Joan Crawford Biography

After dancing in chorus lines as a teen, Joan moved to Los Angeles to pursue a film career. Bit parts as showgirls and supporting females followed, and she eventually became a star in the silent film industry. When Hollywood went "talkie," Joan prospered even more, her strong voice and presence anchoring such MGM classics as Grand Hotel (1932), Sadie McKee (1934), No More Ladies (1935) and Love on the Run (1936). Crawford soon left MGM for Warner Brothers, which gave her her most memorable role as an enterprising housewife in Mildred Pierce (1945). The part landed Joan her first and only Oscar for Best Actress. She was nominated for the Oscar twice more (for Possessed and Sudden Fear), but was beat out both times, losses that troubled her to the core. As her drinking increased her career slowed down save for 1962's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), in which she starred with arch-rival, Bette Davis, who she very publicly detested. Joan adopted four children, including daughter Christina, who wrote the best-selling memoir, Mommie Dearest, which didn't depict Joan as mother of the year, to say the least. Christina and her brother Christopher were cut out of Joan's will entirely "for reasons best known to them." Joan died of cancer in 1977 at the age of 72.


1. She went by various nicknames including Billie Cassin, Cranberry and Billie.
2. Joan initially named her first adopted daughter, Christina, "Joan Crawford Jr."
3. Each time Crawford married, she changed the name of her Brentwood estate and installed all new toilet seats.
4. She was so dedicated to her fans that she replied to every piece of fan mail herself, typing them on blue paper and autographing them.
5. Joan, an obsessive clean freak, only wore white to bed, wouldn't smoke a cigarette from an open pack and whenever she stayed in a hotel, no matter how posh, she always scrubbed the bathroom herself before using it.


"I love playing bitches. There's a lot of bitch in every woman — a lot in every man."


Husband: James Welton, married 1923-1924 (divorced)
Husband: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., married June 3, 1929; divorced May 12, 1933
Husband: Franchot Tone, married Oct. 11, 1935; divorced April 11, 1939
Husband: Phillip Terry, married July 21, 1942; divorced April 25, 1946
Husband: Alfred Steele, married Jan. 14, 1956; marriage ended April 6, 1959 (his death)
Daughter: Christina Crawford (adopted), born June 11, 1939
Son: Christopher Crawford (adopted), born Oct. 15, 1943
Daughter: Cathy Crawford (adopted), born Jan. 13, 1947
Daughter: Cindy Crawford (adopted), born Jan. 13, 1947



1953: Academy Award nomination: Best Actress in a Leading Role, Sudden Fear

1948: Academy Award nomination: Best Actress in a Leading Role, Possessed

1946: Academy Award: Best Actress in a Leading Role, Mildred Pierce


Trog - (1970) - Actor
Night Gallery - (1969) - Actor
Berserk! - (1967) - Actor
I Saw What You Did and I Know Who You Are! - (1965) - Actor
Strait Jacket - (1964) - Actor
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