Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

JOAN CRAWFORD Continued, from page 58 she said. “Fingermarks show up so easily on the white.” She smiled at me again and I was melting like the snow outside when I noticed three men sitting on a white-carpeted suspended staircase. “Oh, I see,” I said weakly, and I walked — on tip-toe — to join the triumvirate who were de-shoeing themselves. The man on the lowest step moved over to makeroom for me. “Hi,” he said. “Did Joan tell you you could take your socks off, too, if you wanted? Look at her, she’s absolutely barefoot!” I looked. She was. Joan was wearing a scooDed neck black dinner dress with its waistline marked with a gossamer scarf whose long ends billowed and trailed after her. Her chunky gold bracelets and necklaces jingled as she walked barefoot over the soft, deep-piled white carpet. She’s magnificent, I thought. What other woman could manage to look so beautiful and elegant and, yes, statuesque without the help of a pair of high heels? I parked my shoes — I’d left on my socks — in the hallway, next to a pair of pointed-toed, red-silk slippers. Then, enjoying the tickling sensation of the white carpet on my arches, I entered the living room. A1 took my elbow and I staggered after Joan’s smile and that’s how we somehow circled the room and got me introduced to the other guests. There were fourteen of us who’d been invited and most of the men seemed to be important business executives, like A1 himself. And what a room! Brilliant white with a flowering dogwood tree that made me think I was in California. “Does it really remind you of California?” Joan asked. “Good, then it’s a success. Even though we’re on the thirteenth floor of a New York apartment building, I wanted the light, open feeling of California.” The sofa, upholstered in a bright, sunyellow silk, must have been at least fourteen feet long and one wall of the living room was completely mirrored. The room looked double its size, and it was enormous to begin with. Sixteen people pattering barefoot over that incredible white rug hardly filled it at all. “Now,” Joan said, “what will you have to drink?” P 82 “Oh,” I stumbled, a bit awed and flustered, “anything will do.” “But darling,” she explained, “you can have anything your heart desires.” “Scotch and soda,” I murmured, “if it’s not too much trouble.” Joan smiled her marvelous smile, and with her wide sash trailing after her like a cloud, she seemed to float towards the small cubicle off the living room, where I could still see her mixing my drink at a sideboard. I was looking around for Joan’s Oscar when her adopted daughter, Christina, came downstairs. Joan poked her head around the alcove. “Everybody,” she called out, “I want you to meet my Tina.” Then she laughed. “Al, would you do the more formal honors?” As nineteen-year-old Tina took Al’s arm, she was beaming with a smile very like Joan’s. I’d followed her poodle-like haircut halfway around the room when Joan returned and handed me my drink in a tall crystal glass. Then she walked toward the center of the room and with great style sat majestically down on the white pouf. Just watching Joan sit can be an experience. She pauses for a moment, holding herself very stiff, glances at everyone to see that all’s well, then slowly — but so slowly you can hear the seconds ticking — she lowers herself into the seat. Joan’s airy sash fell over the rear of the pouf and onto the floor. Then, with a nonchalant flip of her head, Joan said, “Al’s taking me off to Texas for the next weekend. Or maybe I should say, I don’t like him going alone so I’m going with him!” While my friend from the staircase was busy laughing, I out-maneuvered him for a seat near Joan. “It’ll be good for her,” Al was saying. “She’s been working so hard. The other night,” Al went on, “we were up till three in the morning because Joan just wouldn’t settle for less than perfection. She had a bunch of writers up here, going over the TV scripts with them, helping them decide what scenes needed changing, what dialogue wouldn't play. And they couldn’t believe it. They told me when they left they never had any actress ever take the time to work with them like that!” “Al — really!” Joan laughed. “Say, Al,” one of the guests said, “I’ll bet that’s why you told me you were sort of tired at lunch the next day. Joan, I’ll bet he stayed up every last minute with you.” “He sure did,” Joan answered. “And he loved it!” She took a sip from her long glass of vodka-on-the-rocks. “You know, if I ever felt my work was getting in the way of my marriage, believe