Lucille Fay LeSueur
12 min read
Reading time
2,299
Words
Published
173
Film credits
1
Book
3
Awards
Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur in 1905, overcame a difficult childhood to become one of MGM’s biggest stars in the 1930s. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Mildred Pierce 1945. Her career resurgence with the horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962 reignited her feud with Bette Davis. Crawford died of a heart attack in New York City in 1977 at age 70.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Joan Crawford — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Joan Crawford by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Joan Crawford — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
By her teenage years, Lucille Fay LeSueur, born on March 23, 1905 in San Antonio, Texas, had three stepfathers. She worked menial jobs and entered dance contests, eventually landing a spot in a chorus line that took her to Hollywood. There she changed her name to Joan Crawford via a magazine contest and got her first bit part in Pretty Ladies 1925. Her breakthrough came with Our Dancing Daughters 1928.
Crawford’s breakthrough came as Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters 1928, which made her a star. She transitioned to talkies with Untamed 1929 and became one of MGM’s biggest stars throughout the 1930s, appearing in films like Grand Hotel 1932 and The Women 1939.
In the 1940s, after leaving MGM for Warner Bros., she landed the role of a lifetime in Mildred Pierce 1945, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress. She received two more Oscar nominations for Possessed 1947 and Sudden Fear 1952. Her career slowed until she co-starred with Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962, which brought her renewed attention. Her final film was the flop Trog 1970.
Crawford married four times: to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. 1929-1934, Franchot Tone 1935-1939, Phillip Terry 1942-1946, and Alfred Steele 1956-1959. She adopted four children, including Christina Crawford, who later wrote the tell-all book Mommie Dearest.
She obsessed over cleanliness, often washing her hands every ten minutes and wiping surfaces guests touched. She served on the board of Pepsi-Cola after Steele’s death and traveled as a goodwill ambassador. Her close friend was actor William Haines.
Crawford’s Oscar win for Mildred Pierce 1945 is a defining achievement in Hollywood history. She appeared in six films selected for the National Film Registry, including Grand Hotel 1932, The Women 1939, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962.
Her rivalry with Bette Davis is well-known, and their performances in Baby Jane are still studied. The posthumous publication of Mommie Dearest 1978 and its film adaptation 1981 cast a controversial light on her motherhood. Still, she is remembered for her resilience, powerful screen presence, and influence on cinema.
Browse the complete filmography of Joan Crawford — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Could not load more credits.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Joan Crawford — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Joan Crawford's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
A wall of memorable lines from Joan Crawford — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
I Need Sex for a Clear Complexion, but I’d Rather Do It for Love.
Love Is Fire. but Whether It Is Going to Warm Your Hearth or Burn Down Your House, You Can Never Tell.
Nobody Can Imitate Me. You Can Always See Impersonations of Katharine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. but Not Me. Because I’ve Always Drawn on Myself Only.
I Think the Most Important Thing a Woman Can Have Next to Talent, of Course, Is Her Hairdresser.
Women’s Lib? Poor Little Things. They Always Look so Unhappy. Have You Noticed How Bitter Their Faces Are?
You Have to Be Self Reliant and Strong to Survive in This Town. Otherwise You Will Be Destroyed.
Recently I Heard a Wise Guy Story That I Had a Party at My Home for 25 Men. It’s an Interesting Story, but I Don’t Know 25 Men I’d Want to Invite to a Party.
Send Me Flowers While I’m Alive. They Won’t Do Me a Damn Bit of Good After I’m Dead.
Not That Anyone Cares, but There’s a Right and Wrong Way to Clean a House.
There Was a Saying Around MGM: Norma Shearer Got the Productions, Greta Garbo Supplied the Art, and Joan Crawford Made the Money to Pay for Both.
If I Can’t Be Me, I Don’t Want to Be Anybody. I Was Born That Way.
I Love Playing Bitches. There’s a Lot of Bitch in Every Woman a Lot in Every Man.
Hollywood Is Like Life, You Face It with the Sum Total of Your Equipment.
If You’ve Earned a Position, Be Proud of It. Don’t Hide It. I Want to Be Recognized. When I Hear People Say, Joan Crawford! I Turn Around and Say, Hi! How Are You?
