"So: What happened to Joan Crawford?" an old friend and fellow movie buff asked me once.
That friend is male, and I think he was asking me, as a woman, to explain her startling metamorphosis into the mid/late career "Joan Crawford" that even non-film fans conjure up in their minds when they hear that name:
The one with the hardened face and harsh hairstyle, cartoonish brows and bolder-than-ever lips, "her once rounded jaw line turned square and heavy," indelibly embodied by Faye Dunaway in the camp biopic Mommie Dearest.
Dunaway's angular face — Crawford's own has been compared to the Chrysler Building — was the ideal canvas for the requisite makeup, but more impressively, Dunaway replicated Crawford's voice — something the fatally-miscast Jessica Lange couldn't be troubled to attempt in the disappointing mini-series Feud.
(Her co-star, Susan Sarandon, had been Bette Davis' choice to portray her in any future biopic — for obvious reasons — and she's fine in comparison, but even she failed to nail Davis' voice, something any number of amateur drag queens have pulled off. Also? Sarandon lapses in and out of Davis' idiosyncratic "here comes the bride" gait, which, as a lifelong fan, annoyed me no end. Watching me watching Feud was the closest my husband has come to experiencing my experience of sitting through latter-day movies about World War II — "That's the wrong TANK!!" — with him for the last 20 years...)
Even movie lovers may be surprised to learn that that Joan Crawford — the one my friend asked me about, Dunaway's Crawford — didn't always exist.
Did you know she appeared in over 30 silent films? Crawford's first turn in a talkie, The Hollywood Revue of 1929, remains so arresting that it's inevitably included in every other That's Entertainment-style "Can you believe it?" montage. A Charleston contest champion, she's so comfortable in her own skin here, so carefree and cheeky, we understand why no less an authority than F. Scott Fitzgerald declared:
"Joan Crawford is doubtless the best example of the flapper, the girl you see in smart night clubs, gowned to the apex of sophistication, toying iced glasses with a remote, faintly bitter expression, dancing deliciously, laughing a great deal, with wide, hurt eyes. Young things with a talent for living."
We see that same Crawford — acting but somehow not acting, at least not in the style of the time — in Grand Hotel (1932), in her early-career "ambitious shopgirl" mode.
We recognize her trademark overdrawn lips here — known as "The Slash," and variously attributed to Max Factor or William Tuttle, this look reportedly helped increase lipstick sales by 1500%.
But otherwise, Crawford's face and body are like a Calder mobile; this isn't the stiff, somber, wide-shouldered mannequin that the words "Joan Crawford" typically evoke.
She was heavily made up in Rain (1932) but for good reason: she's playing prostitute Sadie Thompson. Otherwise, that long era's softer incarnation of Crawford can be seen in, among many other movies, The Women (1939).
And in today's film, the aptly-titled A Woman's Face (1941), directed by George Cukor.
Well, you'll see it some of the time: that trailer admirably doesn't give away the movie's gimmick.
Crawford plays Anna Holm, the leader of a blackmail ring whose face was horribly scarred in a childhood fire started by her alcoholic father, leaving her bitter and ruthless. Her closest experience with love is with nasty Torsten Barring (Conrad Veidt), heir to his family's mining fortune — if only his little nephew wasn't blocking his path.
Meanwhile, Anna's attempt to blackmail a foolish young wife leads to her meeting the woman's husband, renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Gustav Segert (Melvin Douglas), who fixes her face for free. Barring realizes that, with her new appearance, Anna would be the perfect choice for his nephew's governess — one who will kill the child and put Barring one step closer to taking over the family empire. Desperate for Barring's meager affections, Anna agrees to take the job.
However, Anna is embraced by the boy and his grandfather, and her heart softens. By an amazing coincidence, Dr. Segert shows up at the Barring estate for a big party and — a lot of stuff happens.
Crawford had seen the 1938 Swedish original starring Ingrid Bergman, and lobbied MGM to buy the remake rights for her.
"Are you crazy?" studio head Louis B. Mayer asked. "Do you want the public to see you looking ugly?"
She did. In films like Of Human Bondage, Marked Woman, The Old Maid and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Crawford's rival, Bette Davis, had become renowned for drastically altering her appearance when the part demanded it, and had been rewarded with Oscars, critical acclaim, and the respect of her peers.
Davis, in the public mind, was an actress; Crawford, a "mere" star. She wanted respect.
But Mayer was onto something, because unlike Crawford, Bette Davis had never been considered a great beauty to begin with. For Crawford to mar her face, even for a third of a movie's running time, represented a sacrifice, but one she was willing to make.
(More or less: Cukor reportedly struggled to tamp down Crawford's star persona; "While her character is physically scarred 'she's really a complete character, not the actress who's playing it,' he said later. "Then, when she becomes pretty, she becomes Joan Crawford.")
Crawford's makeup artist on A Woman's Face wasn't Max Factor, but Jack Dawn, a very different sort of technician whose credits include The Wizard of Oz and 1941's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. To everyone's credit, Crawford's scar makeup is almost identical to Bergman's in the more astringent Swedish version: half of her face is puckered with burns, and her lip curls up into a permanent sneer.
