JOAN CRAWFORD

   The Essential Biography

  

   by Lawrence J. Quirk, William Schoell

  

  

   Chapter One

   CHILDHOOD`S END

  

  

  On March 23, 1904, in San Antonio, Texas, Anna Bell Johnson LeSueur gave birth to a little girl, whom she and her husband, Thomas, named Lucille Fay. Lucille was the couple's third child; another daughter, Daisy, had died in infancy, and Lucille's brother, Hal, had been born the previous year. (Many years later, when little Lucille was the famous woman known to the world as Joan Crawford, the year of her birth would mysteriously change to 1906 or 1908.) Tom LeSueur was of French-Canadian extraction; he worked as a contractor, and his assignments frequently took him out of San Antonio. One day when Lucille was still a small child, he left for a job and never came back.

  After her husband's abandonment, Anna became very bitter, but she was determined to do the best she could for herself and her two children. Anna moved Hal and Lucille out of their shabby rented apartment and together they all made their way to Lawton, Oklahoma, where Anna hoped life would be better. It wasn't long before she met the town's most interesting citizen - and most eligible bachelor - Harry Cassin, owner of the local opera house, which put on various forms of entertainment. When the relationship between Harry and Anna became more serious, Anna managed to track down her first husband and get a divorce. Realizing that another man would now care for his wife and pay for his children's needs, LeSueur was eager to agree to Anna's terms. Anna married Thomas out of love, but she married Harry Cassin for security.

  Little Lucille - now known as "Billie" Cassin - fell in love with show business; she spent time backstage at the opera house, mingled with the artists, and dreamed of going on the stage herself someday and garnering applause. She was especially interested in dancing, and she observed the fancy footwork of the entertainers very carefully. She mounted her own amateur productions in the big barn where Cassin kept the scenery for his shows. Billie was very much a tomboy and a scrapper. Her mother, whose marriage to Cassin was essentially loveless, found her a trial and always compared her unfavorably to her better-behaved (at least at that time) brother, Hal.

  In early interviews and in her autobiography, Joan related an incident that changed the situation entirely. One day, she discovered some gold coins hidden in her home. Apparently the money had been stolen by one of Harry's business associates. Harry had hidden it, but he was afraid to turn it in, because he thought he might be charged as an accessory. The authorities investigated, and Cassin was arrested but eventually ac-quitted. According to Joan, this incident was the beginning of the end of the family's happy life in Lawton.

  Whatever the truth was, it was not money that tore the Cassin clan apart, much less the gold coins. It was only very late in life that Joan was able to reveal the real reason that her mother resented her all her life and that her mother's marriage to Harry Cassin fell apart. Anna discovered that her husband was having sex with her daughter - and had been doing so since Billie was eleven. Joan admitted that her deep attachment to her thirty-four-year-old stepfather caused her, as she put it, to "entice" him into having sexual relations with her. "It wasn't incest. We weren't even related. He was gentle and kind and I led him into it." Decades later, Joan still blamed herself and defended her stepfather, even when confronted with the fact that the man was undeniably a child molester and the sole guilty party in the matter. When Anna discovered the two in a compromising position, her husband was only too willing to pin the blame on Billie as well. While Anna did not quite see it this way - she promptly divorced Cassin and forbade him to see her daughter ever again - part of her did blame her precocious daughter for her part in the situation.

  Billie was devastated by the departure of Harry Cassin; she had even wanted to bear his child. Although she claimed to be stunned when she was informed that Cassin was not her real father, she also interpreted this as yet another proof that she and Harry were meant to be together. Her stepfather's sexual abuse of her made her sexually "sophisticated" at an early age; afterwards she saw sex, especially with older male authority figures, as something entirely natural. She was very serious about sex, bestowing it on those she cared about and/or wanted to exert control over; at the same time, she could also see it as something quite casual, nothing more than a quick thrill.

  In her revised curriculum vitae, Harry Cassin accompanied Anna and the children to Kansas City. In reality, he was left behind, as the others moved into the rundown hotel that Anna managed for a time; later she managed a laundry. Harry may have followed his wife to Missouri in an attempt to patch up their marriage, and Anna may have continued to call herself Mrs. Harry Cassin, but Harry was gone for good. Billie saw her former stepfather and lover in Kansas City on one occasion by accident but never again after that.

  Fully awakened sexually, but her first lover having joined her real father in exile, Billie was restless. As her brother later recalled it to Photoplay writer Ruth Waterbury, she "explored my pants and every other kid's." Since her mother was as sexually active as Billie was soon to become, Billie was convinced that Hal was at best her half -brother, and might not even be related to her at all. (This is unlikely, as the two had certain features in common.) When Anna found Billie "fooling around," as she put it, with Hal in bed one night, Anna slapped them both, and from then on kept a close watch on them. In no time, Anna kept Hal and Billie busy twelve hours a day by putting them on hot, dirty laundry detail.

