Living in the Moment

I came upon this arresting image at some point this week, and I can't get it out of my mind. Somehow, it explains Joan Crawford to me in a way I'd never considered so clearly.

Leave it to Joan, Joan, Joan

A moment with The Greatest Star, just because.

Why Don't You...

... Spend a few hours on this lovely Independence Day learning at the feet of that unlikely domestic goddess, Miss Joan Crawford? Here she is, reading from her 1971 magnum opus, My Way of Life. She's a complicated lady, Joan, and the book is alternately great fun and totally bonkers - sometimes in the course of a single sentence.

Working Girl

Like a great many people all of a sudden, I find myself these past few days thinking about Joan Crawford.

Autumn Arrives

Rarely have I observed such a clear division between the seasons; the last day of August was fine and hot, and the first of September a dreary gray with a definite, well, perhaps not quite chill, but at least distinct coolness in the air. Here we go...

All Things Beautiful

Even in the midst of the clamorous, ridiculous, so often tedious parade that is Facebook, sometimes something stops you in your tracks. This went past a few days ago, and I've just spent a considerable amount of time tracking it down so that, in case you missed it, you too can spend a little time in a glamor-induced trance.

Portrait of a Lady

No, this one I didn't see at the National Portrait Gallery.  But, if the price is right, it could be yours - it's up for auction on e-Bay.

Possessed, or Cherry Ames Goes to Hell

From the first moments of 1947's Possessed, Joan Crawford sketches a character different from, deeper than, and profoundly stranger than any I've seen her play in what was even then her two decades on screen.

Rachel, Rachel: Black Like She

Well, I've certainly been wasting more than enough time on the strange saga of Rachel Doležal,* that Jenny Stewart for the Post-Modern century.

Prohibition in Curls

It's her birthday, making her - depending on what source one prefers - anything from 111 to 107.

Of Couture and Corn

The holiday weekend rolls on, with yesterday's highlight an outing to the Museum of Fine Arts, ostensibly to see their current exhibition of Goyas.  I found an unexpected treat, however, that very nearly outshone even the master's portrait of the Duchess of Alba (not, of course, the recently deceased edition thereof - she was old, but not that old...).

Shameless Sunday Camp Explosion: Fire Away

Camp refuses both the harmonies of traditional seriousness, and the risks of fully identifying with extreme states of feeling.

- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

Plush Velvet Sometimes

Some powerful birthday juju in the air this weekend, carissimi...

File Under "Correspondents, Unlikely"

Consider my mind blown, courtesy of the endlessly fascinating Joan Crawford Best.

Cover Her Face

Today, we're used to seeing famous people in disarray - either of their own making (coffee cups in hand, strolling around in torn shorts and sloppy tee-shirts, heedless of the telephoto lens) or of the relentless photographers' (that startled, universal expression that just precedes a more definitive response as some star or starlet leaves a nightclub, clandestine lover's house, or doctor's office).

Once upon a time, though, that wasn't so.  Stars were distant, perfect, glimpsed only at the behest of trusted studio photographers or social-column snappers who might get an idealized glimpse tableside at Ciro's or the Coconut Grove.  Those few who were, as it were caught in the act (often related to arrests, courtroom testimony, or similar indication of personal and professional turmoil) seemed, even more than ordinary mortals would have been, exposed, and somehow diminished (think of Robert Mitchum in jail, or Frances Farmer, dishevelled and struggling as she's dragged into night court).  Some survived this violation of the terms of fame (Mitchum came back); some didn't (Farmer sank into madness and obscurity, in part at least for so blatantly trampling her glittering blonde image).

All of which makes this picture all the more arresting. Joan Crawford was the absolute acme of the star-as-control-freak, the ultimate product of the ultimate studio, MGM.  Whether dining at PickFair at one end of her career or opening a Pepsi bottling plant in Paraguay at the other, she was always perfectly turned out, perfectly composed, perfectly... perfect.  And always, always, portrayed on her own terms.  Even her films - laden as they were with melodramatic excess - rarely, in the course of limning extremes of emotion, required the star to do more than look obdurately into the middle distance, a glycerine tear coursing a careful trail down her meticulously pancaked cheek (in a way, that's what makes her occasional moments of violence - slapping the egregious Veda in Mildred Pierce, for example - all the more bracing).  Oh, there were rumors, even at her height, that presaged her posthumous savaging at her daughter's hands, but they were offstage, distant thunder.

Here, though, she's giving way.  It's 1959, the funeral of her fourth and final husband, Al Steele, and although she remains beautifully dressed (although some might say the matching purse and pumps are just that little bit too much), for once her face betrays her, despite (perhaps because of?) the mask of veil and sunglasses.  Here she's Joan Steele, genuinely distraught, or as genuinely as Joan Crawford can be after, at that point, more than 30 years more frequently indicating than feeling deep emotion. 