And in a wonderful touch, whenever Crawford's post-surgery Anna briefly lapses back into bitterness and scorn, that same one-sided sneer flickers back, as if by force of life-long habit. However, one thing Bergman brought to the role that Crawford unfortunately jettisoned was her posture: Bergman's Anna is ungainly and boyish, having never learned to carry herself in a more feminine manner. Why bother?
As a film, A Woman's Face has a lot to recommend it: One of those told-in-flashback courtroom drama set-ups if you love that sort of thing; good performances all around; Richard Nichols, the most adorable little boy of the studio era, as Anna's charge; and — as if the film had been developed in a kind of onyx lacquer — an unusual but highly appropriate black "gloss" that is as close as "classy" MGM would permit itself to get to "noir."
Unfortunately, the film didn't do well; Crawford was crushed when she wasn't nominated for an Oscar, and after two other lackluster outings onscreen, Meyer bought out her contract, ending a professional relationship of almost 20 years.
Crawford landed at Warner's, where her first film (not counting a cameo in the all-star morale booster, Hollywood Canteen) was Mildred Pierce (1945).
For that performance, she finally earned not only an Academy Award nomination, but the coveted statuette itself — a victory she attributed, in part, to her peers' recollection of her serious turn in A Woman's Face.
And here we first see, at least as her character progresses from harried housewife to successful businesswoman, Joan Crawford's new "look."
As her Warner Bros. years tick by, she gets harder.
So clearly, her transformation had something to do with her studio switch. Perhaps we can credit the ministrations of Warner Bros' makeup chief Perc Westmore (whose son Monty took over later in Crawford's career after she went independent and entered the realm of grotesque camp for good, in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Strait-Jacket.)
(Don't blame him for the blackface in Torch Song, though: That was Bill Tuttle again.)
Anyhow, back in 1945, she was (according to her, anyhow) 37, but more likely 40. I say that because turning 40 can do something to a woman: One can be overcome by the urge to change one's appearance, sometimes drastically.
But there's something else:
I'm pretty sure that Mildred Pierce was the first time she'd portrayed a mother onscreen — and by then, she'd been a mother offscreen for five years. Did she feel, contrary to everything we think we know about a star like her, that the time had come to look the part, however eccentrically she chose to do so?
First you're another sloe-eyed vamp
Then someone's mother
Then you're camp
While writing this column, I wondered if Stephen Sondheim had had Joan Crawford in mind when he wrote "I'm Still Here," the all-time anthem of aging divas.
Reader: He did.
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18 Member Comments
"Watching me watching Feud was the closest my husband has come to experiencing my experience of sitting through latter-day movies about World War II — "That's the wrong TANK!!" — with him for the last 20 years...)"
I love this image! (Still laughing).
One of the odd aspects of the film version of "Mommie Dearest" is that if you strip away the child-abuse, you find some very perceptive looks at the MGM film factory, its king, Louis B. Mayer, and its vassals. Mayer, played very effectively by Howard Da Silva, has but two scenes, but they are very memorable: in the first, Mayer enters a restaurant where Crawford is dining, and Crawford goes to his table to kiss his ring. Mayer insists that she join him, and she quickly realizes she has no choice. In the second, a ruthless Mayer tells Crawford, who'd been a big star for years, that he's not renewing her contract. Crawford pitifully tries to remind him what they'd done, together over the years and asks for a chance to go back to what they used to do, but Mayer just glares at her.
Finally, I'd like to leave the last word to the Blue Oyster Cult:
Junkies down in Brooklyn are going crazy
They're laughing just like hungry dogs in the street
Policemen are hiding behind the skirts of little girls
Their eyes have turned the color of frozen meat
No, no no no, no no no no no no no no,
Joan Crawford has risen from the grave
Two updates from me:
After filing this column, I received a reply from Stephanie Jones of the Crawford fansite, The Best of Everything, to my question about Joan's appearance. (PS: Stephanie is a Steyn fan, come to find out!)
She writes in part:
"You should also take a look at Marjorie Rosen's 'Popcorn Venus' (pp. 268-269 of my paperback):
"'Emphasizing Crawford's severity was the fifties' style, at least as interpreted by her studio. Without carefully designed MGM clothes and makeup, she was simply delivered up to current fashion without Warner's considering her individual needs. Thus, an unflattering short hairdo, bushy brows, wide mouth, and hard-as-nails makeup cemented the iron image that would underscore her middle-aged screen desperation...'"
Now, this is intriguing: That weird short hairdo Crawford sported in, say, "Goodbye, My Fancy" (above) can be seen looking just as horrible on Constance Bennett in "All About Eve," and on Jane Wyman in her Sirk films. But was it really THAT widely fashionable? Besides being hideous, it looks like a LOT of work. So I'm not convinced, but ok.
I'm also not sure the exaggerated makeup Crawford took up was widely fashionable then either, but am prepared to be corrected.
