• Home
  • Archive

Screen Dreams

A deep dive into Hollywood's early years

Joan Crawford Blogathon: From Kansas City to Hollywood

May 12, 2019

In 1916, a young girl named Lucille LeSueur cooked meals and scrubbed dishes for her fellow students at St. Agnes Academy, a Catholic boarding school in Kansas City where she was enrolled as a work student in exchange for her board and education. She would grow up to become Joan Crawford, the ultimate movie star, for whom glamour was a way of life.

This post is part of the Joan Crawford: Queen of the Silver Screen Blogathon

Crawford’s legacy is complicated and ever-evolving, shifting as she is discovered by new generations of film fans. Perhaps better than any of her contemporaries, she understood that to be a movie star in classic era Hollywood was to be larger than life in a way that made one almost god-like, and she was doggedly committed to this lifestyle. It is arguable that she threw herself so whole-heartedly into her role as a celebrity because she understood only too well how hard-won her way of life had truly been.

Much has been written about the struggles of Crawford’s early life, the gory details of which I won’t dwell on here. Suffice it to say that Lucille experienced a great deal of hardship throughout her youth, and survived abuse, poverty, and a complicated home life. School was difficult for her – it is not hard to imagine the kinds of taunts she would have suffered as one of a handful of work students alongside fee-paying children – but she also had her triumphs.

Since she was a small girl, Lucille had always been hugely passionate about dancing, and, having finally had enough of school, she dropped out and went to Chicago with two dollars and few belongings. She joined the Ernie Young Revue and travelled with the show to Detroit, where she was spotted by Jacob J. Shubert, who added her to the chorus line of his show Innocent Eyes in New York City.

It was the beginning of big things for Lucille, and it started her on the journey that would lead her to MGM in 1925 – albeit initially only as Norma Shearer’s body double – and to her new life as Joan Crawford. But her dancing career had almost been cut short before it had begun; when she was a child, the always energetic Lucille had leapt from the front porch of her home and landed on a broken milk bottle, injuring her foot so severely that it required three operations to repair the damage. It also kept her out of action at school and dance lessons for eighteen months, and young Lucille must have been terrified that she would never dance again.

Showing the steely determination that would become a characteristic of the adult Crawford, Lucille would of course recover to dance another day. But her education – which stalled around the fifth grade – would remain as a point of insecurity throughout her adult life. During the early years of her Hollywood career, Crawford would keep a dictionary at hand to help her learn the words in her scripts she didn’t understand. In her wonderful advice book My Way Of Life, Crawford writes of how she felt intimidated by the intellect of her first husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., consuming voraciously each play or novel he spoke to her about in order to quell her insecurities. There is something sad in this, as Fairbanks is considered to have been something of an exaggerator when it came to his intellectual pursuits, but again we see Crawford’s determination always to be working towards some higher goal of self-improvement.

On March 27, 1925, Movie Weekly published a contest to rename MGM’s newest star, who says herself in the piece:

“People never have been able to pronounce my name or spell it, and I told Mr. Harry Rapf, when I found out that through this contest the readers of Movie Weekly were to choose a new name for me, that I personally will favour one which is easy to pronounce and spell, and also easy to remember. Of course it must be a pretty name as well.”

A prize of $1,000 was offered, and Lucille LeSueur’s transformation was complete. Having arrived in Hollywood with a distinctive southwestern twang in her voice, Crawford took extensive elocution lessons, and overhauled her entire look in order to shed her past self.

Hollywood did not offer the immediate success she had hoped and, frustrated at being a perpetual background extra, she started to enter dance contests around town in order to get the studio’s attention. It worked: she often won the competitions with her performance of the Charleston or the Black Bottom, and MGM finally gave her a real opportunity. She was cast in Sally, Irene and Mary (1925) opposite Constance Bennett and Sally O’Neil, and the ascent of her star was confirmed the following year when she was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1926.

From there the only way was up: an almost seamless transition to talkies cemented Crawford as one of the most popular actresses in the world, and she was MGM’s biggest star in the 1930s. But I don’t think she ever truly forgot the girl scrubbing the floors of her school in Kansas City. Crawford had a unique relationship with her fans, showing immense gratitude to them for their devotion. They had given her a life bigger than any she could have dreamed of; her fans were in many ways the Prince Charming of her Cinderella story.

Joan Crawford was undoubtedly a complicated woman, and the way she appears in our collective cultural memory is marred by material published after her death. But this is no longer the dominating view of Joan. As new generations of people – those born after the release of the infamous book and its subsequent film adaptation – discover the movies of classic Hollywood, they are able to form an opinion of Crawford based solely on her work and what they are able to read about her online. In short, they can judge her on her own merits, not through the eyes of someone else’s caricature.

