Joan Crawford: Who was she really? (Jerry Skinner Documentary)

this is the Academy award-winning actress Joan Crawford although she was world-famous public figure for years little of the true story of her private life was known until after her death Joan Crawford was born Lucille fadeless or sometime around March the 23rd 1905 exact year of her birth is still in question we see I had one older sister Daisy that died very young she had one brother Hao who was a couple years older than Lucille they were born in sin atoned to Thomas lisore and Annabel Johnson Thomas left the family shortly after Lucille was born now this is a family portrait taken before Lucille's birth thomas is standing on the back row her mother Annabel is holding her brother Hal and Lucille's grandmother is holding her sister Daisy after Thomas Lucille's dad left the family they were almost destitute now this is Lucille and her mother in 1913 when she was around eight or nine years old an embittered Annabel takes the children moves to Lawton Oklahoma away from Thomas's family and four years after moving to London Annabel meets theater operator an opera house owner Henry Casson they believed to have been married in 1908 Lucille considered Casson to be her real dead until told different at they each eleven by her brother Hal casts and paid for Lucille's dance lessons and let her hang around the theatre people and encouraged her she stated years later that she guessed if she give credit to any of the people that helped her the most he would have to be at the top of the list even after all these years in 1916 the family left Loudoun for Kansas City who are kasim paid for tuition to enroll Lucille in the st. Agnes Academy but after Casson left the family she stayed as a working student washing cooking cleaning and making beds for some 30 other students that often made fun of her she won a dance contest when she was 13 and attended Rockingham Academy and was sponsored by one of her teachers she entered Stevens College in Columbia Missouri for four months before quitting now this is Victor of Lucille her mother and brother Hal while she was enrolled in Stevens College in nineteen and twenty two she worked as a salesgirl - she could get enough money to go to Chicago where she found work dancing in nightclubs she eventually was offered a job in a Broadway course land at the age of 19 she was spotted by an MGM talent scout and offered a train ticket and a six-month contract make it almost $75 per week in 1926 she was playing bit parts and using her real name Lucy elasaur the studio changed her name to Joan Crawford which she disliked said that Crawford sounded too much like crawfish and in 1928 Joan danced her way into the hearts of the flapper generation in dancing daughter's here with Dorothy Sebastian also in 1928 Joan was cast opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr and the film our modern maidens she was around 25 years old at the time it was said that Crawford was extremely ambitious and had a plan to reach the top but who in Hollywood didn't of course the famous Hollywood family the Fairbanks was a great stepping stone for Joan Douglas was so taken with Joan that he asked her to marry him and they were married June the 3rd 19 and 29 and about that time is when Joan bought this house at 2:46 North Bristol and Brentwood where she lived for many many years by 1931 Joan was becoming a major star and earning more money than she had ever had that year Joan starred with leading man Clark Gable sooner romance developed between gable and Crawford eventually Fairbanks found out and in 1933 they were divorced now that was the same year that she co-starred with French ou toned in today we live now through the years everyone in Hollywood was aware of the feud between Joan Crawford and Betty Davies now there are several stories as to what caused this last in feud aside from the normal professional jealousy the one that seems the most plausible to me is this Betty Davis had also co-starred with French ou tone and it had been said that she fell madly in love with him unfortunately Davis was married at the time so it seemed that competition between Davis and Crawford developed for the affections of tone where Joan went in by marrying him in 1935 Davis believing that Crawford never loved him and only used him and married him partly to spite her now this may or may not have been true however whatever it was it was serious enough the feud would last for a lifetime during this period a sex film claiming to be of Joan Crawford was taken to the studio now I was plainly not Joan will be mayor said after watching the film he fetched Joan Crawford that I'm Greta Garbo not a dime was to be paid to the black mayors by 1939 Jones films was losing money and she was considered box-office poison that same year she divorce Franchot own and is believed that Joan had several miscarriage during their marriage so in 1940 after trying to adopt a child in California but was refused for being a single parent and having several divorces she was able to adopt Christina when she was only a few months old from out of state Joan's first child Christina that she nicknamed Tina was told that her mother died at childbirth which wasn't true Joan used a notorious Tennessee Children's Home Society run by Georgia Tann now Georgia Tann had run a corrupt adoption agency that sometimes actually stole babies and sold them to wealthy people if an adoption occurred in Tennessee the state would only allow a small amount to be charged but Georgia would sometimes carry children to another state and charge whatever she wanted to without the state of Tennessee ever knowing be it and Christina was the first child she was legally adopted and soon after her Joan received another child she named Christopher but Christopher's birth parents retrieved him from Joan because there was a paper trail in nineteen and forty three Joan adopted another child and she also named him Christopher but this time is believed that Joan bulk Christopher outright and all papers were either changed or destroyed which was quite common practice for Georgia Tann and by this time don't had married another actor Phillip Terry by 1946 the marriage was over and Terry left before the divorce once Phillip and Joan's divorce was final so was his contact with the children now by this time Jones courier was sleeping and she would use the children to try and keep her name for the public Jones longtime secretary stated that Jonah addressed the children up for photo shots and then wouldn't see him for a