I should also note that Crawford admitted (quite shockingly for the time) of getting plastic surgery in 1953, quipping, "The face and boobs are new, only the ass is the same." This could explain a lot.
The "Feud" miniseries mentions Crawford getting "the buckle," a rumoured Hollywood trick in which molars are removed to create cheekbones. They have this occurring later in her life. However:
"According to the book, Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud, 'After altering the shape of her face by having her back teeth removed to give her cheekbones, she had her front teeth, which were spaced and filled with dental cement during her early days of filming, filed down to allow temporary caps to fit over them,' writes author Shaun Considine. According to dentist Dr. Timothy Gogan, '[Joan] suffered from decay between her front teeth and around the root areas. At this time (1928-1930) there were no tooth-colored fillings and the only solution to decay was porcelain caps or crowns.'"
"The painful procedure, however, infected her gums, which stretched her mouth. When the swelling subsided, it left her with a larger upper lip. Pleased with the extension, she decided to paint in her lower lip, giving the world 'the Crawford mouth.'"
I'm sorry, but Constance Bennett was not in "All About Eve." On the other hand, as long as we're talking about women stars of the 50's whose hairstyles looked too small for their heads, Doris Day went through that period as well.
We need a dentist to weigh in here, but I am not buying this news on Joan Crawford removing her back teeth to give herself cheekbones. Take a look at photos of Crawford smiling at various stages of her life. She has a full set of teeth in all of the photos and she has the same features throughout her lifetime.
I need to stop writing anything pre-coffee. Of course I meant Celeste Holm!
Like Gloria Sewanson, Joan Crawford was a glittering beauty of the silent screen and not just a Camp Queen or a Norma Desmond-esq grotesque. Anyone who has seen her in the genuinely creepy Lon Chaney vehicle "The Uknown" (1927) will vouch for that.
I was going to bring up Gloria Swanson, too, David. Interesting that both actresses played Sadie Thompson in film adaptations of Maugham's story. Rita Hayworth, too, a generation later.
I love anything Lon Chaney and you're right: The Unknown is a must-see.
Being the relative young old person that I am I never knew the young delightful dancing actress you show in Crawford's early years. Only the dramatic sinister shrew of her later films.unfortunately her motherhood seems to have been a reflection of her off screen persona and was painful to watch. Beauty fame and fortune do not make Good people. Hollywood is filled with these flawed souls with I hope finally diminished influence on our nation.
Well, the list of movies that should be given a look has just grown again. Truly the Joan Crawford that I am familiar with is the one with the eyebrows that makes me wonder what made her a star. I wouldn't have been able to name one film with her in it. This one looks interesting.
A woman of fire and fury. Hmmmm.
Do check out "Grand Hotel" and "Mildred Pierce." Both are classic entertainments I can't imagine anyone hating.
"Sudden Fear" is a fine thriller, and I adore "Johnny Guitar" although it is, er, not to everyone's taste.
"The Women" is, well, mostly for women :-) As is "Possessed" (1947) for which I have a somewhat unwholesome affection.
Too many of her films are rather ponderous, alas.
A couple of her biographers have settled on 1906 as her birth year - since there's no reason to lie about one's birth month, we can take March as the truth - but she put 1906 down when she registered for Social Security in 1936 and most people tell the truth on government documents, especially since she was even then claiming 1908 for publicity purposes. The rumor that Joan was actually born in1904 originated in Christina's "Mommie Dearest" - and she claimed she got that from Joan's mother - but as one biographer pointed out Joan's brother Hal was definitely born in the fall of 1903, which would make the March 1904 birth something of a biological miracle. I've reluctantly concluded that Christina was mostly telling the truth about the abuse - although she reportedly has admitted in interviews that there were moments of affection as well. But Joan was abandoned by her father and abused by her mother - and apparently an affectionate parent to the two younger adopted daughters - so if one can't excuse her treatment of the two older children, one can sort of understand it. But I can never understand the eyebrows of her later years. Anyway, at her best, an excellent actress, and unfortunately today largely dismissed as a glamor gal of limited range who went home and slapped the kids around.
Thanks for all that, Calvert. Very thoughtful!
And one more comment about the eyebrows - no matter whose idea they were, they certainly became a trademark of her later years. Anyway, back in the early 90's - when Secretaries' Day made the transition to Administrative Professionals' Day - some woman wrote a tongue-in-cheek article for The Wall Street Journal on things to do in the office for Administrative Professionals' Day. One of her suggestions was to screen the 1959 movie "The Best of Everything," in which - she wrote - "three young women move to New York and face the perils of predatory men and Joan Crawford's terrifying eyebrows."
Ha! Yeah, I'm a sucker for movies like "The Best of Everything"
Thanks for including the fascinating obit for Monty Westmore. I'd heard that the Westmores were the First Family of Hollywood makeup, but had never read anything in detail about them.
And most people know that Conrad Veidt was Major Strasser in "Casablanca" but he also played Cesare, the Somnambulist in the 1921 classic "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari".
I just saw him in The Hands of Orlac (1924.) Man, he made a lot of movies, and very brave in his personal life.