Crawford was a tirelessly hard worker who hauled herself up from a desperate situation, against all the odds, to become a star unlike any seen before. She was fiercely independent, incredibly ambitious, and never afraid to go for what she wanted. These traits may have made her a fearsome adversary, but they have also made her an icon for a new generation of women online.

4 Comments CATEGORIES: Blogathon, Joan Crawford

SHARE THIS POST:
« It (1927)
The Blue Angel (1930) »

RELATED POSTS

  • CMBA 10th Anniversary Blogathon: 100 Years of United Artists
  • Rosalind Russell Blogathon: Four’s a Crowd (1938)
  • The Fourth Annual Bette Davis Blogathon: Jezebel (1938)
  • The Second Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Blogathon: Top Hat (1935)

Comments

  1. Erica D. says

    May 13, 2019 at 6:57 am

    This is such a beautiful, touching tribute to Joan that is truly becoming to her as an individual and as a star. Joan often talked about how much she appreciated the education that received from MGM and the opportunities afforded to her by people like Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg. In all honesty, I would never have guessed that her formal education had been stopped at such a young age because her tireless work in getting her language and dictation just right proved fruitful. Plus, she already had a lot of “street smarts” which can count for a lot not to mention facilitate higher learning.
    Although there are still plenty of people speaking of Joan in a negative fashion, I have noticed that more and more people are open to her. This was definitely not the case even a decade ago when it was still almost a taboo to be a fan of hers. Joan was not here to defend the accusations written about her and almost always remained a lady in her overall behaviour so it’s not even sure that she would have acknowledged all of them. One can get a feel for the real Joan by watching her performances. 🙂

    Thank you ever so much for your beyond lovely contribution and for having participated in our blogathon! 😀

    Reply
    • Screen Dreams says

      May 17, 2019 at 11:05 pm

      Thank you Erica! I find so much to admire in Joan – she set standards for herself that seemed impossibly high, but she almost always seemed to achieve them. For a while people were so keen to paint her as a tragic figure, but I think a lot of people have really come to appreciate her as someone who could Get Shit Done in a time where women didn’t really have a lot of power or options. I also can’t help but think so much of what Joan has been criticised for – from the grandeur in her personal life to the ruthless ambition in her career – are symptoms of someone who has experienced terrible poverty and overcome it. She wanted to build a sparkling new life for herself surrounded by beautiful things , and she was determined to work hard enough to keep it. I can’t find it in my heart to judge the girl who got bullied for cleaning floors at school for wanting to live like a fancy lady once she had the power to. She was a force of nature for sure!

      Reply
  2. Marsha Collock says

    May 13, 2019 at 11:15 pm

    Great post. I love Joan’s story. A Hollywood script writer couldn’t have dreamed up anything better.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. All Hail the Queen! The Joan Crawford: Queen of the Silver Screen Blogathon has arrived! – Poppity Talks Classic Film says:
    May 13, 2019 at 6:09 am

    […] Joan’s incredible path to stardom is traced by Screen Dreams in her magnificent dedication, From Kansas to Hollywood. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Screen Dreams is a blog looking at the films of early Hollywood, the people who starred in them, and the world in which they lived.

  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Search

Upcoming Blogathons

Archives

  • October 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018

Categories

  • 1910s
  • 1920s
  • 1930s
  • 1940s
  • 1950s
  • 20th Century Fox
  • Adolphe Menjou
  • Alfred E. Green
  • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Antonio Moreno
  • Archie Mayo
  • Barbara Stanwyck
  • Beatrice Lillie
  • Bette Davis
  • BFI
  • Billie Burke
  • Blogathon
  • Book Post
  • Buster Keaton
  • Carole Lombard
  • Cary Grant
  • Charlie Chaplin
  • Christmas
  • Clara Bow
  • Clarence G. Badger
  • Clark Gable
  • Columbia Pictures
  • D.W. Griffith
  • Douglas Fairbanks
  • Edmund Golding
  • Emil Jannings
  • Ernst Lubitsch
  • Errol Flynn
  • Fay Wray
  • Film History
  • Film Noir
  • Film Screenings
  • Fred Astaire
  • Fred MacMurray
  • Gene Tierney
  • George Cukor
  • George Stevens
  • Ginger Rogers
  • Grace Kelly
  • Greta Garbo
  • Henry Fonda
  • Howard Hawks
  • Irving Thalberg
  • Jack Pickford
  • James Dunn
  • James Stewart
  • James Tinling
  • Jean Harlow
  • Joan Bennett
  • Joan Crawford
  • Joan Fontaine
  • John Barrymore
  • John Gilbert
  • Josef von Sternberg
  • Judy Garland
  • Katharine Hepburn
  • Lauren Bacall
  • Laurence Olivier
  • Leslie Howard
  • Lionel Barrymore
  • Lists
  • Lon Chaney
  • Louise Lorraine
  • Mae West
  • Margaret Sullavan
  • Marlene Dietrich
  • Mary Pickford
  • MGM
  • Michael Curtiz
  • Myrna Loy
  • Olivia de Havilland
  • Otto Preminger
  • Paramount
  • Pordenone
  • Pre-Code
  • Priscilla Bonner
  • Priscilla Dean
  • Reginald Owen
  • RKO
  • Robert Riskin
  • Robert Z. Leonard
  • Rosalind Russell
  • Rouben Mamoulian
  • Screwball Comedy
  • Silent Comedy
  • Silent Film
  • Spencer Tracy
  • Tod Browning
  • Uncategorized
  • United Artists
  • Universal
  • Van Johnson
  • Victor Fleming
  • W. S. Van Dyke
  • Wallace Beery
  • Warner Bros
  • Wheeler Oakman
  • William Austin
  • William Beaudine
  • William Holden
  • William Powell
  • William Wyler

