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Post by topbilled on Jan 23, 2024 13:52:07 GMT
Joan Crawford never had it easy. Born into poverty, possibly illegitimate, and always struggling to get ahead and be taken seriously, she was a very determined young starlet when she started at MGM in 1925. Louis Mayer thought her given name, Lucille LaSueur (pronounced LaSir) sounded a bit too haughty— ironic, given her impoverished background. A contest was created to let fans rename her, and she soon became Joan Crawford. This gimmick probably helped endear her to audiences who basically had a hand in creating her. She needed all the support she could get from those fans, as she was usually third in the pecking order at Metro, despite her movies making money. Norma Shearer got first crack at the best scripts due to marriage to Irving Thalberg, and Greta Garbo had just as much clout as Shearer did in the 1930s. After Shearer and Garbo retired, Crawford was playing third fiddle to Lana Turner and Greer Garson in the early 1940s. When Crawford moved to Warner Brothers in 1943, she finally came into her own. There were some choice projects, one of them netting an Oscar, and a series of hits. But it was that early formative period at MGM which had put her on the cinematic map.
Check out:
PAID (1930)
I LIVE MY LIFE (1935)
REUNION IN FRANCE (1942) |
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Post by NoShear on Jan 25, 2024 17:20:13 GMT
Joan Crawford never had it easy. Born into poverty, possibly illegitimate, and always struggling to get ahead and be taken seriously, she was a very determined young starlet when she started at MGM in 1925. Louis Mayer thought her given name, Lucille LaSueur (pronounced LaSir) sounded a bit too haughty— ironic, given her impoverished background. A contest was created to let fans rename her, and she soon became Joan Crawford. This gimmick probably helped endear her to audiences who basically had a hand in creating her. She needed all the support she could get from those fans, as she was usually third in the pecking order at Metro, despite her movies making money. Norma Shearer got first crack at the best scripts due to marriage to Irving Thalberg, and Greta Garbo had just as much clout as Shearer did in the 1930s. After Shearer and Garbo retired, Crawford was playing third fiddle to Lana Turner and Greer Garson in the early 1940s. When Crawford moved to Warner Brothers in 1943, she finally came into her own. There were some choice projects, one of them netting an Oscar, and a series of hits. But it was that early formative period at MGM which had put her on the cinematic map.
Check out:
PAID (1930)
I LIVE MY LIFE (1935)
REUNION IN FRANCE (1942) TopBilled, I thought of the courage - if that is the correct word - which Joan Crawford demonstrated in continuing her movie career as Norma Shearer and especially Greta Garbo retreated from the camera, and I thought of it here with this photo as well:  |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 25, 2024 19:12:24 GMT
Great photo...what year is it from?
Yeah, I find it interesting that the other women stopped making films around 1941-1942, but Crawford was only in the middle of her long career.
My favorite Crawford performances are in A WOMAN'S FACE (love that long monologue in front of the judge) and SUDDEN FEAR (the way she conveys terror across her face is a masterclass in screen acting). She gives another great performance as Vienna in the Republic western JOHNNY GUITAR. And I also am in awe of a guest role she did in 1970 on The Virginian. She just got better as the years went by...nothing in her nature was going to make her retreat from the screen and give up stardom.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 25, 2024 19:58:01 GMT
⇧ I agree. I remember watching Crawford in 1959's "The Best of Everything" where she has a reasonably good-sized supporting role and, IMO, shows the younger "kids," like Hope Lange and Diane Baker, how a pro does it. She just lifted every scene she was in.
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Post by NoShear on Jan 25, 2024 21:22:22 GMT
Great photo...what year is it from?
Yeah, I find it interesting that the other women stopped making films around 1941-1942, but Crawford was only in the middle of her long career.
My favorite Crawford performances are in A WOMAN'S FACE (love that long monologue in front of the judge) and SUDDEN FEAR (the way she conveys terror across her face is a masterclass in screen acting). She gives another great performance as Vienna in the Republic western JOHNNY GUITAR. And I also am in awe of a guest role she did in 1970 on The Virginian. She just got better as the years went by...nothing in her nature was going to make her retreat from the screen and give up stardom. I've read a "1959" date, TopBilled, at a Hollywood party... Its so-called insincerity has been called into question: It's been suggested that the Norma Shearer/Joan Crawford rivalry was not as claws-out that people tend to think. |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 25, 2024 21:50:25 GMT
⇧ I agree. I remember watching Crawford in 1959's "The Best of Everything" where she has a reasonably good-sized supporting role and, IMO, shows the younger "kids," like Hope Lange and Diane Baker, how a pro does it. She just lifted every scene she was in.
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