Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur around March 23, 1904, and died May 10, 1977, was an American actress who started out as a dancer in traveling shows and Broadway chorus lines. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her tenth among the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood.
She signed with MGM in 1925. In the 1930s, her fame matched or outshone colleagues like Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. She often played hardworking young women who found love and success, which hit home with Depression-era crowds, especially women. She became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and highest-paid women in the U.S. But by the late 1930s, her films were losing money, and she got labeled “Box Office Poison.” Her career bounced back in the early 1940s. She made a huge comeback in 1945 with Mildred Pierce, winning the Best Actress Oscar. She got more Best Actress nods for Possessed (1947) and Sudden Fear (1952).
In 1955, she joined Pepsi-Cola through her marriage to chairman Alfred Steele. After he died in 1959, she took his board seat but was forced out in 1973. She kept acting in film and TV through the 1960s, but roles slowed down. After the 1970 horror film Trog, she retired from the screen. A 1974 public appearance led to bad photos, and she pulled back from public life, staying reclusive until her death in 1977.
Crawford married four times. The first three ended in divorce; the last with Steele’s death. She adopted five kids, but one was reclaimed by the birth mother. Her relationships with older kids Christina and Christopher were rough. She cut them out of her will, and after she died, Christina wrote the tell-all Mommie Dearest.