If You’re Going to Be a Star, You Have to Look Like a Star, and I Never Go Out Unless I Look Like Joan Crawford the Movie Star. If You Want to See the Girl Next Door, Go Next Door.
Be Afraid of Nothing.
When Television Killed Comedy and Love Stories, the Movie Makers Went in Slugging. They Offered the Downbeat, the Degenerate as Competition. This Seems to Me to Be a Sad Campaign for Hollywood to Use to Combat Box Office Disaster.
I Had Always Known What I Wanted, and That Was Beauty . . . in Every Form . . . a Beautiful House, Beautiful Man, a Beautiful Life and Image. I Was Ambitious to Get the Money Which Would Attain All That for Me.
I Absolutely Will Not Allow Anyone to Call Me Grandmother. They Can Call Me Auntie Joan, Dee Dee, Cho Cho, Anything but Grandmother. It Pushes a Woman Almost to the Grave.
Little-known facts about Joan Crawford — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
She was asked to take over Carole Lombard’s role in They All Kissed the Bride 1942 after Lombard’s death, and donated her entire salary to the Red Cross. She then fired her agent for taking his usual 10%.
During her time on the Pepsi-Cola board, whenever she and the current president of Coca-Cola were in the same restaurant, each would send the other a bottle of the other’s product.
She once said in an interview that she and her arch-rival Bette Davis had nothing in common, but they shared many similarities: both had fathers who abandoned them, rose from poverty, had four husbands, adopted children, and had daughters who wrote books denouncing them.
She disliked her name Joan Crawford and initially encouraged people to pronounce it Jo-Anne Crawford. In private, she liked to be called Billie.
At the time of her death, the only photographs displayed in her apartment were of Barbara Stanwyck and President John F. Kennedy.
Her 1933 contract with MGM was so detailed it even included a clause indicating what time she was expected to be in bed each night.
She was dedicated to her fans. She always personally responded to fan mail by typing responses on blue paper and autographing them, spending weekends for this.
She had a cleanliness obsession, washing her hands every 10 minutes and following guests around to wipe everything they touched, especially doorknobs and china.
In 1934, she contacted the doctor who performed her dental and facial operations and set up a program to underwrite hospital bills for destitute former film industry workers, paying anonymously for over 390 major surgeries in two years.
Whenever she stayed in a hotel, she always scrubbed the bathroom herself before using it.
She was the original choice for Martha Kent in Superman 1978, but she was too ill to take the part and died before filming started.
After her friend Steven Spielberg hit it big, she sent him periodic notes of congratulations. The last one came two weeks before her death.
At the 1962 Academy Awards, she presented an Oscar to Maximilian Schell and later accepted on behalf of absent winner Anne Bancroft, walking past her co-star Bette Davis and deepening their rift.
After Alfred Steele’s death, she refused to give up her seat on the Pepsi-Cola board of directors until forced retirement in 1973, earning $60,000 per year and traveling as a goodwill ambassador.
While promoting What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962, Bette Davis told an interviewer that Jack L. Warner called them old broads. The next day, Crawford sent a telegram: In future, please do not refer to me as an old broad!
As a child, she got a large piece of glass lodged in her foot and doctors said she might never walk without a limp. She practiced walking and dancing daily for six months to recover and become a chorus dancer.
She worked as an elevator operator at Harzfeld’s Department Store in Kansas City, Missouri.
She decided to adopt children after suffering a series of miscarriages and being told she would never have a baby.
Her adopted daughters Cathy and Cindy were claimed to be fraternal twins by older siblings, but their birth certificate confirmed they were born January 13, 1947, proving they were indeed twins.
She was forced by MGM boss Louis B. Mayer to drop her birth name Lucille LeSueur because it sounded too much like sewer.
The name Joan Crawford was chosen through a write-in contest in Movie Weekly magazine; the winner, a disabled woman in Albany, New York, received $500.
A 2002 TV biography revealed that her hatred of wire hangers derived from her childhood poverty and working with her mother in a laundry.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Joan Crawford.
Celebrities similar to Joan Crawford — same craft, ranked by reach.
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇧🇪 Belgium
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇨🇦 Canada
🇺🇸 United States
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
