Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford

by Donald Spoto

New York Times bestselling author Donald Spoto has already brilliantly explored the lives and careers of numerous Hollywood stars and entertainment icons—Grace Kelly, James Dean, Alfred Hitchcock, and Marilyn Monroe, to name but a few. In Possessed , his subject is the inimitable Joan Crawford, one of the most electrifying divas of the Golden Age of American film. A more thorough, revealing, and sympathetic portrait of the often maligned movie star—most notably lambasted, perhaps, in the scandalous bestseller, Mommy Dearest — Possessed is a fascinating study of the real Joan Crawford, a remarkable actress, businesswoman, mother, and lover.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Film, History, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, Autobiography

352 pages, Hardcover

First published November 2, 2010

About the author

A prolific and respected biographer and theologian, Donald Spoto is the author of twenty published books, among them bestselling biographies of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, and Ingrid Bergman. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Donald Spoto earned his Ph.D. in theology at Fordham University. After years as a theology professor, he turned to fulltime writing. The Hidden Jesus: A New Life, published in 1999, was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "offering a mature faith fit for the new millennium." His successful biography of Saint Francis was published in 2002.

Reviews

[Anna Avian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This biography is written by a person who is obviously infatuated with Joan Crawford which isn't a bad thing on it's own but it made it read like a biased fan article.
There's hardly anything new to learn from this book, a lot of topics were simply left out and the detailed account of all of her movies was quite boring.

[Lee Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why, but I always mistakenly think of Donald Spoto as a hack. I mean, he's no William Manchester or Robert Caro, but for the business of celebrity memoirs, he's actually not bad. This well-researched biography of Joan Crawford even taught me a few things (no small feat considering this is the 15th Joan bio I've read). Spoto goes a long, detailed way, as most Crawford biographers of the past thirty years have attempted, to correct the exaggerations and outright lies put forth by Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest. Too bad he's preaching to the choir; most of the millions who read that hatchet job or watched the campy movie (which I admittedly have seen several times) will never bother to read another book about the subject.

Spoto is no Joan apologist, though: he makes plain that her later years were marred by heavy drinking and imperious on-set demands and behavior (brought about, he surmises, by the aging star's massive insecurities). The only area where I couldn't follow Spoto's reasoning all the way was his refutation of the legendary Bette Davis feud. Too much has been written about it for it to have been entirely manufactured. If you only know Joan Crawford as a wire hanger-hating drag queen joke, this book is a good place to start.

[Prima Seadiva · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a gift from a friend who is also a fan of Joan Crawford and her movies.

Admittedly the author is a huge fan, but it's a nice offset to the extremes of the Mommie Dearest movie which is the only view of Joan a lot of people have.
She had one tough upbringing and one could see how this impacted her ambition and her vulnerabilities. Things I did know about her-she was both involved with and then remained long time friend of Clark Gable, her life long best friend was a gay man, Billy Haines, who would not pretend to be straight for Hollywood mores of the time and she supported him in this, she donated thousands of dollars to medical care for the poor on the condition that her name was not divulged. She was not a perfect parent but not as bad as depicted in Mommie Dearest book or movie.
There was a lot of detail about her films which I enjoyed reading about. One of my favorites is indeed titled Possessed (1947).
I would have liked more and better photos-the quality was not great.
As an aside, I recently saw a t.v.biography of Joan and her daughter Christina was one of those interviewed. I felt sad that after over 30 years she appeared to have not come to some personal resolution over her childhood. A belief of mine is one needs to do this in order to move on in life but the crabby side of me thought "well then she would make less money".

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a hagiography. This is not an unbiased account of Joan’s life. This is a book written by a clearly infatuated, delusional, biased author whom I almost suspect is secretly a Joan Crawford drag queen. No one should ever be canonized like this.

This book is page after page of how infallible Joan is. Every film he recounts, (and trust me, he recounts every.single.one.) especially her bad ones are never her fault. She is incorruptible. It was the scripts fault, or the director that didn’t understand the material as Joan did, or the critics who weren’t sophisticated enough to hail her every movie. Joan did a ton of movies and some were indeed excellent. However, I believe there were many more that were absolute garbage. Mainly because Joan could never stop playing Joan. No matter the character. Many have commented in the beginning she would always play the shop girl who claws her way up. The author actually disputes that by pointing out in only 2 of her films she was a shop girl. In this one she was a waitress, blah, blah, blah. I’m paraphrasing her. Shop girl is a metaphor but he takes offense and tries to make her early films more diverse and far reaching as opposed to the formulaic characters she played.

He down plays the fact that Warner Bros. made Joan take a screen test for Mildred Pierce saying Joan offered to do so to prove how well she could do the role when in fact it has been well documented that the director Michael Curtiz did not want Joan and forced her to do so.

