Joan Gets Lynched by the Press
"Miss Crawford has a
remarkable gift for public
relations. She knows by-lines
I've never heard of A reporter
will say something nice about
Joan, and pretty soon a pleasant
note or a small present will
arrive for the writer."
—JOHN O'HARA,
COLLIER'S,
1954
When Crawford and Davis were the queens of M-G-M and Warner Bros., their powerful press offices ensured that when their majesties spoke to the media, their words were never questioned. Those that dared refute what the stars said were duly chastised or denied future access to the entire royal duchy. So most of the Hollywood press played professional ball, churning out coverage that was fluffy and flattering.
With the breakup of the studio system in the early 1950s, the stars lost the protective barrier that existed between them and the press. Bette Davis learned that in her divorce from artist William Grant Sherry, when she tried to paint him in colors more violent than he deserved. "Bette Davis could be very moody, and difficult. She was always fighting with someone, and she never forgot a wrong," said Sheilah Graham. "But Joan Crawford was a pro. She knew we had a job to do and she was always good copy, so we tended to look the other way when it involved her drinking or having affairs, especially with married men. In those days most of our editors were married men, having affairs all over the place."
But by 1954, as television continued to make deeper economic cuts into the advertising revenues of the once-powerful print media, more sensational news stories were needed to boost circulation. The private lives of stars, no matter how sacred, were no longer considered off-limits to interviewers and reporters, and Crawford, "Saint Joan of the Fan Mags," was one of the first to be burned at the tabloid stake.
In March 1954, a month before the opening of
Johnny Guitar,
an enterprising reporter named Roby Heard of the Los Angeles
Mirror
called Republic's press office and said he wanted to do a story on Crawford, to break when the movie opened. It was to be part interview and part overview of Joan's long, illustrious career, the writer informed.
Crawford gave the interview, the "overview" was expanded, and the piece was scheduled as a series.
"I am thrilled," said Joan, granting Heard access to members of her family and to her friends.
"The son of a bitch never told me he was going to put a knife in my back," the star soon complained.
"
JOAN CRAWFORD—QUEEN
or
TYRANT
? The Star Thrives on Feuds," was the headline of the nationally syndicated story. Offering their help in the dissection were Marilyn Monroe, Jack Palance, Mercedes McCambridge, Greg Bautzer, Gloria Grahame, Nick Ray, Joan's mother and brother, and her ex-servants. (Not quoted were Bette Davis, in retirement in Maine; and Joan's children, who were possibly too young for telephone privileges.)
Opening with Joan's long-ago "dog-eat-dog" fight with Norma Shearer, reporter Heard jumped to her more recent diatribes against Marilyn Monroe.
"I criticized Marilyn Monroe as I would criticize my own daughter," said Joan. "No comment," said Marilyn. "Jealousy caused Crawford to attack Marilyn. She should develop benevolence towards other human beings," said Marilyn's former roommate, Natasha Lytess.
Joan was also "tactless and cruel" to Gloria Grahame during the making of
Sudden Fear
the previous year. "They hated one another," said a cast member. "Gloria was always late for work," said Joan. "Sometimes we didn't even know where she was." "If I was sleeping and had a dream, and if Miss Crawford appeared in my dream, I always woke up screaming. That went on for months after we worked together," said Grahame. Joan's behavior on
Sudden Fear
was "the talk of Hollywood," an "unnamed" columnist confided: "Once, in the presence of the entire company, she berated David Miller [the director] and slapped him in the face."
She also abused Jack Palance. "Look, I don't want any more squabbles with Crawford. I have my future to think about," said Palance, adding, "She's difficult. Unless she's handled properly she's lots of trouble. She's a woman and has to have her way in everything."
"She hates all women," said Mrs. Sterling Hayden, "except for those who can help her. If I ever see her again I'll probably strike her in the face."
"It is apt to be necessary to step on people on your way to the top," Joan's mother, Mrs. Anna LeSueur, believed.
"I have the same driving force. But those of us with talent and ambition must develop tolerance, must make allowances for people less gifted," said former silent star Theda Bara.
"Dear Theda," said Joan. "No one knew she was still alive."
"I haven't seen my sister in more than five years. For personal reasons I must refrain from saying why," said Hal LeSueur.
"Ask Joan why we stopped going out together. No comment from me," said Greg Bautzer.
"Ask Miss Crawford why she abused a
Johnny Guitar
actress so badly the player had to travel 28 miles across the desert to enter a hospital," said Mrs. Sterling Hayden.
"Over the years she has built up so much power in the industry that she knows she can lord it over the little people," said Mercedes McCambridge. "Everybody is afraid of her. She destroys those who oppose her."
"I quit after two weeks," an ex-servant in Joan's household told the reporter. "She made me take off my shoes when I entered the house so I wouldn't get dirt on the rugs."
"Let's not be too critical," said
Johnny Guitar
actor John Carradine. "After all she was the star of the picture."
"She is our one really great star," said actor David Brian. "I don't see her very often. She's a very busy woman."
"I've only seen her twice," said actor Rory Calhoun, "once at a party and once as she drove her car—and I'll never forget her."
"As a human being, Joan Crawford is a great actress," said Nicholas Ray.
"I've had all I want to do with working with Miss Crawford, and I don't care to continue the contract," Sterling Hayden concluded.
"I'm still glad I worked so hard to give an important part to Mr. Hayden, in spite of his feelings towards me. Bless him," said Joan.
After the "smut series" appeared, Crawford blamed the negative coverage for besmirching her name and putting her on unemployment for a year. She lost numerous roles, she claimed, including that of Georgie Elgin, the alcoholic's wife in
The Country Girl,
when in fact that part had been given to Grace Kelly in January, six months before the articles appeared.
