Does Joan Crawford Deserve Her Bad Reputation?
It’s unlikely a Crawford could happen in today’s Hollywood.
Bitches get a bad rap. In his new book, Ferocious Ambition, film historian Robert Dance recontextualizes the life, career and artistry of the most notorious bitch of them all, Joan Crawford.
Crawford’s early twentieth-century rivals have faded into history (outside of the gayest of gay kids, does any Gen Z-er know the name Norma Shearer?), but Crawford is omnipresent for all the wrong reasons. Ryan Murphy reenacts her feuds on FX’s Feud. Drag queens imitate Crawford running around with an ax. And, every Mother’s Day, bloggers roll out posts and memes about her legacy as the worst mom of all time; the titular Mommie Dearest of Faye Dunaway’s campy, classic, child-abuse shlockfest.
Much of Crawford’s bad reputation goes back to 1978, when her adopted daughter, Christina Crawford, published a memoir, Mommie Dearest, portraying her as the mother from hell. When she wasn’t abusing MGM studio staff, Crawford tossed wire hangers, slapped children and became so driven to perfect cleanliness she got on her hands and knees and screamed. The film adaptation was so over the top that it nearly ruined Dunaway’s career, and the public forgot everything else about Crawford. Her daughter had successfully mummified her as America’s bitch goddess from hell.
Ferocious Ambition turns that narrative on its head. Yes, it admits Crawford was a child abuser. But she also is Hollywood’s longest-lasting star, an anomaly who began as a background dancer in Twenties silent films, evolved into a working-class Thirties icon, survived middle age to win an Oscar as Warner Bros.’ ultimate noir siren, and evolved with the times to act in Sixties and Seventies grindhouse films and sit on the board of Pepsi-Cola. Madonna has lasted five decades as a pop star, but Crawford worked in six different decades — all thanks to her work ethic and canny manipulation of the Hollywood system. Or, as a 1949 critic put it, according to Dance’s research: “Unlike most movie stars, she owes practically nothing to luck. The determining factor of her career has been her own unflagging resoluteness.”