*deep breath and exhale* And then we come to the part of the book that addressed Christina Crawford’s biography, “Mommy Dearest”. Lord almighty, I wish they never made a movie out of that book because it trivializes the content. Those who have only seen the movie could not grasp the depth of detail Christina provides that gives her narrative authenticity and believability. He attempts to disprove the wire hangers story and the evidence he gives is speculative at best. He states that the wire hanger incident couldn’t of happened because Joan was known to have expensive hangers with which she hung everything and that if there were wire hangers it would have been from the drycleaners therefore no fault of Christina’s so why would she be punished. However, based on Christina’s book in which she goes into great detail regarding this incident. When the clothes came back from the dry cleaners it was expected that she immediately hang the clothes on “proper” hangers. Christina admits she didn’t do so in this instance and was caught. She relates after the vicious beating how she badly she regretted the decision in light of the extreme consequences. He quotes a few friends of Joan’s who say she wasn’t like that. He omts the many people, friends of hers included that corroborate Christina’s story. I have a hard time believing any of her friends would corroborate Christina’s story if it didn’t happen. It gives their accounts a big boost of credibility.

When the author recounts the beautifully designed and decorated apartment she has with Arthur Steele there is zero mention of the fact that she made the rest of the buildings tenants crazy with the round the clock construction that ultimately lead to lawsuits.

And the glossing over he does of Joan and Bette Davis' notorious and well documented acrimony is pathetic and laughable. He actually contends Joan was the one who suggested Bette Davis to the director ad she haf been looking for a vehicle to co-star with her for a long time. Come on. And of course Joan is more beautiful than Bette in this film. Bette having a grotesque appearance due to the make up that was exacerbated by a life time of heavy smoking and drinking. Nevermind that Joan wasn’t looking as luminous at that point in her life either, also due to heavy drinking and smoking.

Finally to put a bow on the saint box he’s created for Joan he has her passing peacefully and quietly away in her bed with her bible beside her. When how it actually happened was Joan’s housekeeper was with her and began praying and Joan yelled “Damn it, don’t you dare ask god to help me!” Which is just unfortunate. I’ve always felt those last words summed Joan up perfectly. Strong, independent, fiery and unapologetically.

[Daniel Myatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well that was an easy read!

Nothing new or exciting really to learn from this book! It covers Joan Crawford's life from start to finish in detail and giving little snippets of stories from various sources.

A good read, not a great read but still entertaining.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Don't exhaust the audience by overacting." (PG. 33)

This was a very detailed book on Joan Crawford's life. I don't know much about her but I learned a lot about her personality and personal life. Like all movie stars, she was obsessed with the idea of herself and scared to be forgotten which probably was the reason she was a great actress.

Great book for movie buffs or people that love old Hollywood.

[Sherrie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoto is such an open Crawford apologist that it was pretty hard to finish this book. He completely glosses over Crawford's alleged lesbianism and pornographic past, takes her side against Christina and Christopher Crawford with only hearsay (from HER friends) to back him up, and spends too much time summarizing some of her worst movies. I guess without those 3 aspects it might have been an awfully easy book to write. There are not enough photos to accompany the text and some of the photos are downright pixel-y, as though they were taken off the internet. Oh, look at the photo credit - IT WAS taken off the internet. Everything about this book feels a little slapdash. I judges star bios against a pretty high standard. To this very day, I think Maria Riva's portrait of her mother Marlene Dietrich is the best classic Hollywood biography I've ever read.

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Didn't know too much about Crawford before. She had a rough life. Hard to know what is truth and what is fiction concerning Christina and her story in Mommie Dearest. Only ones who really know are Joan and her children.

Interesting read overall.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this some-warts-but-not-all bio of the legendary actress. A lot of folks here seemed really bugged that Spoto spilled lots of ink and devoted much of this 292-page book to discussing each one of Crawford's 80+ movies, which......you know, account for the largest part of her enduring fame, right? I love film analysis so this was a highlight for me! (Don't listen to those fools, Donald Spoto.) Also: this was not a hagiography as some more cranky readers have charged--for Joan Crawford hagiography read (or rather don't read) the one written by Lawrence Quirk & William Scholl, which is a positively shameless whitewash job. This was a fun read, and made me want to catch some more of Crawford's oeuvre, esp some of her team-ups with Clark Gable.

[Bert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joan Crawford, what a woman!

It's quite obvious that the author of this book is a big fan of Miss Crawford, he writes with such passion and enthusiasm about one of the greatest movie stars of our time. The book really should be called Possessed: The Films of Joan Crawford as opposed to "the life", it is a biography but it focuses about 60% on her films and 40% on the woman and her life. In saying that though, her films were her life, she was her movies and I'm sure if you asked her that she'd say the exact same thing. What's nice about this book is the picture that's painted is a highly professional movie actress, a lovely woman who was a friend to those around her and was very generous and charitable, a world away from what sadly many (thanks hugely in part to the silly but fun film Mommie Dearest) think of her.