  At age thirteen, Billie was enrolled in St. Agnes, a parochial school whose students mostly consisted of well-heeled girls who paid for their lessons, except for those, like Billie, who had to work - and work hard - in lieu of tuition. Billie spent hours cleaning rooms, washing toilets, waiting on tables, and doing other menial chores in exchange for a haphazard and unsatisfactory education. Billie hated the way girls from good families looked down on her, and she felt that the nuns took terrible advantage of less fortunate students. "I was a workhorse," Joan remembered. "Not a child, but a workhorse." Yet those hours of scrubbing and cleaning never wore off on Joan, who would revere the spit and polish of a good honest cleaning for the rest of her life, never averse to using a little elbow grease to get things looking just so. The hard work Billie had to do at St. Agnes probably didn't bother her as much as the attitudes and pretty dresses of the wealthy girls and the envy it all engendered in her. What is clear is that her memories of Sr. Agnes remained negative her entire life. In later years, when she was asked to contribute money to the school, Joan always refused and would roll the administration so in no uncertain terms. "They'll never get one single dollar from me!" she vowed.

  Things were even worse at Billie's next school. At fifteen, she transferred from St. Agnes to the Rockingham Academy, a boarding school for "difficult" upper-class children. This move came about because Anna was living with a new man, "Mr. Hough"; whether Anna ever married him is unclear. Once again, Billie was put to work in order to pay for tuition, but this time her duties were far more strenuous. The headmistress of the institution expected Billie to get up at dawn, make all the beds and perform all manner of drudgery with little time out for a rest or even classes. Billie's education was essentially ignored, and the headmistress would slap her if she dared to complain. Later, Joan may have exaggerated her miseries at Rockingham - for example, it's unlikely that she cooked the meals for all of the students - but it was not an easy time for her.

  At home, however, things were even worse. In her autobiography, Joan claimed that Mr. Hough made a pass at her, after which she eventually left home for good; later Joan admitted that her mother didn't want her around because of her daughter's sexual precociousness. "She was afraid that I'd seduce the new man in her life, not the other way around. I was older, aware of my sexuality, and so were all the boys. My mother was jealous of me and wanted me out of her life."

  Billie may not have received much schooling at either St. Agnes or Rockingham, but the truth is she was more interested in chasing boys than acquiring a decent education. At sixteen, she had the reputation around town as a "boy-crazy easy lay," as Joan later termed it. She dated many of the male students at Rockingham and attended a lot of dances, where she'd kiss the boys out back or indulge in substantially more erotic behavior in the back seat of someone's car. She was very grateful to boys who showed her even minimal kindness. Hal, her brother, was remarkably good-looking and for the most part studiously ignored his sister. He spent most of his time hanging around pool rooms and hustling older homosexuals. "The life was Kansas-style Bohemian for those two, that was for sure," Adela Rogers St. John remembered.

  In her pursuit of boys (and, while she was at it, higher learning), Billie next matriculated at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. Once again Billie was put to work, this time as a waitress in the dining room. Some at the college sensed something in Billie aside from her remarkable sensuality; they noticed her basic intelligence and her remarkable tenacity and drive. One such person was the president of the college, Dr. James Wood, who became a father figure of sorts for Billie; she always referred to him as "Daddy Wood." But Billie was woefully unprepared for college. Never having acquired a proper high-school education, Billie soon fell so far behind the other students that she felt more isolated than ever. Despite her innate curiosity and her desire to better herself, she found herself questioning the importance of a college education for someone who wanted to be an entertainer, specifically a dancer. Dancing and boys- these were her two obsessions. Although Joan was always intelligent and later cultivated an appreciation of the finer things in life - particularly literature and classical music - she was never really an intellectual.

  Tired of being treated like a second-class citizen, Billie left Stephens before the first term was over. Her brief tenure at Stephens did have a substantial impact on her, however. She never forgot her excitement when she was asked to pledge a popular sorority on campus - or her disappointment when she was then told that girls who had to work were not permitted to join. She hated the "rich bitches" who made fun of her cheap dresses, which she tried to trick up with ornamentations of imitation lace and roses. Such slights only hardened her determination to get ahead. For the rest of her life, if anyone took a condescending tone with Joan, she would slap him or her down with every bit of force she could muster - and an angry Joan Crawford could be very forceful indeed.

  Billie went home to Kansas City and worked at a number of dull jobs, because Mr. Hough insisted that she pay her room and board. In 1921, while she was working at a department store - she also wrapped packages and was a telephone operator - Billie met an intense young man named Ray Sterling. Joan would later tell interviewers that Ray was her "first love." Billie was seventeen years old. Sterling took her to dances, where she wore the wrong clothes and too much makeup and tried- unsuccessfully - to disregard what others thought of her. Sterling was a wonderful influence on Billie; later, Joan would recall that, although young and essentially underprivileged (as she was), Sterling was intelligent and well-read. He urged Billie to make something of herself - to read more, to listen to good music, and to take an interest in the opportunities for growth all around her. It didn't take long for gillie to pin her hopes for a better future on Sterling, but he felt that, at seventeen, they were too young to get married. Billie eventually encountered another problem, realizing - perhaps even before he did - that the sensitive and introverted Sterling was essentially a homosexual. Although this insight shocked Billie at first, it also motivated her to try lesbian relationships. Later, Joan explained of her experimentation, "It made me feel close to Ray."

