A Portrait of Joan: The Autobiography of Joan Crawford
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Richly illustrated with photographs throughout.
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JOAN CRAWFORD (March 23, 1904 - May 10, 1977) was an American film and television actress, who has been ranked tenth on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Born Lucille Fay LeSueur, she began her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies, before debuting as a chorus girl on Broadway. She signed a motion picture contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. In the 1930s, her fame rivaled, and later outlasted, MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hard-working young women who find romance and success; stories that were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women.
Crawford became one of Hollywood’s most prominent movie stars and one of the highest-paid women in America. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1945 for starring in Mildred Pierce, and also received Best Actress nominations for Possessed (1947) and Sudden Fear (1952).
She married Pepsi-Cola Company Chairman Alfred Steele in 1955 and, after his death in 1959, was elected to fill his vacancy on the board of directors. She continued acting in film and television regularly through the 1960s. She retired in 1970, withdrew from public life and passed away in 1977.