It took me a little longer than usual to read this book as I wanted to really savour all the information, I'm a big Joan Crawford fan and I always love reading new and interesting facts about her, of which this book has many. I never knew that she wasn't a trained actress, she never once took an acting class, hard to believe when you look at her mighty impressive filmography. I also learnt a lot in regards to her marriage to Alfred Steele of Pepsi Cola, the only thing I wish there was more of was her childhood and upbringing, supposedly there's very little information out there about that though so I guess that's why it's only glossed over in this book.

What you'll find here is the woman behind the screen queen, the woman behind all the preconceived (and inaccurate, I'm looking at you Christina Crawford) ideas. If you're a Joan Crawford fan I highly suggest you read this flattering, in depth and very well written biography. It's a nice offset to all the falsehoods in Mommie Dearest.

Joan would be happy with it and so am I. 4.5 stars.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

ok when I read a biography on an actor I really and truly do not need to have a detailed account of every single movie they ever made/ Now if they met a lover or a spouse or that movie was pivotal to their career yes. BUT I sincerely could care freakin less about the 100 films. I really want to understand and learn about the person THEMSELVES

[Alex Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most people I was more familiar with Faye Dunaway’s iconic depiction so it was interesting reading this bio which the author says was more or less written as an attempt to restore some respect to the hanger hating Harridan. As such Christina is barely a peripheral figure who occasionally shows up 1) to prove that she was lying about a particular incident or 2) to show what an ungrateful, lazy daughter she was. Who knows where the truth lay? Not me.
One weakness of the book for me was a bit too many detailed synopses of her various films which I found myself skimming.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

will start this review off by stating that I am a huge Joan Crawford fan; she is without a doubt my favorite classic movie actress. Because of my devotion to her and her films I can easily find something positive with even the most banal Crawford offering but, happily, in this case no such searching was necessary.

Since the publication of daughter Christina's alleged memoir Mommie Dearest in 1978, it has been a thankless job of sorts to support Crawford and acknowledge not only her contributions to the world of film but also the undeniable talent that was hidden under the tag of "movie star". Prolific biographer Donald Spoto, who has also offered up works on Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Alfred Hitchcock, among others, not only acknowleges Crawford's many contributions to film and those incredible roles she turned out but does an admirable job in exploring Crawford's life and lengthy career, the highs and the lows, without titillating gossip and rehashed attacks on Crawford's character. Spoto himself is obviously a Crawford fan, and for some may come across as a Crawford apologist - for whatever reason, he does not address the question of whether Crawford's first marriage was not to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. but to a James Welton before she arrived in Hollywood; he did not address the many tales of Crawford's rumored affairs with actresses Dorothy Sebastian and Barbara Stanwyck, among others; nor does he touch much on Crawford's sexual prowess. However, even without these details, a reader of Possessed will leave the book with an understanding of how complex, driven, willful , fortunate, lonely and utterly compassionate of a person Joan Crawford was.

It is remarkable today, nearly ninety years after Crawford's initial arrival in Hollywood, how this former laundry worker, a dropout, and struggling dancer would become one of the greatest stars and actresses to be put on film. Spoto does a commendable job tracing Crawford's early life and fleshing out Hollywood of the 1920s and, when Crawford came into her own professionally, the glamorous and one of a kind 1930s. Special attention is paid to Crawford's incomparable style and fashion, something some of her films from that time period were better known for than the actual acting or plot (but such films are still fascinating and highly rewarding in this fan's opinion).

Spoto covers Crawford's four marriages, each one to a very different type of man, her decades-long affair and relationship with Clark Gable, her long professional ties with MGM and Warner Bros. and friendships that lasted more than forty years. He also devotes many pages to Crawford's strained and often tumultuous family relationships, first with her mother and brother and later with her own children, most notably her two eldest, Christina and Christopher. Spoto does quote sections from Christina's Mommie Dearest as well as quotes from a fellow thespian or acquaintance of Joan's who believed Christina's tale of a harrowing childhood. He also quotes others who claim that Joan, while strict, was an attentive and loving mother and nothing like the monster depicted in Christina's book.

Perhaps best of all are the sections of the book that highlight Crawford's many charitable actions and donations, most of which were never publicized during her lifetime. She not only made many financial contributions to known organizations like The American Cancer Society, The American Heart Association and The Muscular Dystrophy Association, to name a few, but also kept rooms available at a local hospital for persons unable to pay and anonymously picked up their medical bills, as well as those for the studio employees who worked on the soundstages and sets. She never sought publicity or attention for these deeds and went out of her way to make sure she remained anonymous.