me it would go right out the window.” She smiled over at her husband. “I love Hollywood, but I love my husband more! Luckily, Al gets fun out of being part of show business, too.” Joan got up again and walked over to us, pointing to the long walnut coffee tables where there were tempting platters of hors d’oeuvres. There was a quiet pause while we sampled the different hors d’oeuvres. Then we all heard Tina’s voice explaining to one of the guests about the difficulties of showbusiness today and how hard it is for a young person to get a lucky break. Tina was saying how she had performed at an off-Broadway theater which was actually no more than an old rundown Slavic meeting hall, and had been happy to get the experience. “It’s so discouraging,” Tina said sadly. “You make the rounds of producers’ offices and casting agents and everyone says, ‘Don’t call us. We’ll call you!’ And then I am Philip Little, the 1959 National Easter Seal Child. I am switching from fishing to campaigning— to make sure that all crippled children will continue to get help through Easter Seals. they never do. It’s such a struggle to get a part, even a small one. Everyone says it’s worse now than it’s ever been.” Then Joan teased, “We had to struggle too, the older generation, I mean. We even used to go without eating.” The bantering note had gone out of Joan’s voice and she went on thoughtfully. “When I was in my teens I left Kansas City for Chicago, all alone, to look for a job as a chorus girl. I went to a producer’s office and it was full of pretty girls, all slim and terribly chic. And there I was, chubby, scared and not pretty at all, watching the pretty girls file into the producer’s inner sanctum, one by one. I got panicky. I didn’t have any money. What was I going to do? If he saw all those lovely girls first. I’d never get to first base. “I had to think quickly. When you need money your mind realiy thinks! I mustered up all my nerve and rushed to his door, opened it wide, ran inside and knocked over a chorus girl who was auditioning for him. I didn’t even bother to introduce myself. All I said breathlessly was, ‘I’m not tall and I’m not pretty but I have to have a job!’ ” “What happened?” I asked. “Some sweet woman — the only other plumpish woman in the place — came over to me. Later I found out she was his wife. And she said, ‘Come on, honey, cry it out! Don’t be ashamed. I’ll bet you' haven’t had a decent meal in days!’ ” They took her out to dinner, Joan told us, and then gave her a night-club job where she sang and danced. “When I worked those night clubs, I weighed a hundred and forty-five pounds! Baby-fat, all of it. Then I went to New York and starved myself. And you know,” Joan laughed, “you might think it’s easy to diet when you’re broke and looking for a job. But it isn’t. Spaghetti, after all, is so filling, and so much cheaper than steak. But I remember Jack Oakie and I would ride up Riverside Drive in a bus or stroll along Fifth Avenue window-shopping, dreaming of paychecks, dreaming of the day when we’d be polished performers. We knew we’d have to fight for it and we were willing.” “I’m willing to fight, too,” Tina said. “I know you are,” Joan smiled at her, “but then I keep getting the feeling that nobody’s willing to fight enough today,” Joan sighed. “Everybody wants a shortcut, and I’m afraid there aren’t any, honey. Most of those kids in the movies now — they’re here today, gone tomorrow. Nobody stays up on top like the old days. Nobody wants to fight!” We listened to her, all of us hypnotized by Joan’s throaty voice. I looked at her. This was a star — that magic quality was in the way she looked, the way she held herself, the way she spoke. Yet I couldn’t help thinking about Joan’s life and what she’d said about fighting and struggling. Joan had struggled. It had been no overnight success that brought Joan to the top. It had been a hard climb and I remembered, too, the terrifying words “box-office poison” that had been pinned on her and that had forced her to begin the climb all over again. I looked at the way Joan held her head, straight and high, and I thought that that sort of courage was something to be proud of. I looked around the room again, but I still couldn’t find the Oscar Joan had won — in 1946. Well, she must have some very special place for it, I thought, remembering the stories I’d heard of how she treasured it almost above everything else. I knew the stories must be true, for Joan had fought so hard to get there, to win all the things the Oscar stood for. It must have been awful for her, I thought, to