“No working relationship can be based on the premise, 'Me — woman; you — man!' It’s 'we two' trying to make a job better.
When I’m working on a picture, if a scene goes wrong in rehearsal I say, 'There’s something wrong with this — it goes wrong right here.'
It happened not long ago, and Robert Gist, the director, said, 'I know, I feel it every time when you get to that one line.'
'Let’s try it again,' I said, 'and let me try it as it comes to me that the character, Marion, would do it.'
[…]
Where the tact came in was in my referring to the character, and what the script earlier SHE would do. I didn’t say 'This is what a woman would do,' or, 'This is what I, Joan Crawford, think should be done.”