  By this time, Billie had fallen deeply in love with Sterling, and the knowledge that he could never fulfill her sexual needs - however supportive he might be emotionally - left her deeply disillusioned at life's rude shocks. Soon she was back to her "easy lays" with whatever attractive boys were at hand. "It broke Ray's heart to see me like that, but what was I to do?" Joan later remembered.

  At the age of seventeen, Billie was blessed with hope and vitality, and kind, gentle, unattainable Sterling had awakened her creative instincts. The spring of 1921 found her looking forward to her dancing career. She began to invest most of her small department-store salary in clothes. As Sterling had helped her sharpen her sense of style, her choices in clothing were by now quite sound. Billie incessantly practiced dancing in front of full-length mirrors and tried out for amateur contests at dance halls. People began to notice her natural grace and terpsichorean expertise. At a hotel in Kansas City, Billie auditioned for a job with Katherine Emerine's traveling revue and was hired, much to her delight. She was one of the chorus girls who backed up the middle-aged entertainer, who specialized in interpreting songs from operettas and Broadway musicals. Billie decided to perform under her original name, Lucille LeSueur. "It sounded more glamorous and naughty," Joan recalled.

  Unfortunately, the traveling show never made it past Springfield, Missouri, and her first professional dancing job ended after only a week. It was back to the department store for Billie, who now combined attractive clothes and hairstyle with a polished seductiveness. Not surprisingly, the better-heeled men began paying attention to her. Billie was fed up with her horrible, dull job and disgusted with the situation at home, where her mother watched her like a hawk every time she came near Mr. Hough. It was perfectly clear that the two of them did not want Billie around. "My mother wasn't going to lose her latest boyfriend or husband or whatever the hell he was to her own daughter," Joan remembered. "I had absolutely no interest in Mr. Hough. I was only too happy to get out.'

  Having won several more dance contests, at the age of nineteen, Lucille, as she was now calling herself, decided to try her luck in Chicago. No one in her family told her that they would miss her or asked when she might be coming back. In spite of this apathy, Joan did her best to help and support her brother and mother after she made it big in Hollywood, but her relationship with them would never become close. The one person who really did miss her was Ray Sterling. Although Joan later wrote that she chose her career over marriage to Sterling, the proposal she might once have hoped for never came about anyway. Instead, Ray gave her support, love, and encouragement, and wished her the best.

  In Chicago, Lucille looked up Ernie Young, an agent Katherine Emerine had recommended to her. In her memoirs, Joan mentioned how nice Young's wife was to her when, hungry and scared, she broke down in tears; what she didn't mention was that Emerine had warned her that Young was a "casting-couch cougar." Bitterly wise to the male and his ways, Lucille "jumped on Ernie's couch" - Joan's words - and he got her a $25-a-week job in a Chicago nightspot. She worked hard, proved herself a reliable performer, and was moved to the Oriole Terrace, a club in Detroit. There she did eight routines a night as part of a large group of chorus girls. Many of these girls were competitive and jealous, but a few were kind to Lucille, passing on a number of helpful tips. Her efforts in self-polish stepped up around this time: by now, Lucille's clothes were chic, her makeup relatively subtle, and her speech and manners more polished than before. As sexually ravenous as ever, Lucille had a few brief affairs with other chorus girls and slept with some of the wealthier and more attractive "Stage Door Johnnies" - those from Detroit and elsewhere.

  One night at the Oriole, she caught the eye of famous Broadway impresario J.J. Shubert. He could see that Lucille was not the most beautiful of the girls, that she didn't have the best figure, and that she certainly wasn't the most talented dancer. But Shubert spotted a certain something - indefinable but definitely there, a quality that made her stand out among the other girls. After dinner with the nineteen-year-old starlet, Shubert offered her a job in Innocent Eyes, his latest revue. Joan remembered being "extra nice to Mr. Shubert. I wanted to make his Detroit stay pleasant - even memorable. And I think it was!"

  It must have been memorable, for Lucille LeSueur soon became known in New York City as one of Shubert's "pet babes." By the fall of 1924 Lucille, then twenty years old, was holding down two jobs: one in the chorus of Innocent Eyes, the other filling a late-night singing and dancing spot at Harry Richman's nightclub. Soon her name began to creep into the New York gossip columns; for a time she practically had a man a night. Several men a week, each giving her clothes and jewelry, taking her to parties - and afterward? "It depended on my mood and how cute the guy was," Joan said later. But she was never above accommodating married, middle-aged men, who may well have evoked memories of "Daddy" Cassin.

  Joan's abundant sexual activities, particularly in her younger days, have sometimes made her a subject of ridicule, but her conduct was by no means all that unusual. First, in her relationship with Harry Cassin she was the victim, regardless of how she might have later characterized it; that episode affected her attitude toward men and sex for the rest of her life. Second, why criticize Joan for sleeping around and having affairs in the '20s and '30s when so many of today's female stars behave in exactly the same manner? No one bats an eye when they hear of Julia Roberts's latest romance, Meg Ryan's affairs with male costars, or Madonna's erotic wanderings, so why think less of Joan because of her behavior? Indeed, in approaching sex just as a man would, Joan was ahead of her time. She saw no reason why sexual adventuring should be the exclusive domain of the male of the species.

