My Way of Life [Hardcover]

Joan crawford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 1971

Inscribed By Joan Crawford..224 pages of Text

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First edition, later printing edition (October 8, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671209701
• ISBN-13: 978-0671209704
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #599,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Way or the Highway: Inside Joan Crawford, September 2, 2001

By 

Cookie Crawford (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Way of Life (Hardcover)

You will probably have to get this out-of-print classic either at an estate sale, or steal it off a friend's bookshelf, (as Crawford herself surely would have done), because there's absolutely no way that anyone who's ever read it would DREAM of selling it. Here is the late period Joan Crawford in all her tacky, Keane Kids-loving splendor; wife, mother, tycoon, ACTRESS, dressmaker....you get the idea. And as she lets you know on every page, she's a busy BUSY bee, so don't waste her time. Buy the book or get out!
Crawford tries to let her (shellacked) hair down, but is out of touch with her targeted, "over the garden fence" audience. She's forever telling her housewife reader to "do without some little luxury" (like bread, perhaps?) to save up for something nice...such as a full length, three-sided mirror for her dressing room, a bartender and maid for her dinner party, or suit jackets lined in the same pattern of silk as her blouse. (The only blouse, it seems, that ever goes with that particular suit. Daunting.) Here's my favorite, worthless tip, this one on buying a new dress: "When you're ready to say yes to a purchase, wrap it up, pay for it - but don't go home until you're sure you have exactly the right accessories. You should be ready to emerge in your new ensemble the next day!" Thanks, Joan. We'll manage.
Joan also wants us to know what a dedicated actress she is/was. "At times I've deliberately gained weight," she muses. "I did for [comeback role] Mildred Pierce because I thought it suited the part." (Yeah, right!) And if a scene "goes wrong" in rehearsal, (as it does on page 121), she's willing to improvise if everyone will just stand back and get out of her way. "I've got it," she insists. "Let's shoot, let's get it on film, because I may never be able to recapture that one brief second again." Whenever you're ready, Miss Crawford.
Joan also rhapsodizes over how devoted third husband Alfred Steel was. (You'll have to look elsewhere for recountings of the drunken brawls and blackened eyes.) Why, Alfred Steele doesn't even need Joan Crawford to be movie star glamorous for him; all that mumbo-jumbo witchcraft just gets in the way! After a wave knocks Joan over on a Jamaican beach, Alfred cups her bare, tanned face in his hands as saltwater streams off them, sighing, "You're the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life." ("I knew then what he loved in me," she remembers. "That was his private Joan.") The question I put to the court is: So why did she ever wear makeup again? (And believe me, there's a long chapter devoted to makeup.)
I could go on and on, but the truth is that I'd rather be reading MY WAY OF LIFE than talking about it. It's my own, private Joan.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is more delicious than Joan's very own meatloaf!, June 1, 2005

By 

Todd Craig "westie lover" (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Way of Life (Hardcover)

I could not get enough of Joan's autobiography. Her "way of life" makes Martha Stewart look like a peasant. Her descriptions of what to serve for dinner, what time to wake up your weekend guests, how to become interested in your husband even though he may be boring, not to mention every thing Joan has been up to for the past 10 years, including posing with a miniature stuffed "ditka" ?!?! My very favorite helpful tip from Joan, though, may be how to assemble a guest list for your next frivolous extravaganza. Something about inviting a professional jockey, some lovely young actresses, a foreign diplomat, your visiting friends from Brussels, a bearded painter, and a nuclear physicist... Wow, I loved this lady. She is exhibitionist supreme. And she appears to take all this excrutiating detail with the utmost earnestness. She is so hilariously out of touch and since Joan had the glamour and money and stature to get away with it, the reader can just sit back and bask in her uniquely pretentious world. Better than any soap opera because you know it's Joan. Pure pleasure.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Peanut Butter and Bacon? Must Be Joan!, October 29, 2002

By 

Brian J. Dillard "armchairdj" (Chicago, IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Way of Life (Hardcover)

A friend who works at a stuffy private library loaned this to me, and it kept me in stitches for literally weeks. From recipes for peanut butter-and-bacon hors d'oeuvres to hilariously self-serving anecdotes about throwing parties, raising children and satisfying your man, it's equal parts Hints from Heloise and "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"!