![]() She adopted five children, one of whom was reclaimed by his birth mother. Her first three marriages ended in divorce the last ended with the death of husband Al Steele. She became more and more reclusive until her death in 1977.Ĭrawford married four times. Following a public appearance in 1974, after which unflattering photographs were published, Crawford withdrew from public life. ![]() She continued acting in film and television regularly through the 1960s, when her performances became fewer after the release of the horror film Trog in 1970, Crawford retired from the screen. After his death in 1959, Crawford was elected to fill his vacancy on the board of directors but was forcibly retired in 1973. In 1955, she became involved with the Pepsi-Cola Company, through her marriage to company president Alfred Steele. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".Īfter an absence of nearly two years from the screen, Crawford staged a comeback by starring in Mildred Pierce (1945), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally known flapper by the end of the 1920s. Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Thoughts? Sound off in the comments below.Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur March 23, 190? – May 10, 1977) was an American actress. Eventually, Cathy went on to win a defamation suit in mediation against Christina when the latter told people on her tour that Crawford only told people Cathy and Cindy (who died in 2007) were twins, but it was all just an untrue bid for attention.įeud: Bette and Joan airs Sundays at 10 p.m. The twins refuted all of Christina’s claims about their mother (Christopher supported them until his death in 2006), and continued their own feud with their sister in their adult years. Although Christina never flat out accused her mother of killing her fourth husband, Steele, she has pointed to the fact that the healthy man suspiciously fell down the stairs only three years after they had been married. She claims her mother never contacted her or addressed the situation afterwards.ġ1. Christina wrote that when she was 15 years old, she was so depressed from her mother’s treatment towards her that she tried to kill herself at boarding school by overdosing on pills. Crawford attacked her daughter once more after that incident when she thought Christina was making a pass at her husband, Alfred Steele.ġ0. “That was the last time we had any physical violence, because I knew that if it happened again, I would do everything in my power to protect myself,” she later told Larry King.ĩ. When Christina was 13 years old, she supposedly suffered one final brutal beating from her mother, in which she thought she was going to be choked out. The kids then had to write thank you cards for each and every gift, and those cards were meticulously edited by Crawford.Ĩ. But they were only allowed to choose one thing to keep while the rest were given away to charity or saved to be re-gifted. At Christmas, the children were photographed as being gifted tons of items. Crawford supposedly kept Christopher tied up in bed in a “sleep safe” device and she also trussed Christina up in the shower at night.ħ. Christina says she was once starved for days when she refused to eat an undercooked steak that was still bloody, all in a bid for her mother to further control her.Ħ. Crawford was prone to what Christina called “night raids,” in which she would wake the children up drunk and make them clean messes they hadn’t necessarily made for hours on end.ĥ. Crawford then made Christina wear the dress for a week in order to humiliate her.Ĥ. ![]() Christina had a favorite dress until she provoked her mother into shredding it. In a scene that’s become synonymous with the film, she is said to have dragged her daughter by the hair yelling, “No wire hangers, no wire hangers!” while beating her with one until her “ears rang.”ģ. Crawford hated wire hangers, and reportedly once woke up her daughter in the middle of the night for using them. But after Crawford’s third marriage fell apart she renamed the children.Ģ. and Phillip Terry Jr., (after his adoptive father). When Crawford first adopted Christina and Christopher, they were named Joan Jr. ![]()
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