My curiosity was piqued by the gold gentleman’s box with the initials A.N.S., so I read the description. What the hell kind of middle name is “Nu?” Is that a typo?
I also had a small chuckle at Crawford’s document releasing her from her MGM contract for a $100,000 severance, “a condition that was apparently mutually acceptable.” I’m not sure Crawford accepted it all that well.
My first reaction was to scream “Back OFF!” but now; how about we go halfsies? I’d only need them November to January…
Watching, then reading Mommy Dearest, I always thought she wasn’t all that bad. She liked things done a certain way, is all. The woman had standards.
Yes, I’m seeing a therapist (and his office is a mess).
Those furs are amazing. I love the silver fox stole, and the ivory stole, and the peacock boa…really, I’d take any one of them. 
All the other furs were great, but I found that one completely repulsive.
I would like to know what the story was with the disinheritance of Christina and the adopted son. Of course, in the movie, Joan was seen as a total bitch who’s last act of being a bitch was the disinhereitance. However, this website has a pro-Joan, anti-Christina bent to it, which claims that Christina was the awful, spoiled, bitchy child.
According to this website, Christina was well educated, basically going to school until well into her early 20’s.
As a young adult, Christina was well educated, thanks to Joan putting her through school, and attended the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and the studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. She earned a B.A. degree, magna cum laude, from UCLA and a Master’s Degree in communications management from USC.
This is a fascinating article.
http://www.legendaryjoancrawford.com/crawfordchildren.html
Christina was a player on a soap opera in the 1960’s called The Secret Storm, and for some medical reason, she had to take a leave of absence, and for some reason, Joan was hired to take her place, even though Joan was obviously 25-30 years older. I guess the people in the soap were so honored to have her on the set, and that ratings would go up, that it was Ok for her to do the part. Unfortuately, Joan was drunk during the scenes, and this show was live
Weighing both sides, it seems to be two emotionally disturbed children and a mother totally unprepared to deal with them. Friends and coworkers (and the two younger daughters) all say the older kids both had serious behavior issues, and Joan (who probably should not have adopted) had no skills to deal with it, and was actually driven to drink by them (and by her career).
That said, Christina’s stories were exaggerated, and she also had “I want to be Mommie” syndrome (see also Maria Riva and B.D. Hyman). By the 1970s, they had all cut each other out of their lives, and Joan knew about *Mommie Dearest *before she died (some felt it was blackmail: “Leave me money or the book gets published!”).
By the time she adopted the two younger (non-crazy) daughters, Joan had learned from her mistakes and matured (and cut back on the booze) and turned out to be a wonderful, older, mother.
I would love to write a *balanced *book about her, but every year some other damn book comes out and further kills the market, so looks like it’s not gonna happen.
I love the mink scarf with the tails, and the ivory beaded sleeveless top!
But…Margaret Keane?
How long does a fur last (with good maintenance and all of course)?
If it was properly made in the first place and kept in cold storage, pretty much indefinitely. I have a white fox stole from the early '60s that’s still in perfect condition.
I’m with you all on the furs, and I also want those escargot plates - in a very large way.
Eve - Keane painted a portrait of Joan as well…I’ve always heard it “disappeared”. Any idea what might have happened to it?
UT
I am a huge fan of Joan Crawford and am willing to overlook any purported child abuse or drinking . . . But I cannot allow myself to contemplate her love for Margaret Keane paintings. Some things just never can be forgiven or explained away.
A lot of the stuff in the auction interests me. The watch and beaded top, especially, as they’re just plain gorgeous even without the Crawford cachet. Both my ex-wife and ex-fiancee would have loved them, and frankly, the expected price of both watch and top are well within what I’d expect to pay at retail for non-legacy items of similar quality.
It’d be fun to get some of the blank stationery and use it (sparingly). There’s someone at my university who yearly endows a scholarship under the name of various Hollywood icons and fictional characters… it’d be worth it to use a sheet of official Crawford letterhead to endow another year.
Not a typo. Alfred Nu Steele. Looking him up also explained the Pepsi brooch, which was middling odd, at first - Steele was Pepsi’s CEO, and got Crawford appointed to the board.
I just discovered that my wife’s great aunt was Crawford’s babysitter. My mother in law has inherited a series of signed photos and letters from her. I wonder if they are worth selling? I will say the letters are surprisingly gracious given her reputation.
Joannie *invented *“gracious.” I have some letters and photos from her (in high school when the rest of my friends were writing to Farrah Fawcett and Burt Reynolds, I was writing to Joan Crawford and Lillian Gish). She answered all of my letters, as she did with all of her fans: she knew *they *put her where she was and always treated them royally.
Did Lillian Gish write back?
(I know you met her later.)
Yes! I have 40-some letters and postcards from her, she became my surrogate granny and was an absolute doll. I think she liked that I never asked about her movies–she was sick to death of that–and we just chatted about what were were doing. She was tickled when I named my cats Lillian and Dorothy, kept a photo of them in her apartment, and asked after them.
And she was very supportive and sympathetic when I had “issues” in my early twenties, by the way.
If you don’t mind me asking, how do you feel about Bette Davis? I always found the Joan/Bette feud to be fascinating.
I have never known anyone who owned one of those abominations. It’s strange, considering her otherwise wonderful taste (the mink tails and faces notwithstanding).
I’ve read that Joan Crawford was one of the most popular women in Hollywood with the crew of the movies she worked on, even the lowly (drivers, janitorial, etc.). She was apparently really generous with tips and gifts during the production and always made sure they all got invitations to the wrap parties (apparently many actors didn’t invite them). I would imagine the janitorial crew especially loved her as cleaning up after her (a world famous clean freak) must have been pretty easy.