Customer Reviews

Joan Crawford,: A Biography

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Reading this book some time ago, I was intrigued by the complexity that was Joan Crawford.

The author details her very disturbing childhood, raised by a tyrant of a mother who whipped her causing bleeding welts across her legs, young "Joan's"(real name Lucille LeSuer) had father had abandoned the family.

Her brother Hal showed no sympathy for her. Her mother's second husband Mr.Henry Cassin was kind to her, but he also left the family.

Sent to a catholic boarding school, St. Agnes,she worked at waiting on tables, because her mother could not afford tuition.

Finishing her curriculum at St Agnes, her mother found her Rockingham Academy, in Kansas, who took her on as a pupil in exchange for her cleaning fourteen rooms of the mansion, scrubbing toilets, bathing the young children and tucking them in bed. She got five hours sleep on average.

Life was hard at the academy as the principal would also beat the child. She tried running away, but was returned and further beaten.

Neither her home nor school allowed escape from beatings, while Joan was schooling, her mother had a new man installed at home and he too would beat Joan mercilessly.

Boys began asking Joan out to dances in her last years at school. She was growing into a beautiful young lady and a great dancer.This
was when she dreamed of becoming a professional dancer.

She auditioned for the chorus of a traveling show and was hired.

Beautiful, talented and very intelligent, Joan's most valuable trait was her determination. Severing a tendon and artery in her foot, she proved her doctor wrong in his prognosis that "she'd never walk again without a limp", Joan was dancing in just a few weeks.

The book outlines her triumphant career where her professionalism and good instincts as an actress led her to notoriety.

Unfortunately she too would abuse the four children she'd adopted, yet be affectionate and overwhelmingly kind to her fans. She adopted a pattern of putting her faith in strangers rather than in her family. She trusted strangers more than family.

It is a rags to riches story. I'm not a fan and I've seen just only of her films and yet found this book interesting, sometimes fascinating and disturbing.

Recommended as a look into a complex, often manic personality.

Bob Thomas did a good job on his biography of Joan Crawford. Biographies are hard to write, being dependent upon word-of-mouth and secondhand information, for the largest part, and many scenes recreated by biographers are fabricated since the writer wasn't present during the subject's intimate moments or private conversations with others. So evidently he or she is using either gossip, written or live sources, except when he actually meets the star and uses firsthand impressions. In any case, unlike many biographers, Thomas does a professional job, striving to be thorough, compassionate, and incisive. He paints a solid portrait of a woman who came from nothing and worked hard and relentlessly to rise from the ashes -- through continual setbacks, she rose like a phoenix again and again, achieving success, fame and fortune (although she would lose that fortune, due to ex-husbands), yet never quite finding the love she so sorely desired.

Joan Crawford had a difficult life, a Dickensian childhood of abuse, child labor, neglect and -- most seriously -- lacking in love (as when I read Tatum O'Neal's "A Paper Life," I could only feel for her since it is impossible to come from such a childhood and survive without serious repercussions), yet she was also blessed with good looks, vivacity, tenacity, talent and spirit. Growing up in abject poverty, she was also a social outcast, except for her appeal to boys even in early years. She seemed to be a fundamentally decent person -- generous and loyal and a good friend to many, somewhat idealistic and romantic -- who had tragically been damaged. She approached her job in movies with, for the most part, a professional attitude and sense of commitment, although her alcoholism later in life and the traumas of failed marriages and a studio that was willing to cast her out after she made millions for it understandably led to less desirable behavior during some periods of her life. She was a star and temperamental. She also seemed very eager to please and be liked, certainly dedicated to her fans. I, for one, would never judge the lapses in judgment she may or may not have made with her children, since the worst can be brought out in the best of us at dark moments in our life, and her more troubled behavior was not the sum and total of who she was anymore than it is for anyone else. But in any case, whatever difficulties she might have had with her older children, she seemed to have achieved a good relationship with her two younger daughters, Cathy and Cheryl.