As a diehard Crawford fan, I didn't learn a lot of new information from Possessed but I did finish the book with a greater admiration for Joan, as both a woman ahead of her time, and a devoted friend. Her attention to detail, her passionate desire to learn the ins and outs of filmmaking (which she most certainly did) and her fierce refusal to throw in the towel on her career at a time when women over thirty-five were shunned in the industry and expected to gracefully and silently retire, make her a glorious symbol of Hollywood at its finest. Despite her flaws and her shortcomings, Joan Crawford was and remains one of a kind, one of MGM's "stars in the heavens" and Possessed a touching and reaffirming love note to her accomplishments, both professional and personal, and I think she herself would approve.

[David Cerda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoto gives Joan a fair shake revealing her at her most vulnerable and sincere in her earlier years. He doesn't shy away from her alcohol abuse and issues with her children but as one might suspect there are two sides to every story and he is able to disprove many of the Mommie Dearest stories including a strong case against the wire hanger episode. This is why I was a bit confused that he used some of Christina's recollections as facts and questioned others. How do you choose? He also dismisses any strife on the Baby Jane set as Hollywood PR but there must have been some because Joan dropped out of Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte under the guise of illness. I have read many Crawford bios and this is one of the better ones. Spoto 'gets' Joan and why people loved her. She literally made herself out of nothing and her most devoted fans sense this and will always root for her, while other highbrow types dismiss her as just a 'movie star'.

[Cara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was very detailed about her career and home life. I think she was a lonely person who was a great movie star. She was definitely a career woman. I wasn't surprised to learn that the whole "no wire hangers" episode is extremely false and written by a bitter, spoiled daughter.

I have read better movie star biographies though. It seemed that the author was so intent on getting the facts right, that the style is missing something. At times I was incredibly bored but managed to slog through it.

[Jarrett Neal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read my fair share of celebrity biographies, but this has to be one of the worst. As others have pointed out, Donald Spoto is too enamored with Joan Crawford--by his own admission--to author a book about her life and work that offers a genuine impression of her. But that's also the problem. As I stated, I've gone through a host of biographies and autobiographies from actors and directors who knew Joan Crawford, either as costars or acquaintances, and they all accord on one thing: Crawford was the least authentic person they knew. She, in collaboration with the studio system, created "Joan Crawford," and once she perfected that persona she didn't know how to turn it off and be herself. Indeed, transformation is a major theme of most of Joan Crawford's filmography--she often played women who had to undergo a drastic change in appearance, outlook, ethics, fashion, or beliefs to fit into a man's world and come out on top. I feel as though a hundred biographies could be written about Joan Crawford and none of them could adequately capture the truth of who she really was.

The other problem with this book is that it's poorly structured--more than 2/3 of the book is devoted to Crawford's life and career before Mildred Pierce and relies on anecdotes and gut feelings too much. (Any biographer would with dismiss The Women (1939) and say that Joan Crawford gave the only performance of merit is a hack and can't be trusted, in my opinion.) Also, at its core, this book is a take down of Christina Crawford and Mommie Dearest, both the book and the film. Donald Spoto practically seethes about the claims Christina levels against her mother, and while I doubt many people believe everything in Mommie Dearest, it's foolish, I think, to say that everything Christina said is a fabrication. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, yet Spoto will have none of it.

This entire biography is compromised by Spoto's determination to showcase Joan Crawford as one of the greats. There's no denying that she was indeed one of the biggest stars of Hollywood's golden age, and everyone who worked with her, even Bette Davis, lauded her as a consummate professional who showed up to the set on time with her lines and blocking memorized. She knew lighting, she knew cameras, she knew makeup, and could even write a little. Yet while Spoto scoffs at the acting talents of Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, he fails to note that those actresses kept challenging themselves throughout their careers. There's a reason Bette Davis was nominated for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and not Joan Crawford, and there's a reason Katharine Hepburn won four Oscars, two of them during the 1960s, when Joan Crawford dismissed movies of that era as trash. Okay, so in the 1960s, Hepburn starred in such "trash" as Long Day's Journey into Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, and The Lion in Winter while Crawford was making masterpieces of cinema like Berserk, I Saw What You Did, and Strait-Jacket. Whatever, dude.

If you don't know anything about Joan Crawford or her filmography, I suppose this book is a good place to start learning about her, but don't take Spoto's word as gospel. Though he notes several instances where her diva behavior was mindblowing--that list of demands she made for an appearance in the late 1960s is staggering--he refuses to plunge into the complexities of her life and work, and he will not take a critical stance. You can start processing Joan Crawford's life and career with this book, but please don't stop with it.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The question of an unbiased biography is an ongoing one, however, this bio reads like a gushy fan article. The author will frequently glaze over aspects of Joan's character and life, and speak in almost religious hyperbole of Joan's talent and charm. If this wasn't distracting enough, the author frequently and harshly will put down Joan's contemporaries such as Greta Garbo, in order to boost Joan's image. I find myself walking away from this book with very little knowledge of Joan except for her grandiose persona. All in all, an interesting but unreliable read.