  Some biographers have suggested that Lucille found New York City a bit overwhelming and "immoral"; others have described her as being anxious to borrow money to go home to Kansas City. As Joan remembered it, the truth was that in New York she felt truly at home for the first time in her life. While her movie career would keep her in California for many decades, she always loved Manhattan and was happy to return there many years later. "New York was the most exciting place I'd ever been," she said, "and still is. There seemed to be so many options, so many opportunities. I spent all the time that I wasn't on the stage or rehearsing walking up the avenues and soaking in all the sights and sounds, the whole atmosphere of the city. I was wide-eyed at first, but got used to it pretty fast. Those of us who are meant for this city just know it when we get here. But my future was in Hollywood, nor the theater."

  In late 1924, MGM producer Harry Rapf came to New York on a talent scouting trip for the studio. The Metro Company had joined up with Samuel Goldwyn's company and Louis B. Mayer to create MGM, which had ambitious plans for top productions. Rapf wined and dined Lucille, who later implied that they slept together as well. When she did well on the screen test he set up for her in New York, he put her on a train for Hollywood with an MGM stock contract. It was now January 1925; she would soon be twenty-one. A stop in Kansas City to see her mother, who berated her for her career choice and lack of morals, only convinced her all the more that she had made the right decision.

  During her first year in Hollywood, Lucille did the usual thing: She doubled for top stars, posed for cheesecake pictures and track-running publicity stills, and gradually worked her way into more substantial ingйnue roles, thanks to help from Rapf and others - and thanks to her usual party-girl skills, especially well-honed now that she was in the movie capital of the world. It wasn't long before it was known around the studio - and all over Hollywood - that she had become one of the fleet of young MGM contractees that studio honcho Louis B. Mayer kept to "entertain" visiting bigwigs from New York. These services may have been "classed up" by the people and surroundings, but Lucille had mixed feelings about it all. Anxious to get ahead, Lucille was willing to do what was necessary, but she resented always having to make trade-offs: work for education, sex for attention from the Hollywood higher-ups. As mentioned in the preface, one of the men Lucille "entertained" was James R. Quirk, then editor-publisher of Photoplay magazine. (Jimmy Quirk was also co-sponsor, along with his close friend Cosmopolitan editor Ray Long, of a high-class "house of assignation" on New York's West 58th Street, where friends such as Joe Kennedy joined them in revels with ambitious young actresses and other available ladies, many from good families and on the upwardly mobile path of easy virtue. Lucille, however, was never employed there.)

  Enormously vital and energetic, Lucille did late-night exhibition dancing in various Hollywood hot spots. She had become particularly adept at the Charleston and the Black Bottom, two dances that enjoyed bewildering popularity for a time. Her energy and uninhibited charm won her admiration from many men, among them Michael Cudahy, young scion of the Chicago meat-packing clan. Between them, she and Cudahy won many trophies in Charleston tournaments. Besides being handsome, well-endowed, and charming, Michael represented an upwardly mobile catch for Lucille, but the Cudahys, not fond of her free-wheeling past and Bohemian ways, pulled the protesting Michael away from her. In her autobiography, Joan claimed that Cudahy's mother actually liked her and wanted her for a daughter-in-law, but this is highly unlikely. Cudahy's mother may well have gotten a kick out of the girl with the wide eyes and vivid personality, but Lucille LeSueur, the quintessential "flapper," was simply too dйclassй at that time to have been considered acceptable wife material for the likes of Michael Cudahy. She would have been dismissed at best as a diversion and at worst as a gold-digger.

  Lucille came to see many heterosexual men as users who could, in turn, be used by her. She sought friendships with sympathetic women - among them Dorothy Sebastian, another MGM starlet - and with men who had no interest in her sexually. These included homosexuals such as MGM star William Haines, who became one of Lucille's best friends, and fatherly MGM producer Paul Bern, who took Lucille under his wing in his role as mentor to upcoming MGM personalities. Bern was heterosexual; he committed suicide several years later, only a few months after marrying Jean Harlow. "Paul Bern and Billy [Haines] were such a relief," Joan said later. "No groping into my panties, no pawing and panting!" Another of Lucille's early boosters was cameraman Johnny Arnold, who told her that she had a unique look and a face with a strong bone structure. He took some photos of her emphasizing her strong features; these helped bring Lucille to the attention of the MGM executives.

  Lucille LeSueur was on her way.

  Bur first she would have to bury the past.

  

  

  

  Chapter two

  PRETTY LADY

  

   Lucille's first appearance in front of a movie camera - unbilled - was in Lady of the Night (1925), in which star Norma Shearer played a dual role. When Shearer was playing one part, Lucille would double for the other one, shot from behind or in profile from a distance. Lucille knew that Shearer was going places - she was dating Irving Thalberg, for one thing - and Shearer was what Lucille wanted to be: a star. So Lucille studied her carefully. For her part, Shearer acted as if Lucille hardly existed, something Lucille wouldn't forget when they worked together many years later.

