Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford was an American film and television actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the hard-working, divorced, protective mother in the title role of Mildred Pierce. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Crawford tenth on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Crawford married four times. She adopted five children, one of whom was reclaimed.

About Joan Crawford in brief

Summary Joan CrawfordJoan Crawford was an American film and television actress. Her career spanned six decades, multiple studios, and controversies. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the hard-working, divorced, protective mother in the title role of Mildred Pierce. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Crawford tenth on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Crawford married four times. Her first three marriages ended in divorce; the last ended with the death of husband Alfred Steele. She adopted five children, one of whom was reclaimed. Crawford’s relationships with her two eldest children, Christina and Christopher, were acrimonious. In 1970 Crawford made her last theatrical film, and until a few weeks before her death, she continued to tape numerous regular radio spots and announcements for a variety of not-for-profit causes. Crawford preferred the nickname ‘Billie’ and enjoyed watching vaudille girls perform on the stage of her stepfather’s theatre. She was sent to St. Agnes Academy, a Catholic school in Agnes, Texas, as a child, and continued to attend until she was eleven years old. She died on August 15, 1958, and is survived by her three children, two step-children, and her husband, Henry J. Cassin, the first of whom is listed in the census as her mother’s first husband. She is buried at the Lawton, Oklahoma, home of the Cassin family, where she lived until her death in 1977.

She had a daughter, Christina, who wrote a well-known but controversial but controversial memoir, Mommie Dearest. She also had a son, Christopher, who is also known as “Billie”, and a daughter-in-law, Christina Crawford, who died in 2010. Crawford was the third and youngest child of Tennessee-born Thomas E. LeSueur, a construction laborer, and Texas-born Anna Bell Johnson, whose date of birth is given as November 29, 1884, although, based on census records, she may have been older. Crawford had a sister, Daisy LeSUEur, who was born before Lucille’s birth, and brother Hal LeSuesur. She married Henry J Cassin in 1925, and they lived in Oklahoma where Cassin managed the Ramsey Opera House; he managed to book noted performers such as Anna Pavlova and Eva Tanguay. Crawford and her son Christopher ran the first Lawton Lawton Opera House, where he managed the book and book royalties. Crawford died in 1977, and was buried in Lawton. Her daughter Christina wrote a book about her mother, “Mommie dearest” Crawford was also the mother of two children, Christopher Crawford and Christina Crawford-Cassin, who also appeared in the film “Lawton, Lawton” and the TV series “The Adventures of Baby Jane?” Crawford was married to Pepsi-Cola Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alfred Steele until his death in 1955.