Featured Posts

The Jean Harlow Blogathon: Bombshell (1933)

The Jean Harlow Blogathon: Bombshell (1933)

4th Golden Boy Blogathon: A William Holden Celebration

4th Golden Boy Blogathon: A William Holden Celebration

The Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn Blogathon: Woman of the Year (1942)

The Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn Blogathon: Woman of the Year (1942)

Ingrid Bergman on the set of Intermezzo (1939), he Ingrid Bergman on the set of Intermezzo (1939), her first Hollywood film ⁣
⁣
Invited by David Selznick to reprise her starring role in the Swedish original, Bergman didn’t think she’d be popular with US audiences, and expected to head home after shooting finished⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#ingridbergman #filmmaking #onset  #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #1930s #hollywood #30s #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood⁣
“I suppose you might call me the sophisticated t “I suppose you might call me the sophisticated type. I like to act with dialogue. Not with grunts.”⁣
⁣
Happy birthday to Cary Grant #botd in 1904⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#carygrant #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #hollywood #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood
“A woman has just as much right in this world as “A woman has just as much right in this world as a man, and can get along in it just as well if she puts her mind to it.”⁣
⁣
Happy birthday to Carole Lombard #botd in 1908 (pictured July 1938)⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#carolelombard #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #1930s #hollywood #30s #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood
"We had individuality. We did as we pleased. We st "We had individuality. We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. We dressed the way we wanted. I used to whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel, with several red chow dogs to match my hair."⁣
⁣
Happy birthday to Clara Bow #botd in 1905⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#clarabow #silentera #silentfilm #silentcinema #silentstars #precode #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #hollywood #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood
‪“V stands for Vampire, and it stands for Veng ‪“V stands for Vampire, and it stands for Vengeance. The vampire I play is the vengeance of my sex upon its exploiters. You see, I have the face of a vampire, perhaps, but the heart of a feminist.”‬⁣
⁣
‪Happy birthday to Theda Bara #botd in 1885‬⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#thedabara #silentera #silentfilm #silentcinema #silentstars #precode #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #hollywood #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood
‪Olivia de Havilland on the set of In This Our L ‪Olivia de Havilland on the set of In This Our Life (1942)‬⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#oliviadehavilland #onset #behindthescenes #filmmaking #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #1940s #hollywood #40s #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood
‪Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine attend Ma ‪Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine attend Marlene Dietrich’s opening night party at the Rainbow Room in NYC, September 1962‬⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#oliviadehavilland #joanfontaine #nyc #rainbowroom #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #1960s #hollywood #60s #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood
‪“Do you know, people say I am a terrible flir ‪“Do you know, people say I am a terrible flirt. You know what made me that way? American pictures! They show a girl how to vamp!”‬⁣
⁣
‪Happy birthday to Lupe Vélez #botd in 1908‬⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#lupevelez #silentera #silentfilm #silentcinema #silentstars #precode #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #hollywood #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood
‪“They need you. Without you, they have an emp ‪“They need you. Without you, they have an empty screen. So when you get on there, just do what you think is right and stick with it.”‬⁣
⁣
‪Happy birthday to James Cagney #botd in 1899 ‬⁣
⁣
‪(pictured with Bette Davis on the set of The Bride Came C.O.D, 1941)‬⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
⁣
#jamescagney #bettedavis #onset #behindthescenes #filmmaking #classichollywood #vintagehollywood #vintagehollywoodglamour #classicmovies #oldhollywood #oldhollywoodglamour #silverscreen #1940s #hollywood #40s #films #film #classicfilms #classicfilm #retrohollywood #goldenageofhollywood #cinema #vintagecinema #goldenage #goldenagehollywood

© Screen Dreams 2018

THEME BY ECLAIR DESIGNS