  

   Billed as Lucille LeSueur for the only time in her career, in 1925 she had a small part in Pretty Ladies, the first movie in which she actually acted. Pretty Ladies starred Zasu Pitts as Maggie, a plain dancer/comedienne - who longs for the kind of love life enjoyed by the more attractive chorus girls. She eventually falls in love with a drummer named Al Cassidy (Tom Moore). When Al strays with a beautiful vamp named Selma (Lilyan Tashman), Maggie forgives him and takes him back. The storyline takes place in a revue similar to the Ziegfeld Follies. Lucille played Bobby, a showgirl. At one point, Bobby dresses up in a big white wig as a lady of the court. Later, in a production number, she hangs on a "human chandelier" with another extra - Myrna Loy. In order to look svelte in her costumes, Lucille lived on practically nothing but lack coffee for days.

  

   Norma Shearer had a much larger part in Pretty Ladies and had little to do with Lucille. Loy, however, got to know Lucille well, and their friendship would last for years. One day, after filming a production number in which the two played snowflakes, Lucille rushed into Loy's dressing room and started to cry. She told Loy that Harry Rapf had chased her around his desk, hardly for the first -- or last -- time. "She was having a terrible time," Loy remembered in her memoirs. "She had such a beautiful body that they were all after her."

  

   It was around this time that MGM supposedly decided that "Lucille LeSueur" didn't sound right for a developing screen personality and sponsored a contest for a new name. The truth was that Lucille's reputation had preceded her; while MGM wanted its emerging stars to get into the gossip columns, there was a limit to how much improper behavior the public would tolerate from their screen idols. Mayer knew that many of the men that Lucille had "dated" as part of her unofficial MGM duties would remember her even with a different name, but why make it easier for them? Of course, some of them knew who "Joan Crawford" was but kept quiet because they liked her and saw potential in her - James Quirk, for instance, became one of her supporters. Her name was still Lucille LeSueur when some of her early films were being shot, but the new name was used in every picture but her first. Moviegoers the world over would come to know Lucille as "Joan Crawford" - a name she initially hated.

  

   There has been some confusion over which picture Joan did next, The Circle or The Only Thing (both 1925). The correct answer: both. Only comparatively recently has Joan been spotted in stills of The Circle, but there have always been several stills of her from The Only Thing, including some close-ups. The confusion may have resulted because both films were period pieces starring Eleanor Boardman. Joan almost certainly had the small role of Young Lady Catherine in the prologue of The Circle, which was based on the play by W. Somerset Maugham. She leaves her husband and runs off with her lover. In the rest of the film, the same character - now older and wiser - is played by Eugenie Besserer. Frank Borzage, director of The Circle, would work with Joan in later films.

  

   In The Only Thing, an Elinor Glyn story about star-crossed lovers during a revolution in the nation of "Chekia," Joan's bit part is as a lady-in-waiting. It was undoubtedly released just before The Circle. Joan later confided that director Jack Conway probably put her in The Only Thing just to get her to stop pestering him for roles. There is no documentation to prove conclusively that she was also in Proud Flesh, another 1925 Eleanor Boardman vehicle.

  

   Joan's next silent film - a considerable leap forward from Pretty Ladies and the others in terms of her screen time - was Old Clothes (1925), in which she appeared with child star Jackie Coogan. Coogan and Max Davidson play Tim Kelly and Max Ginsburg, partners in a business that deals in second-hand clothing and other junk. They take in a destitute boarder named Mary Riley (Joan) and help her get a job and win the man of her dreams, a Wall Street financier named Nathan Burke (Allan Forrest), whose snooty mother disapproves of Mary. It all ends happily and improbably, with Tim and Max just happening to have a lot of the very stock that Burke needs to save his business.

  

   Joan recalled that 150 girls tried out for the part of Mary in Old Clothes. "They had us in a big lineup. I wanted that part so bad I could taste it," she said. "The director and I, Eddie Cline - a sweetheart, always had a cigar in his mouth - laughed about it later, about how determined and intense I was, but that little part meant the world to me back then. Jackie Coogan was hot stuff, a big name in the business, and it didn't hurt to be in one of his movies. His father was very nice to me, and thought I'd go places. Little Jackie was adorable." In a later conversation, Joan admitted that Coogan's father had a casting couch of his own, and that he didn't put Joan in his son's movie until they had a "hot" session together in his office bungalow. "He was a dirty pig!" was her more candid view on Coogan's father. About forty years after the release of Old Clothes, Jackie Coogan Jr. played bald-headed Uncle Fester on TV's The Addams Family. Watching an episode of the show, Joan commented, "You know, I wouldn't have recognized him, except he's still got that certain look on his face. The big, wide eyes, the same expression. It's old and wrinkled but it's the same face." Joan got some nice notices for Old Clothes, but she still had a long way to go.

  

   Joan's final 1925 release, Sally, Irene and Mary, won her even more attention. Joan worked with her friend William Haines for the first time, although he was paired with Sally O'Neil, who was playing Mary, and not Joan, cast in the tragic role of Irene. Constance Bennett, at the time the biggest name of the three women, rounded out the trio as Sally. In part because her character comes to a frightful end, Joan's approach to the character was deadly earnest, in marked contrast to Haines's more frivolous performance.