I have a deep respect and admiration for Crawford and adore her screen persona and equally, from what I've read, the person she was -- even with her flaws. She was an amazing woman and her contributions and achievements remain impressive; she gave a lot and often elevated the mediocrity she was sometimes handed. She looked after many of the people who had been good to her along the way and seemed both determined and vulnerable as she appeared on film. Thomas shows the human being beneath the image and covers a lot of ground. Ultimately the portrait is somewhat sad, although not entirely so. Crawford, even to the end, seemed to hold her head high and want to maintain a sense of dignity and pride and spirit. It is an interesting and moving biography, and the book includes some wonderful photos.

Recommended as an insight into a great film star and actress and a passionate and complex woman.

I have been reading hollywood biographies for about 30 years, almost exclusively, and Joan is one of my favorites. This bio is the best I've ever read about her.

Reading this book last weekend,I was intrigued by the complexity that was Joan Crawford.

The author details her very disturbing childhood, raised by a tyrant of a mother who whipped her causing bleeding welts across her legs, young 'Joan's'(real name Lucille LeSuer) had father had abandoned the family.

Her brother Hal showed no sympathy for her.Her mother's second husband Mr.Henry Cassin was kind to her, but he also left the family.

Sent to a catholic boarding school, ST. Agnes,she worked at waiting on tables, because her mother could not afford tuition.

Finishing her curriculum at St Agnes, her mother found her Rockingham Academy, in Kansas, who took her on as pupil in exchange for her cleaning fourteen rooms of the mansion, bathing the young children and tucking them in bed. She got five hours sleep on average.

Life was hard at the academy as the principal would also beat the child .She tried running away, but was returned and further beaten.

Neither her home nor school allowed escape from beatings, while Joan was schooling, her mother had a new man installed at home and he too would beat Joan mercilessly.

Boys began asking Joan out to dances in her last years at school and this
was when she dreamed of becoming a dancer.

She auditioned for the chorus of a traveling show and was hired.

Beautiful, talented and very intelligent, Joan's most valuable trait was her determination. Severing a tendon and artery in her foot, she proved her doctor wrong in his prognosis"that she'd never walk again without a limp",Joan was dancing in just a few weeks.

The book outlines her triumphant career where her professionalism and good instincts as an actress led her to notoriety.

Unfortunately she too would abuse the four children she'd adopted, yet be affectionate and overwhelmingly kind to her fans. Seems she adopted a pattern of putting her faith in strangers rather than in her family.

It is a good rags to riches story. I'm not a fan and I've seen just one of her films and yet found this book interesting, sometimes fascinating.

Recommended to people who like reading weird non fiction.

Joan Crawford was, of course, an icon of the American film. Her strongly sculpted face graced 81 movies, and dominated such as "Mildred Pierce," for which she won an Oscar, "Humoresque," "Grand Hotel," and "Daisy Kenyon." She was a worldwide, great, durable star, and it seems highly unlikely that there's anyone out there who doesn't know her compelling eyes and carved cheekbones.

Of course, there's a difference of opinion as to her talent. The great writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who also wrote scripts, once said, "writing for her is difficult. She can't change her emotions in the middle of a scene without going through a sort of Jekyll and Hyde contortion of the face, so that when one wants to indicate that she is going from joy to sorrow, one must cut away and then cut back. Also, you can never give her such a stage direction as 'telling a lie,' because if you did, she would practically give a representation of Benedict Arnold selling West Point to the British."

Yet Steven Spielberg, the brilliant director who has gone from success to success, said at the beginning of his career in the early 50's," She is five feet four, but she looks six feet on the screen. In a two-shot with anyone, even Gable, your eyes fix on her. She is imperious, yet with a childlike sparkle. She is haughty, yet tender. She has no great range as an actress, yet within the range she can perform better than any of her contemporaries."