long spell she also said the night raids of terror the wired coal hanger episodes that Christina wrote about in her book Mommy Dearest sounded just like something Joan would do and her drinking she knew got worse donut 41 was going downhill fast and needed a perfect script to save her career she got it that same year with the movie Mildred Pierce Joan won the Academy Award and was back on top in 1947 she acquired two more children from Georgia Tann Cathy and Cynthia their mother had died in Dyersburg Tennessee of kidney failure and their father abandoned the girls years later Cynthia located her birth family in Memphis and will form a relationship with them Cynthia will die of hepatitis infection while waiting for a liver transplant on October the 14th 2007 at the age of 60 also in 1947 Joan was nominated for Best Actress for possessed and in 1949 Jones set Cristina age 9 and Christopher age 7 to separate boarding schools now the relationship between Christopher and Cristina developed from two young children trying to survive together their relationship will last for years until Christopher's death on September 22nd 2006 of cancer in Greenport New York at the age of 62 in 1952 Joan again will be nominated for Best Actress for sudden fear in 1955 Joan met effort Steel at a party and he quickly became infatuated with the movie star in May of 1956 they were married in Las Vegas still was the head of directors of the board of Pepsi Cola & Company and as soon as she bared still she shipped the twins off to boarding school in 1958 Jones mother Anna dies three years after marriage still in 1959 Alfred Steele dies at the age of 58 of a heart attack during their marriage own travel with Steele representing Pepsi Cola he even had her appointed to the Pepsi Board which she remained until 1973 when they forced her to resign in 1961 Joan invited her old rival Betty Davis to star with her in whatever happened to Baby Jane Joan was enough of a businesswoman to realize the potential for a successful movie here they are on the set looking like two old friends but don't believe it there was always tension between the two on the set of Baby Jane Joan was right it was a good opportunity for them especially for Davis who received an Academy Award nomination for her part as Baby Jane however Joan again managed to upstage Davis by calling the other nominees and asking if she could accept the Oscar for them if Davis didn't win Joan accepted the Oscar for Anne Bancroft for The Miracle Worker Davis said she was shocked and couldn't believe it now they had actually planned another movie a picture called hush hush sweet Charlotte but Joan pulled out and Betty's best friend Olivia de Havilland took her part on May the 3rd 1963 how Hays lisore Joan's brother dies of an erupted appendix had been in the General Hospital in LA for eight days it was said that Joan had sent him a telegram from New York where she was living a spokesman for Jones said that she had helped to support him for 30 years however the people were how worked at the hotel as a clerk and part-time switchboard operator said he lived from paycheck to paycheck that he dressed nice he acted nice he was quiet especially when it comes to talking about his famous sister he's buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale and he lived in the hotel where he worked he was believed to have been 59 years old people that he worked for said his relationship with his sister was not good in September of 1974 Joan agreed to host a party for her friend Rosalind Russell several photographs were taken of John and Russell the next day she was shocked to see the photos of herself in the papers John said if that's the way I look they've seen the last of me she would drew from the public appearances and became a partial recluse in her New York apartment two years later the seal fayliss or actress Joan Crawford was dead her body was found in bed in her Upper East Side apartment some newspapers stated that her death was from a heart attack calls from cancer but others said that she had given her beloved dog away a week earlier and that she was found in her finest clothes laying in her last and final pose instructions was given to have her body cremated and her ashes be placed in the veldt with her late husband Alfred Steele at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale New York it's believed that Joan was around 72 years old are there abouts now John managed to control her death as she had controlled her life neat and tatty and Jones will she left $77,000 to Cynthia and 77002 Kathy her adopted twin daughters she also left Kathy her personal items included her Oscar that Joan did one for Mildred Pierce Kathy later we'll have the Oscar locks on Dolph for over $400,000 she left various other people's smaller amounts will the bulk of her two million dollar estate left to charities Christina and Christopher she stated in her will it is my intention to make no provisions here for my son Christopher or my daughter Christina for reasons which are well known to them now there may be several reasons for this statement and I don't pretend to know the answer however I do believe that John knew christina was writing a tell-all book and she believed that Christopher was conspiring with her although she did not know what was in the book she did suspect it wasn't good and actually had considered writing an answer with her own book after mummy dears was released everyone picked sides Jones friends in the movie industry thought that the book was only to make money for Christina and smear Jones good name however it's quite different to know someone professionally from a working relationship as many of the movie stars did or even as close friends or lovers her friends seen the kindness that Jones showed her second husband francha tone when he was sick and wheelchair-bound she took him in in his last days even though he had married three more times after Joan French Oh tone died of lung cancer the 18th of September 19 and 68 Jolin made all the funeral arrangements and seeing that his wishes were carried out no one can deny that this was a kind act shown by Joan Crawford however kind acts shown to adults in the daylight are a lot different than being a small child at home awakened in the dark by a screaming mad woman and you without help Oh you

Channel: Jerry Skinner

Views: 574,176

Keywords: Joan Crawford, Christina Crawford, What happened to Baby jane, Betty Davis, Douglas Fairbanks jr.

Id: hU-pPX-Rto0

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Fri May 27 2016