  

   Although Joan suffered some in Old Clothes before the happy ending, Sally, Irene and Mary was the film that first presented Crawford as a tragic heroine - albeit in a minor key. The movie is about three chorus girls looking for men, money, success, and romance. Sally latches onto a wealthy older man named Marcus (Henry Kolker), who wants to be her "sugar daddy"; Mary tries to land him herself but eventually settles for an adoring plumber named Jimmy (Haines); Irene is torn between a handsome lothario named Glen (Douglas Gilmore) and a nice, if less exciting, guy called Charles (Ray Howard). When Irene refuses to put out for Glen, with whom she's fallen in love, he tells her he is only interested in a physical relationship; disillusioned, she goes back to Charles. A morbid finish has Irene and Charles killed when an oncoming train smashes their elopement car. In a bizarre finish perhaps meant to take the chill off her grisly demise, Irene shows up as a ghost jitterbugging on the stage with the rest of the (living) lovelies.

  

   Bennett, who got the lion's share of the notices, did not mingle much with Joan during the filming. Joan got nice reviews for the picture, with some critics commenting on her "polish." By 1925, there were already many movies about chorus girls, but the ever-admiring James Quirk wrote in Photoplay that Sally, Irene and Mary for once showed "the tinseled creatures as they really are - hard-working, ambitious youngsters who go home to corned beef and cabbage, usually, instead of to nightclubs and broiled lobster." He also had nice things to say about Joan, of course.

  

   Years later, Joan singled out Sally, Irene and Mary as the movie that first made her think that she might have some staying power in the motion-picture industry. Much of the credit for that goes to director Edmund Goulding and cameraman Johnny Arnold. For instance, Goulding taught her how to move in relation to the camera. Goulding also got Joan to tone down some of her mannerisms, focusing especially on tempering her intensity when the scene didn't call for it. She might be playing a dancer, he reminded her, but she didn't have to "dance" her way through the entire picture. For his part, Arnold gave Joan acting suggestions as well as tips for looking good on film. Apparently Joan felt she had overacted badly in Old Clothes, and she eagerly soaked in this helpful advice. Joan was also forever improving her makeup and carriage. Some ideas came from studying the leading ladies of her early films; some came from advice from friendly starlets on the lot; some were entirely her own. There was a makeup department at MGM, but it was only for the stars; all of the other actors had to fend for themselves.

  

   Joan's first 1926 release for MGM, The Boob, wasn't exactly calculated to advance her film career. She played a badly conceived supporting role in this George K. Arthur movie. Arthur was one of the wistful, floundering, well-intentioned young heroes of the silent screen who for a time held strong appeal to audiences, especially in smaller towns and rural areas. Gertrude Olmstead played May, the love-interest, opposite Arthur, as Peter, a dreamy farm boy who wishes that he lived in the Middle Ages rescuing damsels in distress. May rejects Peter for Harry, a city slicker played by Antonio D'Algy (in later credits he went by the name Tony D'Algy). Determined to win the lady's respect, Peter uncovers Harry's rum-running activities, and, his poetry writing and colorful cowboy suits having failed to impress his object of desire, he joins prohibition agent Jane (Joan). Peter and Jane catch Harry digging up a casket full of booze. All ends in triumph for Peter: May admires her hero at last and requites his love.

  

   As the prohibition agent, Joan was stuck with a thoroughly throw-away role. She has one playful scene, in which Jane flirts with Peter, but it is strictly a supporting part, and she always regarded The Boob as a waste of time. Nor was much attention paid to her makeup and hair styling. Years later, she said, "I was just an MGM contract player and had to take whatever was thrown at me. I was earning a weekly salary and ways had to be found to keep me busy, no matter how unsuitable and carelessly conceived the part. It was a period in which I was not getting an active buildup and not that much attention was being paid me." She also felt that Olmstead, one of the beauties of the '20s then getting leads (although she would soon be utterly forgotten), was jealous of her. Joan overheard Olmstead asking director Bill Wellman (yes, the famous William A. Wellman) why such a "pretty girl should be shoved into a picture that has no real need of her," adding, "Why, they could have given the part to any unattractive character actress!" Joan recalled that veteran actors Charlie Murray and Hank Mann were kind to her; she remembered Murray encouraging her by explaining that young contract players had to make do with whatever parts came along and that "it all amounts to experience, doesn't it!"

  

   Of director William Wellman, Crawford had darker memories:

  

  

  

   This was, of course, before either Bill or me had made our major marks, but he was totally oblivious of me as a person or as an actress, though he did pinch my bottom and grab one of my breasts on a few occasions. Bill developed in the '30s a reputation as a major director and was widely admired by various stars, but during The Boob he was just a horny wise guy with, I felt, little respect for women. He had to cater somewhat to Gert Olmstead, who had the leading female part, but even she got his "just another broad" leers from time to time.

  

   Joan remembered an incident about fifteen years later in which she, by then a famed star, and he, a highly respected director, met at a party, and "damned if he didn't give me a pinch on my behind, chuckling 'for old times' sake!'" A man's man, Wellman once said of the Joan he knew in the '20s, "She used to get so affronted when you kidded her, but she did have a reputation in those early days as quite a wild slut. So what did she expect?"

