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If English is your first language and you could translate my old Italian text, please contact me.
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Joan Crawford nacque come Lucille Fay LeSueur nel 1904 a San Antonio, nel Texas, da padre francocanadese e da
madre irlandese-scandinava; ma l'infanzia dell'attrice trascorse in Oklahoma, nella casa e nel teatro
vaudeville del patrigno e poi a Kansas City, dove si sciolse anche il secondo matrimonio della madre.
Irrimediabilmente sedotta dal varietà, la ragazza intraprese studi di danza, mentre lavorava come
cameriera e commessa, e cominciò a praticare in umiltà, cioè nei night di Kansas
City, ballerina, cantante e spogliarellista; ma si fa strada verso il musical e la rivista, spostandosi a
Chicago, a Detroit e a New York nel 1924.
Nel 1925 la "self-made girl" venne assunta a Hollywood per cominciare una lunga carriera in
cui avrebbe essenzialmente interpretato sé stessa, la donna moderna, determinata e coraggiosa; per
tutte le commesse e le dattilografe della nazione divenne il mito del sogno realizzabile: da Cenerentola a
star di Hollywood.
During the silent era she played
the chorus girl of Edmund Goulding's Sally, Irene and Mary (1925),
the circus performer of Tod Browning's The Unknown (1927),
and especially Harry Beaumont's Our Dancing Daughters (1928), which
established her as the icon of
independent young women of the Jazz Age (the "flappers"), the exact opposite of
"the girl next door". She famously remarked: "If you want to see the girl next door, go next door."
When films turned to sound, she had to get rid of her strong southern accent.
In 1929 she married the son of two giant Hollywood stars: Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford (they would divorce in 1933).
Crawford had always nurtured envy for fellow star Norma Shearer, who was married to powerful Hollywood producer Irving Thalberg.
Her first role in a sound film was the
wild and rebellious heiress in
Jack Conway's Untamed (1929). More important was her role as
the newspaper reporter in Harry Beaumont's Dance Fools Dance (1931), because it became the collaboration with Clark Gable: they would become one of the
most popular artistic couples of the 1930s.
She played roles that ordinary women could identify with:
the sales clerk of Harry Beaumont's Our Blushing Brides (1930),
the factory worker of Clarence Brown's Possessed (1931),
the stenographer of Edmund Goulding's Grand Hotel (1932),
the maid of Clarence Brown's Sadie McKee (1934),
the secretary of Clarence Brown's Chained (1934),
the chanteuse of Dorothy Arzner's The Bride Wore Red (1937),
She even played
a prostitute in
Lewis Milestone's
Rain (1932), a stripper in
Robert Leonard's Dancing Lady (1933) and a night-club dancer in
The Shining Hour (1938).
These films as well as the eight with Gable were very popular but also very
minor, and so was her biggest success of the decade,
Clarence Brown's The Gorgeous Hussy (1936).
It wasn't until
Howard Hawks' Today We Live (1933) that she was employed by a major director.
She started working in more ambitious films just when her star appeal was rapidly declining:
George Cukor's The Women (1939) and A Woman's Face (1941),
Frank Borzage's Strange Cargo (1940),
Michael Curtiz's Mildred Pierce (1945) and Flamingo Road (1949),
Jean Negulesco's <>Humoresque (1946),
Curtis Bernhardt's Possessed (1947, unrelated to the 1931 movie),
Otto Preminger's Daisy Kenyon (1947).
La bellezza spigolosa, la recitazione tutta d'istinto, l'arroganza e l'isteria di un
carattere più che energico, le valsero una sorta di isolamento nell'Olimpo delle star: la sua
maschera virile incarnò l'ideale della donna emancipata, cioè la donna anonima, non
divina come Greta Garbo e non seducente come Marlene Dietrich, che può spaziare dalla gatta ammaliatrice di
The Women (1939) di
George Cukor
alla madre infaticabile di
Mildred Pierce (1945) di
Michael Curtiz,
dalla matriarca
asessuata di Johnny Guitar (1954) di Nicholas Ray
alla calcolatrice di Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) di
Robert Aldrich.
Robert Aldrich
also directed her in
Autumn Leaves (1956).
La sua tumultuosa vita privata, con quattro divorzi e quattro bambini adottati,
terminò malamente: attanagliata dalla solitudine e dall'alcool, fu rinvenuta morta nel suo
appartamento, dal quale aveva metodicamente rimosso (e distrutto) tutte le fotografie di sé
stessa.
The gown designed by costume designer Adrian Greenburg for her character in Clarence Brown's Letty Lynton (1932) became a nation-wide sensation when introduced commercially by the department store Macy's. This marked the peak of star fashion
She died in 1977. She disinherited her two eldest children.
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