It's probably safe to say that most people looking for this book will agree more with Spielberg than Fitzgerald. And they'll already feel they know quite a lot about Joan Crawford, what with "Mommie Dearest," by her adopted daughter Christina showing up regularly on late-night television. But they're still likely to want to know more about the great star's life, stormy offscreen as on, through four marriages and countless lovers.

Any reader can learn quite a lot from this book by Bob Thomas.
He'd interviewed Crawford many times over 30 years, and conducted more than 200 interviews with her costars and acquaintances. In fact, the book's worthy of its subject, strong, with sculptured cheekbones. Quick moving, interesting, informative. He doesn't settle the famous question of whether Crawford really did make a blue movie in her starving starlet days, but who could? He's thorough, sympathetic, fair: the dialogue crackles like a good script. He even agrees, how can he help it, with Christina Crawford, that Mildred Pierce was, in real life, a terrible mother.

Now listen, sorry as you may feel for Christina Crawford, the little girl who had to scrub down mommie's dressing room with Bon Ami in the middle of the night, nobody would ever have bought her book if mommie weren't Joan Crawford. And Joan Crawford's strong work endures.

This book was published a year after Joan passed away, and was one of the first books to delve into her life in detail. This includes Joan's entire story told to the author by friends, colleagues and even Joan herself. I really like the picture on the cover, too, and there are a few more inside.

THE SHOCKING STORY OF A SUPERSTAR - THE MEN SHE USED; THE CHILDREN SHE ABUSED.

Few Hollywood careers have been more fabulous, more scandalous, more dizzying rags-to-riches than that of Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur.

Joan Crawford didn't become a star. She became the Ultimate Star. She was tough, ambitious, gutsy and fiercely competitive. Her energy was inexhaustible; her temper legendary; her four marriages stormy and violent; her love affairs hotly publicized in countless gossip columns. She set out to be the perfect mother and turned her adopted children's lives into a nightmare. Seldom has a life been lived more in the limelight of publicity.

Here, at last, is the real story, the full, extraordinary account of Joan Crawford's life, her films, her marriages, her secrets and her loves in an intimate, unforgettable biography by a famed Hollywood writer.

Published a year after Joan Crawford died, Bob Thomas' book on this Hollywood icon is one of the better biographies. Thomas interviewed Joan consecutive times over the years while her career was in full bloom and he offers the reader a new insight into what made Crawford who she was. This also isn't one of those books where the author tries to sugar-coat the subject's life, but instead Bob shows both the good side of Crawford as well as the bad sad, most notably her abuse of her children, especially Christina. This was the first book to depict an incident in Christina's childhood that she herself didn't even write in her "Mommie Dearest" book, an incident that took place when the child was around 8 where Joan slammed Christina's hand with a door. Thomas also discusses Joan's problem with alcohol that led her to star in less than satisfactory films in the sixties.

Probably more satisfying to readers are Joan's early years growing up poor and her ultimate arrival in Hollywood becoming one of the biggest female stars of her era. Her films here are discussed, as is her television work when movie offers dried up.

At the end of the book there is a great section devoted to her films, with release dates, names of co-stars, and listing of directors.

Bob Thomas biography on Joan Crawford was very insightful as well as very well written. The author unlocks the life of this highly sucesssful yet very misunderstood queen of the screen in a tasteful manner. Any Crawford fan would appreciate that he states facts and not tabloid gossip. Through reading this book I have become an even greater admirer of Miss Crawford. I highly recommend this book.

I am a huge Joan Crawford fan who is always looking for a great biography to read on her. Joan Crawford: A Biography By Bob Thomas is good and well written. it covers the basics & lets you in on the private life of Joan Crawford. But my only complaint was that it didn't spend enough time giving you the intimate details on what it was like for Joan to make cetain movies & her relationship w/ her co-stars. things any classic movie buff/fan wants to hear. it fills in the blanks & closes some gaps but i didn't feel like i was there or that i learned something new. i'm still looking for the difinative bio on Joan Crawford...any suggestions?