  

   The critics were not kind to The Boob. Film Daily wrote of it, "The development is of such an episodic nature that the initial idea is eventually lost in a variety of comedy gags, slapstick and otherwise." Worse was to come on the other coast. The film critic of The Baltimore Sun dismissed The Boob: "A piece of junk.... The company has simply covered itself with water and become soaking wet, for this tale of a half-dumb boy who turned prohibition agent to convince his girl he had nerve is as wishy washy as any pail of dishwater." Joan resolved to make the best of the experience. She said later, "The Boob strengthened my ambitions.... That was a rut, and I became rut-allergic with a vengeance after I made it! I was never cut out for slapstick anyway, and the script for that one was just awful, which made it worse."

  

   On loan to First National in early 1926, Joan appeared in Tramp Tramp Tramp, in which she served as romantic foil to Harry Langdon. In the '20s, Langdon's career as a comedian was thriving, thanks in part to his partnership with Frank Capra (before he became Hollywood's most sought-after director), who wrote stories that highlighted Langdon's distinctive comic gifts. Harry Edwards directed Tramp Tramp Tramp for the Harry Langdon Corporation. Langdon's wistful, befuddled persona enjoyed quite a vogue during that period, until an oversized ego, quarrels with helpful associates such as Capra, and bad judgment in his financial and personal relationships combined to bring him down.

  

   At 62 minutes, Tramp Tramp Tramp was Langdon's first feature-length comedy, and he was very anxious that it go well. Capra felt that Langdon was more at ease in shorter works, because he could put across his turns in sharper, more focused form, whereas in a feature-length film he was forced to be more inventive. "He liked to economize," Capra said. "He didn't like to spread his comic turns too thin; that was the basis of Harry's fear of lengthier films."

  

   The Capra-conceived story of Tramp Tramp Tramp had Langdon playing a character named Harry, a poor sap who needs to make money fast to keep himself and his father Amos (Alec B. Francis) from being evicted when the mortgage comes due. Harry is in love with the Burton Shoes poster girl, Betty Burton (Joan), who is also the daughter of shoe manufacturer John Burton (Edwards Davis). Harry decides to make his fortune by entering a cross-country hiking contest sponsored by Burton Shoes that will pay $25,000 to the winner. During the cross-country "tramp," Harry gets into the embarrassing and unpredictable straits and mishaps to be found in any Langdon film (with Capra's inventive story turns and situations) - but he pushes on, determined to win the money.

  

   Among Harry's adventures: a flock of sheep forces him to a fence; when he escapes from them over the fence, he finds himself at the edge of a steep precipice. At another point, he gets arrested for stealing fruit and lands on a prison rock pile; then he can't get free himself from the ball and chain in which he has gotten entangled. Next comes a cyclone he barely survives, and many other adventures - but he perseveres. In the end, the prize winnings pay his father's mortgage, he lands the girl, and as a young husband and father he ends the picture looking fondly down on a baby in a crib - a baby with his own features! (Many of these ideas would be endlessly recycled, for instance in pictures starring Hope and Crosby, or Martin and Lewis.)

  

   Variety dismissed Joan as "a nice leading lady with little to do." She later recalled that she was "playing not second fiddle, not third fiddle, but more like fifth fiddle to Harry's comic stunts!" Cameramen Elgin Lessley and George Spear seemed quite taken by Harry's feminine foil, however, and she was photographed very flatteringly. Ironically, the First National cosmeticians made her look better than she had in movies made at MGM. "When I got back to MGM I had picked up some makeup tricks that I clued in the MGM people on," she recalled. "I was made up better for the camera from then on, I feel."

  

   Harry Langdon's wistful and confused lost-baby persona captivated audiences - for the moment. Joan's own memories of Langdon were mixed. "I never thought he was a very happy person," she told Quirk during one of their frequent conversations. "There seemed to be some deep dark hole in him, a hole he could never seem to climb out of." She remembered that working with him was a "very remote, detached experience. He put on the required gestures and expressions, but as soon as the camera stopped rolling, he retreated into his own private self," Joan remembered. "He was self-destructive, got too big a head, thought he knew it all." She recalled Capra later saying of Langdon that he "could have had a much longer career if he had had more self-awareness, had had a more objective awareness of his weaknesses and his strengths." For his part, Capra felt that whenever the leading lady was particularly charming and beautiful, Langdon would feel threatened and overdo his comic shticks accordingly.

  

   Variety's verdict on Langdon in Tramp Tramp Tramp was apt: "[He] does some remarkable work ... aside from all the expert handling of the gags assigned him, he does several long scenes in which facial expression is the only acting." Langdon is indeed excellent in the movie. Joan was cast primarily as window-dressing - she looks pretty, emotes well, but has little to do. She does come off as very sweet and sympathetic, however, and her gestures and expressions are natural and unaffected. Tramp Tramp Tramp remains a classic comedy of Hollywood's silent period. The precipice scene, in which Harry pulls nails out of the fence to secure his sweater to it so he won't fall - oblivious to the fact that his actions are making the fence fall apart - is outstanding, as is his descent down a steep slope on a section of wood. The cyclone scene, shot in a special "shaking" room constructed for the movie, and the scenes of whole buildings falling apart or sailing into the air are still impressive. And Langdon cavorting in his giant crib as a baby is hilarious.