[Michael Neno · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book could be more accurately called "A Life of Joan Crawford", due to the divergence of opinions of the people who knew Crawford.

Since many (especially younger) people's image of Crawford is the over-the-top, borderline campy maniac portrayed in the biopic, Mommie Dearest, it's fitting that Spoto has written a well-researched biography that tips the scales on the other side. Crawford's lifelong philanthropic efforts alone would give pause to most people who think of the self-made movie queen as a monster.

In the end, Crawford was, like most of us, a conundrum of flawed contradictions, albeit one with a powerful, almost mythical sense of destiny and with a commitment to the obsessive hard work required to fulfill it.

On a similar trail of thought, it's a shame that the talented Faye Dunaway was blasted by some less than thoughtful critics for her portrayal of Joan in Mommie Dearest and that she apparently took some of those criticisms to heart. Dunaway was superlative in the role of Joan Crawford. It's a memorable, startling, classic performance. She followed the script to its logical conclusions and those who don't like the movie (if, indeed, there are any now who don't) should blame the script, not those paid to carry it out. If anything, Dunaway may have played Crawford too well for the audience's comfort. That's something Crawford herself might have appreciated.

[Melissa Cecchini · Rating 2 out of 5]

I chose this book because I have a huge interest in the Golden Age of Hollywood but I was not well informed with Joan Crawford at all. I think the only thing I knew about Joan Crawford was that "she slept with every male star at MGM, except Lassie" as Bette Davis famously put. That is a fantastic quote! And the whole Mommie Dearest business, which I have not read but I do know the story. Again, even though I have not read the book or seen the movie, I just don't believe her daughter's account of how things happened. Needless, to say, I was intrigued to find more about Joan Crawford.

Unfortunately, this book was not the best way to go about it. I definitely did learn more about her. And after reading this book I am still inclined to not believe what her daughter said. Joan Crawford was a very hardworking and business savvy woman who built herself up from absolutely nothing. She definitely had a hard edge but she was extremely insecure and incredibly dedicated to her craft. There were a lot of things that I found admirable about her and also a lot of empathy for her. I wish I could be a little more like in some aspects Joan Crawford of my life.

However, I found the book incredibly boring and I know I am such a slow reader but I found this book so hard to get through. It felt more like a chore. Joan Crawford, by all accounts was a very vivacious and energetic woman right to the very end. I cannot imagine her life was as boring as this author wrote it!