When the movie offers stopped, Crawford considered joining the enemy—television. She offered herself and an old script about a schoolteacher, Miss O'Brien, to CBS, but they turned her down. A second concept for a series was sent to Joan by Hedda Hopper, who received this reply: "Hedda Dear, I think it's a brilliant idea, for an unknown, or someone who's done a couple of pictures, but certainly not for a star. God bless—and thank you again for your belief in not only a devoted friend, but, as Billy Haines calls me, an Iron reindeer in a victorian garden. My name, however is still, Joan Crawford."
"Her career was on the decline,
her love life was shit, she was
getting old, losing power. When
you're in a situation like that,
your nerves give way. I felt
sorry for her, not the kids."
—REPORTER ARTHUR BELL
That summer, while Bette Davis was content playing "Mother Merrill" in her maritime retreat in Maine, the cracks in the facade of tenacious star Joan Crawford began to widen. Unemployed and near-broke due to bad investments, she attempted to fill her days supervising her fan patrol, the faithful Crawford disciples who came to her home to address and stuff envelopes with thousands of eight-by-ten photographs and mimeographed newssheets, to be sent to other fans to retain their allegiance while she was off the silver screen. At night, no longer invited to the
"A"
events in Hollywood, Joan stayed at home, where, "spurred on by alcohol and seized by fits of madness, she stormed through the house screaming obscenities," daughter Christina recalled. Fourteen at the time, the girl claimed she was on frequent call to carry her mother to bed after she had passed out drunk in various rooms of the Brentwood mansion. Sober, Joan subjected the bewildered teenager to many acts of mental torture. She threw Tina's tight toreador pants (bought without Joan's permission) into the incinerator and made her do messy housework ("Mother never scrubbed floors. I did, and so did the fans"); for her birthday she gave Christina a box with a single earring inside—the other earring would come at graduation time if Tina got good marks, her mother promised.
Christina admitted she could be a maddening handful at times. When she was nine, she said, she caught on to Joan's publicity game of using her and the other children for display purposes only. It was then she started "tuning out" on Mommie Dearest's silly requests. "Mother could no longer control our every thought, gesture and move," said the girl. When she was "not yet ten years old," she became an expert bartender, taking "secret delight" in making drinks too strong for her mother's boyfriends, "just to see what effect they'd have on them." At eleven and a half Christina made love to an older boy in a stable at school, then told others, until the word reached Joan. Arriving at the school in a station wagon with her secretary to pick up the expelled youngster, Joan was drinking vodka from a plastic glass. On the way home she needed replenishments, and the helpful girl volunteered the name of a liquor store in the vicinity. Joan slammed on the brakes, sending Christina "sprawling half-way into the front seat, the secretary nearly into the windshield, and Mother's drink all over the floor. She slapped me across the face and yelled: 'You always know where to find the boys and the booze, don't you?' Then she slapped me several times again."
At thirteen, Christina said,
she
finally put her foot down. She refused to call any of her mother's boyfriends "Uncle": "It would be plain 'Mr.' from here on unless I particularly liked them or they lasted more than a couple of months." But by the summer of 1954 Crawford's love life was nonexistent; it had vanished along with her career. When fan-magazine writer June Wilkie visited the star, she was ironing a dress. Holding up the steaming iron, Joan commented wryly, "That's the hottest thing that's been near my ass in months."
Saturday nights were the worst, she told director-friend Vincent Sherman, when she didn't even have a man to have a hamburger with.
"Come on now!" Sherman told her. "You're Joan Crawford. There are hundreds of guys in this town who would drop everything to take you out."
"Actors!"
said Joan with disdain. "Who only want to get their pictures taken having dinner with Joan Crawford at Chasen's. Or guys who only want to brag to their buddies that they went to bed with Joan Crawford."
That summer, to escape the frustration and boredom of staying at home all day waiting for the phone to ring, Joan began to take off on long drives, alone. Wearing sunglasses, a head scarf, slacks, and a raincoat, she would cruise up and down the highways in northern California, stopping at diners and truck-stop restaurants along the way. She dropped Louella Parsons a line from one stop, telling her about the fascinating characters she bumped into. "I might write a script about life on the open road," wrote Joan. At first these jaunts were day trips, but eventually they became two-and three-night layovers. "I call my babies [the 'twins'], every night," she told Parsons. "Then the next day I drive on to a new location."
Without mentioning her name, one publication printed that the star was often seen intoxicated, in the company of "unsavory male companions," leaving and exiting highway motels.
Joan Crawford and the Handsome Bartender
was the heading for a story in
Confidential
magazine months later, but by then the star had stopped her wandering ways. Her anonymous road trips apparently ended one gray, rainy morning when Crawford woke up on the floor of a strange motel with a sore jaw and a badly bruised eye. During the night she had either been beaten or had fallen down drunk, rolled by one of her gallant highwaymen. Her watch and the cash in her handbag were gone, but she found her car keys intact, tucked into a side flap of her raincoat, and she made it back to L.A. safely that afternoon. After that unpleasant incident, the star never patrolled the highways again. And she was seldom seen out at night in Los Angeles without her secretary or a friend for company.
"We were driving home after dinner one night," said Vincent Sherman. "As we passed Grauman's Chinese Theater, there was a big premiere going on. Kidding, I said to her, 'Hey, why weren't you invited to that shindig?' Joan looked out at the lights and crowds, and said, 'Fuck 'em. I'll be back.'"
She kept her word, of course. Durable, tough, tenacious, the word "comeback" were all words invented for stars like Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.