back when the word actually meant something. She was born Lucille LeSueur in 1908 (according to her, some sources say 1905) in San Antonio, Texas. She grew up in poverty, in Lawton, Okla., and Kansas City, with a mother who apparently had little time or liking for her. Her father abandoned the family before she was born.
   A stepfather who was a vaudeville producer encouraged the little girl’s talent for dancing. It would become her ticket out. While still a teenager, she was able to get jobs dancing in musical reviews in such places as Chicago and Detroit. A studio executive saw her onstage in New York, and offered her a screen test. She wasn’t impressed — she wanted to be a dancer. But MGM offered her a temporary contract, and the rest, as they say, is history. She was 17 when she arrived in Los Angeles. It was Jan. 3, 1925, in the era of the silent films. Her career would last into the 1970s and the television age.
   Crawford was driven to be a success. (Her name was chosen through a contest in a movie magazine after MGM head Louis B. Mayer supposedly said her real name sounded like a sewer. She hated her stage name at first, but eventually came to love it.) She longed to have a happy marriage, children and the stable family life she hadn’t had as a child. Unable to bear children, Crawford as a single woman adopted four in an era in which that was not a usual occurrence. A die-hard romantic, the tiny, elegant, striking woman married several times and had numerous love affairs, Clark Gable being one of her love interests.
   But when it came to a choice between man and career, career would win out, over and over again. In later life, Crawford acknowledged that she had sacrificed personal happiness for stardom. Her two older children brought her grief and estrangement, but she remained close to twin girls she had adopted as newborns, and to her grandchildren.
    Chandler says Crawford was deeply hurt by her estranged daughter’s plans to write a book about her. She suspected that its message would not be kind, because Christina never asked for her input in its writing. Mercifully, Joan Crawford died before the book’s publication and the resulting storm of ugly publicity. In pain from incurable cancer, she, as her last act, insisted upon making breakfast for her housekeeper and a longtime fan who had stayed the night at her New York apartment. After preparing the breakfast, she went to her room, turned on the TV and died. It was May 10, 1977.
   Will this book persuade you that Joan Crawford was not the monster portrayed in "Mommie Dearest"? It might cast doubts on Christina Crawford’s allegations. Contemporaries of the elder Crawford, people who visited the house and were acquainted with the children, say they believe the abuse never happened. What they recall is Crawford’s kindness —  hosting parties, for example, for film crews who in the rigid social strata of Hollywood at the time were regarded as lower caste hired help.
   The Joan Crawford portrayed in Chandler’s bio is a complicated, ambitious, driven woman, hardest on herself. Onscreen, she was confident, regal, often tough. In private, she confessed to feeling vulnerable, frightened of losing her place in Hollywood, grasping at opportunities to work so that she would never again be poor, helpless to stop the aging that eventually ended her public life.
   Daughter Cathy says Joan Crawford doted on her children. ''She wasn’t a movie star in our house," Cathy says. And, ''I was the luckiest child in the world to have Mommie choose me."
   ''Not the Girl Next Door" is a fascinating look at old Hollywood, and the star system that helped power it — such women as Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Myrna Loy and Barbara Stanwyck. Why do we still talk about these women today? Perhaps because they knew what it meant to be a star.
   ''My audience always deserves the best I have to give," Crawford said, ''and I give them everything I have. If anyone sees me, it’s important they see Joan Crawford. That’s why I dress up, even to throw out the garbage.’’