Joan Crawford Pics

Joan

Crawford

23 March 1905

65

Slim

Blue

Dyed Red

San Antonio, Texas

Aries

10 May 1977

New York City, New York

Heart Attack

White

Christian Science

Our Dancing Daughters (1928), WAMPAS Baby Star of 1926

Fay

American

Female

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Joan Crawford (March 23, 1905 – May 10, 1977), born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre.

Actor/Actress, Soundtrack, Producer

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Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, the third child of Tennessee-born Thomas E. LeSueur (1868–1938) and Anna Bell Johnson (1884–1958). Her older siblings were Daisy LeSueur, who died very young, and Hal LeSueur. Although Crawford was of mostly English descent, her surname originates from her great-great-great-great grandparents, David LeSueur and Elizabeth Chastain, French Huguenots who immigrated from London in the early 1700s to Virginia, where they lived for several generations. Crawford`s father was said to have abandoned the family in Texas; Crawford later said she had been only a few months old when her father left. Her mother later married Henry J. Cassin. The family lived in Lawton, Oklahoma, where Cassin ran a movie theater. The 1910 Comanche County, Oklahoma, Federal Census, enumerated on April 20, shows Henry and Anna living at 910 "D" Street in Lawton. Lucille was then five years old, thus showing that 1905 was her likely year of birth, although later on, she would shave some years off and claim she was born in 1908. Growing up, she preferred the nickname "Billie", and she loved watching vaudeville acts perform on the stage of her stepfather`s theater. Her ambition was to be a dancer. Unfortunately, she cut her foot deeply on a broken milk bottle when she leapt from the front porch of her home in an attempt to escape piano lessons and run and play with friends. She was unable to attend elementary school for a year and a half and eventually had three operations on her foot. She eventually overcame the injury and returned not only to walking normally, but to dancing as well. Around 1916, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Henry Cassin was first listed in the City Directory in 1917, living at 403 East Ninth Street. While still in elementary school, she was placed in St. Agnes Academy, a Catholic school in Kansas City. Later, after her mother and stepfather broke up, she stayed on at St. Agnes as a work student. She then went to Rockingham Academy as a work student. In 1922, she registered at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and gave her year of birth as 1906. She attended Stephens for less than a year, however, as she recognized that she was not academically prepared for college. She began as a dancer in a chorus line under the name Lucille LeSueur, eventually making her way to New York. In 1924, she signed a contract with MGM, and arrived in Culver City, California, in January, 1925. Crawford started out in Silent films. As Lucille LeSueur, her first film was Pretty Ladies in 1925, which starred ZaSu Pitts. Pretty Ladies was the first and only time Crawford used her birth name professionally. According to the book Stardust and Shadows: Canadians in Early Hollywood, features a quote from Crawford herself, claiming that it was Sam De Grasse who said that her name LeSueur sounded too much like `sewer`. A contest in the fan magazine Movie Weekly became the source of her well-known stage name. The female contestant who entered the name Joan Crawford was awarded $500. Though Crawford reportedly detested the name at first, saying it sounded like "crawfish", and called herself JoAnne for some time, she eventually became used to it. (Her friend, actor William Haines, quipped "You`re lucky- they could have called you Cranberry and served you up with a Turkey!") Crawford first made an impression on audiences in Edmund Goulding`s Sally, Irene and Mary (1925), in which she played Irene, a struggling chorus girl who meets a tragic end. The following year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, along with Mary Astor, Mary Brian, Dolores Costello, Dolores Del Rio, Janet Gaynor and Fay Wray. For the next two years, she consolidated on these gains, appearing in increasingly important movies. In 1926, she made Paris where she was able to show her sex appeal. It was also during this time that she was the romantic interest for some of MGM`s leading male stars, among them Ramon Novarro, William Haines, John Gilbert, and Tim McCoy. Her most unique movie from this period was The Unknown (1927), starring Lon Chaney, Sr. as Alonzo, a carnival knife thrower with no arms. She played his skimpily clad young carnival assistant, Nanon Zanzi, who he hopes to marry. Crawford stated that she learned more about acting from watching Chaney work in this movie than from anything else in her long career. In 1928, she starred opposite Ramon Novarro, as Priscilla Crowninshield in Across to Singapore but it was her role as Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928) catapulted her to stardom and established her as a symbol of modern 1920s-style femininity that rivalled the image of Clara Bow, who was then Hollywood`s foremost flapper. A stream of hits followed Our Dancing Daughters, including two more flapper-themed movies, in which Crawford embodied for her legion of fans, many of whom were women, an idealized vision of

Chadwick School

Lucille Fay LeSueur

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26

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Lux soap (magazine advertisement) [1930], Lustre-Creme Shampoo (Magazine Advertisement) [1952]

4c

Actress

William Haines, Myrna Loy (Joan's friend since 1925), Eve Arden (Joan's best friend), Barbara Stanwyck, Paulette Goddard, Rosalind Russell, Dorothy Sebastian, Constance Bennett, Ann Blyth, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Steven Spielberg, Helen Hayes, Margaret Sullavan, Marilyn Monroe, Marie Prevost, Lew Wasserman, May Robson, Myrna Williams, Katherine Albert, Lewis Offield, Zachary Scott, Elaine Scott, Hattie McDaniel, Jerry Asher

Mommie Dearerst [1978] (Christina Crawford)

Mommie Dearest [1981]

The Scarlett O'Hara War [1980], "Saia Justa" [2002]

(1951) Print ad: Camel cigarettes, (1940s) Print ads: Royal Crown Cola with the slogan "R.C. Tastes Best!"

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