Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, 190? [Note 1] – May 10, 1977) was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally known flapper by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest-paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".

After an absence of nearly two years from the screen, Crawford staged a comeback by starring in Mildred Pierce (1945), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1955, she became involved with the Pepsi-Cola Company, through her marriage to company president Alfred Steele. After his death in 1959, Crawford was elected to fill his vacancy on the board of directors but was forcibly retired in 1973. She continued acting in film and television regularly through the 1960s when her performances became fewer; after the release of the horror film Trog in 1970, Crawford retired from the screen. Following a public appearance in 1974, after which unflattering photographs were published, Crawford withdrew from public life. She became more and more reclusive until her death in 1977.

Crawford married four times. Her first three marriages ended in divorce; the last ended with the death of her husband Al Steele. She adopted five children, one of whom was reclaimed by his birth mother. Crawford's relationships with her two older children, Christina and Christopher, were acrimonious. Crawford disinherited the two and, after Crawford's death, Christina published the "tell-all" memoir Mommie Dearest.

Early life

Born Lucille Fay LeSueur, of French-Huguenot, English, Dutch, and Irish ancestry in San Antonio, Texas, she was the second of the two children of Thomas E. LeSueur (born January 2, 1867, in Tennessee; died January 1, 1938), a construction worker, and Anna Bell Johnson (died August 15, 1958[13]), later known as Anna Cassin. Crawford's mother was likely under 20 when her first two children were born. Crawford had one sister, Daisy, and one brother, Hal LeSueur.

Thomas LeSueur abandoned the family when Lucille was ten months old, eventually resettling in Abilene, Texas, reportedly working in construction. In 1909, while working as a sales associate at Simpson's, Crawford's mother married Henry J. Cassin (1868-1922) in Fort Worth, who is incorrectly listed in the 1910 census as her second husband rather than her third. They lived in Lawton, Oklahoma, where Cassin ran the Ramsey Opera House, booking such diverse and noted performers as Anna Pavlova and Eva Tanguay. As a child, Crawford, who preferred the nickname "Billie", enjoyed watching vaudeville acts perform on the stage of her stepfather's theater. At that time, Crawford was reportedly unaware that Cassin, whom she called "Daddy", was not her biological father; her brother later told her the truth.

From childhood, Crawford's ambition was to be a dancer. One day, in an attempt to escape piano lessons, she leaped from the front porch of her home and cut her foot severely on a broken milk bottle. She had three surgeries to repair the damage, and for 18 months was unable to attend elementary school or continue dancing lessons.

In June 1917, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, after Cassin was accused of embezzlement; although acquitted, he was blacklisted in Lawton. After the move, Cassin, a Catholic, placed Crawford at St. Agnes Academy in Kansas City. When her mother and stepfather separated, she remained at school as a working student, where she spent far more time working, primarily cooking and cleaning, than studying. She later attended Rockingham Academy, also as a working student.[24] While there, she began dating, and had her first serious relationship: a trumpet player, Ray Sterling, who reportedly inspired her to challenge herself academically.

In 1922, she registered at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, giving her year of birth as 1906. She attended Stephens for a few months and then withdrew after she realized that she was not ready for college. Due to her family's instability, Crawford's schooling never surpassed the primary level.