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice book. It had an equal amount of biography and film criticism. There are certain periods of Joan's life outside of work that always require some examination, like her marriage to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., accusations by Christina, and the marriage to Alfred and Pepsi; these are all well accounted for here. I agree with 95% of Spoto's assessments of Joan's films as well. He portrays her as an actress that was always underrated due to 1) beginning as a dancer, 2) the repetition of roles due to how the studio system (factory) operated, 3) her hypervigilance about how she was filmed and represented that some might portray as egotistical but here is interpreted as Joan being an uncredited producer, 4) her later films that declined in quality, and 5) "Mommie Dearest".
I love the author's breakdown of Joan's career by decade: "the Jazz Baby during the 1920s, the independent thinker of the 1930s, the troubled postwar woman of the 1940s, the romantically starved woman of the 1950s, the horror queen of the 1960s and 1970s." Despite this canny evolution, "she always felt inadequate, and people who feel inadequate often demand extravagant forms of approval to meet their limitless needs." Never satisfied with herself, she engaged in a life-long journey of self-improvement and was attracted to intelligent and creative people who challenged her. Young Joan observed the way that Gloria Swanson corresponded and kept records of her fans, aware of her own fame and how it depended on the public first and foremost. Joan's encounter with the world of Pickfair left her feeling insecure and began her journey to becoming a society dame, although husband Doug said that the issue wasn't that she was from the wrong side of the tracks, but that Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was upset that the public was made aware that he was old enough to have a married son. However, Fairbanks Sr. said one thing that transformed the way that Joan approached her developing craft: "Feelings are for silent pictures. Thoughts are for the talkies." Joan had already been eliminating broad expression in her acting, but this provided her with a guiding star.
Joan never pretended to be anything other than a small town girl who got some big breaks. Yet she was comfortable early in her career talking to directors and writers in a collaborative manner that eventually became confidence. And one of the reasons why I think her persona and her celebrity survived the Pre-Code era is that her characters ultimately achieved contentment through love and integrity, and her contentment was not dependent upon material wealth. The shopgirl was no gold digger! As Joan the person became more successful, she reflected later, Doug fell out of love with her. She opined that he had fallen for her as a showgirl, and once she began reflecting the material wealth he had grown up with, he was less interested. However, they remained good friends for the rest of their lives. Note: by 1936, Joan was earning over $300,000 per year, which made her among the 15 highest earning Americans that year.
When Joan went out in public, such as a rare excursion to a grocery store, she went out as A Movie Star. She believed the public did not want to see the plain, ordinary person whom she believed herself to be. This belief surely fed into her decision to withdraw from public view after unattractive photos were published of her and Rosalind Russell in 1974. The belief in the star led to self-negation of the person. Perhaps her housecleaning was her own way of being a person and not being a star, although she did it to an unnecessary degree. But both her cleaning and her protection of her stardom were her way of exerting control, of putting her own final finish on her life and surroundings. Brooke Hayward stated that the kids' birthday parties thrown by Joan were always the best due to extravagance, more really more to the level of detail and thought that even child guests could appreciate.
Due to declining quality and less frequent films at MGM, Joan agreed to pay $100,000 to be let out of her contract. Miraculously, two days later her young upstart agent Lew Wasserman signed her to a $500,000 deal for three pictures at Warner Brothers. Joan could be very kind in her treatment of young stars, remembering how it felt for her to have little support when she started. On "Mildred Pierce" she advocated for Ann Blyth to have more closeups. She also had no issue being a supporting player if it was right for the film, such as "The Shining Hour" where she and Margaret Sullavan and Fay Bainter all had equal parts.
I was glad to have more insight into Joan's marriage to Alfred. He was a big personality and she felt taken care of, but he also used her stardom to burnish his brand (or his soda) and his finances were not at all as solid as she, nor anyone, would have believed. It's lovely to hear that the first to offer their condolences were ex-husbands Doug, Franchot and Phillip. And it's another one of those strokes of luck (although, really, a testament to her value to any company because of her integrity) that after the funeral she was offered a $60,000 position on the board of Pepsi. "What I would have done without Pepsi-Cola, I do not know. I just wanted to work and work, to be so tired that when I fell into bed I couldn't think, and I could just sleep."
The author takes a dim view of Christina, as do I. Personally, I don't think Christina would have written what she did had she known what it would become. But like Joan, whose work ethic she truly admired, she has appeared loath to repudiate her own fans or complicated infamy. The author uses Myrna Loy's recollections of Christina as a destructive force in a touring "Barefoot in the Park" to show why Christina is not to be trusted.
Joan, meanwhile, remained a good friend to people, especially William Haines and his husband, whom Joan comforted when Bill died. And after she withdrew from public life, she still entertained the few she could trust, and acted like the woman next door rather than a star. She continued to be generous to many. And she regretted that she had been so concerned with projecting herself and the role she thought she was supposed to play that she hadn't gotten to know the feelings of many of her loved ones. I really enjoyed getting to know Joan through this book and hear many of her late in life reflections.

[Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent bio from Donald Spoto. He has become about my favorite writer when it comes to the silver screen bio. One of the things I love about this book is the way he blows away the lies from "Mommie Dearest", a book that will definitely send the author to hell (and I don't even believe in hell!) by actually using dates and information from intimates of Ms. Crawford--he covers her career, her romances, and her introspective self--and spends more time on the end of her life than any book I have ever read. He gets rid of so many lies, and misleading facts and gossip that he returns the shine to this amazing star, taking away the stench of her adopted child's lies and misrepresentations and returning Joan to the heavens where she belongs--a wonderful actress, a flawed human being with incredible strength. A nice picture selection as well including some photos I have never seen which is uncommon for me.

[Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

i wanted to joke that the title refers to the fact that donald spoto was clearly possessed by the spirit of joan crawford when he wrote this -- but i don't think even joan would be so unbelievably biased.

the joan worship is super grating, but it's not a crime; i would probably have rolled my eyes and given this a basic 3 stars if not for the sections on christina & mommie dearest. i kind of can't believe that no editor read through these sections and suggested maybe not calling an abuse victim a bitter liar? and this was published in 2010! we knew better by then!

there are also a bunch of weird cheap shots at other contemporary female stars throughout the book that are just so unnecessary (why are we getting mentions of greta garbo being overpaid in like three different chapters) and it's just kind of a cherry on top of an already bad book

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another VERY sympathetic portrait of Crawford. A quick, mostly enjoyable, read. The writing (and/or editing) seems careless at times. One example: Here's a quote from Crawford on page 28, "I have made a careful study of every single still picture ever shot of me. I wanted these stills to teach me what not to do on the screen. I scrutinized the grin on my face, my hair-do, my posture, my makeup, the size of my feet." That's an interesting quote. But not so interesting that it should pop up again on page 120, presented as if we'd never read it before. Speaking of careless -- there are also a few crappy low-rez images in the photo section. Joan would not approve.

[Herb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful read, one of the best biographies ever written about Joan Crawford. A real page-turner! Deena, please try to read this. You'll love it, too!

[Brian Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me want to watch every single one of her films! Great biography.

[Alex Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are few celebrities that have inspired as much literature and debate as Joan Crawford.