Of course, she was spared the indignities that would be heaped on a star in this situation today - the microphones in her face, the mandatory questions ("How does it feel, Joan?" "Are you going to miss him?" "Where's Christina, Joan?") and the obligatory self-disclosure - right there, in the street; on talk shows; on Twitter ("@MrsSteele: Can't express too much my sorrow - we had the Best of Everything (in theatres now)").  Still, it's disconcerting.  You feel for her, for her double distress (at her loss, and at being seen experiencing it); it's an embarrassment, of a kind, and yet you can't look away.  Mine eyes dazzle; he died young, even if she didn't, and even if with her went the expectation that this sort of thing would be the exception rather than the rule of stardom.

 Photo from the invaluable The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia.

Ten Tips on Stardom

1.  Have an instinctive understanding of exactly how to hit your key light - something that never failed the Divine Josephine, even when the spotlight was all she had...

2.  Let Joan Blondell be your guide:  always have a positive approach to your grueling glamour regimen (and never, ever be seen without eye makeup, bangles, pumps, and, when situationally appropriate, an adoring attendant).

3.  Develop a trademark expression; extra credit if it can be variously read as vulnerable and alluring at the same time.  You may not hit the heights that Marilyn reached in no small part thanks to hers, but you have to start somewhere...

4.  Equally, however, you mustn't neglect the more ferocious aspect of divalicity; nothing so incites the fans to adoration as an affect just this side of disdain.  Dame Joan, despite an off-stage attitude of almost superhuman cosiness, was no slouch in this regard on stage.

5.  Never pass up an opportunity to let the boys in the stills gallery have a little fun.  If you can't face the prospect of yet another Arbor Day photo spread, at least don't hesitate to show off your hobbies, however implausible.  I don't for a moment believe that Mary Boland was a devoted ping-pong enthusiast, but it made a nice snap for the weekend rotogravures, no?

6.  However, never forget that glamour is job one.  Audiences forgave Lana everything for the better part of four decades, just because she could so reliably give that look.  It takes practice, kids, especially when you're balancing as much off stage as our Miss Turner here.

7.  Keep good company.  Peers and counterparts always make good press - that's why Jerry was almost always seen with one or preferably more of his girls...

8.  ...and at a certain point, cultivate the next generation.  Joan was smart enough to know that she could get away with that hat as long as she was standing next to the ravishing young Mr. Chamberlain.  Do you suppose she's goosing him even as the picture was snapped? (On a side note, I always think of this particular expression of Joan's as her "Mommie's had her vodka" look - it's her own special version of "Keep it together, Minnelli," as you can practically see the self-will that it's taking to keep her upright.)

9.  Never forget that you're Queen of the Lot, even if that lot is only Universal.  It takes a special moxie to wave at your minions and drive your own personal go-kart, but Doris takes it all in stride.

10.  Finally, and when all else fails - endure.

Redux: The Star is Born

Lucille Faye LeSueur, b. March 23, 1905
Joan Crawford Fairbanks Tone Terry Steele, d. May 10, 1977

Over in his gorgeous corner of the Cybersphere, our dear TJB has written a far more eloquent tribute to the Great Lady than I could manage. All I can add is that I was lucky enough, in my New York salad days, to have known more than one person who knew JC, at various stages of her career, and they all agreed that she was marvelous fun and a great friend.

Most agreed, too, that she ought never to have tried family life, but there you go.

Here we see her as I imagine she would have liked to be remembered: the gala star of MGM, dancing with Fred Astaire in a picture she shared with Clark Gable, resplendent in ruffles by Adrian and fronting a dazzling set and a corps of dazzled extras. And on she dances, untouched by time or scandal, the Modern Maiden turned Queen Bee. Happy Birthday!

First posted at the Café on March 23, 2009.  How time flies!  Why not celebrate today by having a look at all the varied Crawfordiana we've taken in these past few years?

Mildred, Fierce

This is the reason that Youtube was invented.  It may be the reason the Internet was summoned up out of Al Gore's mighty brain.  Watch and worship.

[Lifted shamelessly from a new favorite destination, Nobody Puts Baby in a Horner, which I stumbled upon while trying to learn more about the enigmatic and violently talented Miss Sara Carlson, a new sensation over at the Redundant Variety Hour. ]

Venus in Furs (and Feathers and Diamonds)

Miss Crawford, just because. Utterly resplendent in her self regard. Not to mention her oddly endearing Mamie gloves, a surprising indication that, apparently, in Joan's world, this is daywear.

What If...

...Hollywood's most fabled feud was nothing more than a PR stunt? I've never seen these two broads look more relaxed and at ease than here. And isn't it kind of fun thinking that maybe all those years they actually got together once in a while for a couple of vodka-Pepsis and a whole lot of laughing at their enemies?