  

   In her memoirs, Joan recalled how claustrophobic she felt during the cyclone scene when Langdon has to push her into a manhole - alas, that sequence is not in the final print. Then again, Joan recalled co-writer Capra as the director; it was actually Edwards who helmed the film, although Capra was certainly on the set.

  

   Joan found herself again under the direction of Edmund Goulding in Paris. The story, written by Goulding (with help from Joseph Farnham), involved Joan as an Apache dancer in Paris with a possessive, demanding, sometimes brutal lover, also an Apache, played by Douglas Gilmore, in a role somewhat out of his usual mйtier. The lead was Charles Ray. At that moment he was trying to revive his once-flourishing career (he had won his original fame as a wistful boy-next-door type). He had lost a fortune on an ill-advised production of The Courtship of Myles Standish, and found himself in 1927 at MGM trying to revive his once-major career. Paris was not a film designed to help him accomplish that goal.

  

   In Paris, Ray plays Jerry, a young American millionaire living it up in Paris, where the night life and exotic scenes keep him titillated and excited. He meets "The Girl" (Joan) in an Apache den, incurs the jealous anger of "The Cat" (Gilmore), and gets knifed for his pains. The Girl nurses Jerry back to health in her room while the Cat goes to prison for attacking him. Jerry tries to improve her life, offers her money and clothing, and - in time - proposes marriage. But all she feels for him is friendship and concern, and she informs him that money cannot buy her love. When the Cat gets out of prison, thinking that the Girl has taken up with Jerry, he tries to choke her to death. Jerry defends the Girl and begins to throttle the Cat, when she saddens and shocks Jerry by declaring that she is really in love with the Cat. Realizing that her heart belongs to the man with whom she shares a common background, Jerry leaves dejectedly while the Girl and the Cat unite in a reconciling embrace.

  

   Goulding worked hard with Joan on Paris. At age twenty-three, she is lively, flirtatious, vital, and flatteringly photographed by her old friend Johnny Arnold. At 67 minutes, the picture is not long, but Goulding managed to recreate the Parisian atmosphere effectively, and in scene after scene he showcases Joan to maximum advantage. The only prints of the silent film available are not in good condition and, of course, they do not include the piano accompaniment that moviegoers of the day would have heard, but it is clear that Paris would have lent itself well to the piano scorings of the period. Joan and Gilmore make a lively pair - in what little we see of them on the dance floor, they mesh gracefully and with a mutual rhythm that indicates some degree of offscreen chemistry between them. Their love scenes are convincing as well. Years later, Joan said of Gilmore, "He was a handsome lug, and a good actor, and he deserved a longer career than fate gave him."

  

   Charles Ray is affecting and convincing, even though he was more mature in this movie than the boyish hero that had worked so well for him earlier. To be sure, Gilmore and Joan had much better chemistry than did Ray and Joan; they were obviously not each other's types, but they performed well enough together. Of Ray, Joan confided, "He was slipping badly at that time, knew he was on the way out, and I felt an awful sadness about him in our scenes together. He made me want to help, somehow, some way, but I didn't know how." Of Goulding, she said, "As always, he was supportive, helpful, and highlighted me effectively in scenes I might, on my own, have thrown away."

  

   In Photoplay James Quirk called Paris "an absorbing tale of love" - at least until the final reel. Joan played the girl "exquisitely" and Ray was "amusing and believable." The magazine deplored, however, the Girl's ultimate choice of the Cat over Jerry. "Good," Photoplay pronounced, "but not to the last shot," urging patrons to leave before the final reel. While not made up to her best advantage (although well shot by Arnold), Joan won generally fine reviews for Paris. In later years, she wouldn't think much of her performance: "I was overacting all over the place in that one."

  

   But Louis B. Mayer was taking note of his new acquisition, this "Joan Crawford," and more and more he liked what he saw. It was rare for any of the girls Mayer used to entertain visiting out-of-towners to graduate to major - or even minor - screen careers, but Mayer had always seen something special in Joan. She knew how to handle men - and not just by sleeping with them. Mayer gave her a new contract of $250 a week, in those days a veritable fortune. Throughout her life, Joan would always speak well of Mayer, to whom she was always grateful. "I was free to go to [Mayer] for advice of any kind, any time," she remembered. "He was patient with people, had great judgment, and didn't play games. Mr. Mayer always had a magic sense of star material, of personality. He knew how to build and protect his 'properties' and he had a genuine love for them as people." Years later, after Mayer's death, his reputation came under attack from the Hollywood community; he was called a tyrant, among other things. Along with Robert Taylor and a few others, Joan loyally defended him after his death, claiming that negative reports of him had been exaggerated and distorted.

  

   Flush with new success, Joan rented a bungalow, bought a car, and prepared herself for the great things to come that so many people had predicted for her.

  

  And then Hal and mother came to town.

  

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