The star of dozens of films from the 1920's through the late 60's, Crawford has attracted her fair share of supporters and detractors over the years. Most famously, her adopted daughter Christina published a tell-all novel in 1978 titled Mommie Dearest. The book (and its so-bad-its-good film adaptation starring Faye Dunaway) characterized Crawford as a haughty, alcoholic woman who beat her children and had them doing garden chores in the middle of the night.

More than 30 years after her passing, authors are still writing books about Crawford. At this point, writing a Crawford bio is almost a rite of passage for a professional biography writer. Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford, written by noted biographer and admitted Crawford superfan Donald Spoto, claims to be a thorough and exhaustive "definitive biography", but inevitably comes up short.

Possessed takes readers through a relatively brief overview of Crawford's life and rise to superstardom over the course of several decades, interspersed with a brief synopsis of each film she starred in, as well as anecdotes and accounts from her co-stars and friends. The book also seeks to reverse the perception of Christina's accusations toward her mother through an overview of Mommie Dearest and quotes from Joan's other children and friends who defended her when the book was released.

Spoto, who corresponded with Crawford as a young man in the 1960's, presents a decent biography which moves at a fast clip through most of the major incidents in her life. Attention is paid to her upbringing in Texas as an undereducated, neglected girl who took control of her destiny, and wound up in Hollywood as a young woman. Brief accounts are also made about some of her failed marriages and affairs to men like Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Clark Gable and Franchot Tone. Finally, new documents are showcased regarding an average day in Crawford's schedule, and the various charities she supported over the course of her life.

Spoto's writing style takes on a dry and almost-clinical tone for the majority of the book. Each film is briefly discussed in chronological order, with one or two quotes from Crawford and other members of the production regarding their thoughts on it. There's not much in the way of new or exciting revelations about her character, as Spoto either refuses to elaborate or outright dismisses several rumors about her early childhood and young adult years. The main theme of the book (that Crawford was possessed by demons during her career) is not really supported by the narrative. It actually creates a better case that Crawford was so determined to succeed that nothing - not her money-leeching brother, not her failed relationships, not the "boys club" attitude at MGM - could hinder her from succeeding in a world heavily stacked against her. Spoto also spends a number of paragraphs psychoanalyzing Crawford and her various roles - he claims that she chose negative or hardened female roles because of her upbringing, or awkwardly equates several of her roles with the notion that they, like Crawford, were possessed by demons.

What I personally wanted to see was some new or heretofore unrevealed information about Crawford (especially from a book that claims it's the "definitive biography" on Crawford's life). Was there any truth to the rumor that Crawford starred in a peepshow vignette in 1923 to pay for her trip to Chicago? Her first "marriage" to James Welton? Her rumored lesbian romances with a bevy of female stars? A thorough examination of the "feud" between Crawford and Bette Davis, and whether it was real or fabricated? The claim that two diehard fans took turns watching over her during the last months of her life? The rumor that she died from liver cancer? The book never tackles any of this, and the information we do get (especially from the much-touted records from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts) seems inconsequential at best. Some of the more scandalous elements of her life - her promiscuity, the accusations that she was beaten by second husband Franchot Tone, her obsession with cleanliness affecting her life - are also whitewashed to the point of irrelevance.

For the most part, Spoto does a fair job balancing Crawford's highs and lows, while dismissing urban legends and facts that have never been truly supported. Late in the book, he tackles the controversy over "Mommie Dearest" with the same tact that others who have tried to dispel Joan's negative perception have fallen into. He glosses over a wide variety of issues (and Crawford's character traits later in life) and relies upon quotes from her children and a select few sources (cited oft prior to the book's release) about what a great person she was. Without Crawford's direct comment on the matter, and with such a small pool of sources to draw from, it is incredibly likely that no one will ever know the full extent of what is truth or fiction.

Possessed includes a selection of photographs taken over the course of Crawford's life and career, but many of these photos are grainy, washed-out or incredibly hard to make out. One of the included photographs (showing director Lewis Milestone overseeing Crawford's performance on the set of Rain) is so blurry that there is no detail whatsoever. In addition, several of the photos are credited to a website, www.legendaryjoancrawford.com, that has a luminous selection of stills and photographs from most of her early films. Spoto could have selected better photographs - did he not source them from high-resolution stills, or contact the production companies to see if they had any of the original negatives in stock?

The book is also littered with minor spelling/punctuation errors and some strange mistakes - a quote about Crawford changing her appearance and stance based on how she looked in publicity photographs is quoted two separate times, less than a hundred pages apart, and it is presented as an entirely new revelation in both cases. Another instance in the fourth chapter has Crawford's character in Our Blushing Brides, Geraldine, referred to with two different spellings ("Gerry/Jerry") in the same paragraph. Several quotes and an entire essay on an unreleased Crawford film called "Great Day" are also attributed to unaffiliated parties or are sourced wholesale from fansites that were never credited. This, along with the strange choice of pictures, is sloppy work from a publisher and writer that is capable of much higher-quality content than this.

Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford works as a decent primer to Crawford's life and her roles for those unfamiliar with her work. Anyone else with a modicum of prior knowledge about her would do well to seek out other, better biographies about Crawford, or just look up the information online from fansites.

[Carla Mayor · Rating 1 out of 5]

First of all, if you took out all the name dropping that reads more like a guest list than a story and the boring recount of every single movie she ever did, you’d have maybe two chapters. It’s clear that the author is a huge fan, but if I wanted to read movie summaries or even see a list of all of her movies, I’d go to IMDb. Thankfully for me, I listened to this in audiobook format so I could skip 30-second increments to pass over some of his critical acclaim. I learned more about Joan from the reviews of the book on Goodreads than I did from reading the book itself.

Secondly, I think an abuse victim would know better what happened to her than a fawning fan who wasn’t there. He writes how manipulative Joan was in the book, how controlling she could be, how particular she was about her clean home, and how she drank too much. But he never connects that to the idea that a person like that could beat their kids. And it’s great that the twins didn’t see that, but there was a big age gap between them and the older two kids. While I was certainly never abusive, there’s also an age gap like that in my family. My younger kids definitely got the better version of me and wouldn’t remember anything about their siblings’ childhoods either. He also never mentions how Christopher backed up Christina’s claims or that other eyewitnesses, most of which were Joan’s friends, backed it up. Writing a book about your own life and getting some dates wrong from your childhood doesn’t make one a liar either. And he cites Christina in other parts of his book. If she’s lying, why use anything she says to back up the things he agrees with?

He glosses over or completely misrepresents her well-known interactions with other stars as well. Garbo and Davis are two good examples of this.

All in all, this book was painfully boring. This was my first book by this author and it’ll most likely be my last.

[Pogo Dragon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading about early Hollywood. I've read a few biographies of people from this milieu as well as books about the 'feud' between Crawford and Bette Davis.

One thing that is clear about this book is that the author is A Fan of Crawford. He wrote to her when he was an 11 year old boy and got a personal reply, from there I think the whole tone of the book is set. As you can see from at least one of the passages I've highlighted he doesn't totally ignore some of the more problematic aspects of Crawford's personality. He talks quite a lot about her issues around alcohol for instance. However, a lot of the most problematic stuff (I've neither read nor seen 'Mommie Dearest') he waves away. Citing evidence of friends of Crawford who visited often and never saw any abusive treatment of the children as evidence that Mommie Dearest is a wildly exaggerated hatchet job. Talking of a pre-teen child as though he were a fully fledged adult and responsible for all his choices is another way in which the problematic parenting is smoothed over.

In sum, I read the book, I enjoyed the book and I think it offers a very good insight into 'small town girl who becomes a Star', but I was also conscious of salting it with liberal pinches at regular intervals.

That said, Joan Crawford as shown in these pages is a fascinating person. I am just very aware of the need here to balance the reading with other points of view.

[Tim Pinckney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty much everything I knew about Joan Crawford comes from multiple viewings of The Women and Mommie Dearest. This book fills in all the missing facts and details. It goes through every film Ms. Crawford made in her long career - the good, the bad and the horrendous. It's is quite detailed and a lot of it is fascinating.

And it should be noted that she is extraordinarily good in The Women.

A few of the take aways from this book are that she truly was a gifted actress. She started in silent pictures and went through all the changes in the film industry. It is not a surprise that Stephen Sondheim's anthem of survival was inspired by Joan Crawford's career. (This review just gets gayer by the minute, doesn't it? You're welcome.) It is also clear that she could be a truly devoted and considerate friend.

You also learn that about 92% of Mommie Dearest is hooey. It sounds like Christina was a problem child, with a failed acting career that was jealous of her mother's massive success. It seems that Joan was a disciplinarian, but not to the degree seen in the very silly and over the top campy, film version of the book.

I was given the book as a gift and I'm glad I picked it up.

[Elbrozzie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The job of any biographer is to give us a convincing portrait of the person they are writing about. Spoto does not do that. He writes that Crawford is best understood as a complex of opposing qualities, but that's a cop-out. He doesn't reconcile those opposing qualities. Worse, he provides information about Crawford that is contradictory. For example, what a gift she had for friendship and what a lonely person she was. At the end of this bio, Spoto writes that Crawford died of cancer and only relied on aspirin to relieve her symptoms because she was a Christian Scientist. Considering that he did not bother to report that Crawford had become a Christian Scientist, this information comes as a complete surprise. Sloppy! Sloppy!

The book isn't all bad. Spoto offers interesting tidbits about Joan's marriages, her absorption in her roles, her image and how she redefined the celebrity status of "the star;" but, overall, if you want a definitive bio of Crawford, you'll need to wait until someone else writes one.