Who Were Those Bitches?
JOAN CRAWFORD started her career as a dancing girl and an extra in MGM silent films. Her breakthrough came with the film Our Dancing Daughters where her flapper-party girl spirit got rave reviews and made audiences root for her. Her real name was Lucille LaSeur, but L.B. Mayer hated the name, and a contest was launched to find a movie star name for their new discovery. A housewife in Texas won the contest with the name “Joan Crawford” and a star was born.
Crawford was always conscious of the image she portrayed as, and most of her decisions, from acting roles to wardrobe choices to escorts and husbands, were carefully contrived to maintain her position as a bonafide Movie Star. Her marriage to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. the heir-apparent of Hollywood Royalty Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, cemented her position as a H-wood leading lady in every possible way.
In Grand Hotel, Crawford got to strut her stuff with the likes of John Barrymore and Greta Garbo. She held her own with the Hollywood heavyweights and, despite never actually being on the same soundstage with Garbo (to her great disappointment), Crawford rose to the occasion.
But Crawford lived in the shadows of Norma Shearer, the top female on the MGM roster.
When she read the script for The Women, starring Shearer and an all-female cast, she pushed L.B. Mayer to give her the role of Crystal, the Bitch role in the script. L.B. was worried that the public would rebel, as they had become accustomed to seeing Crawford in plucky shop-girls and sweet ingénue-type roles. The film also starred Rosalind Russell and the reigning Queen of MGM, Norma Shearer. When Mayer balked at giving Crawford, his second-biggest female star, the role of the home-wrecking hussy, Crawford snapped, “Norma Shearer can’t lose her husband to just anyone!” Mayer agreed, and Crawford finally played her first Bitch role. It catapulted her to the number 1 spot at MGM.
From that point on, Crawford excelled in performing strong, domineering, powerful female roles. She was repeatedly named as one of the top 10 box office draws from 1930-1936. Then, due largely to the weaker and weaker scripts she was being offered, the tide turned and she, along with Katherine Hepburn, was named Box Office Poison. With newcomers getting first stab at all the best scripts, she finally left MGM and signed with Warner Brothers. She rejected script after script, knowing that the project she picked would dictate her return to prominence. She finally accepted one – a film that had already been rejected by Davis: Mildred Pierce. It was the perfect choice, and she won her first Oscar.
The next few years saw Crawford in some of the finest roles of her career, and made her the mainstay of the film noir movement. But changing tastes and lagging sales finally made Warner break their contract with her. She rebounded in the independent thriller, Sudden Fear, gaining another Oscar nomination, but the magic was definitely behind her. In 1960, she found a book that piqued her interest. It had a perfect role for her, and another amazing role that only one other actress in America could play.
BETTE DAVIS arrived in Hollywood in 1930. By then, Joan Crawford was already a star, having made the transition from silent films to talkies.
Davis signed with Universal Pictures and made several forgettable flicks before being talked into a relationship with Warner Brothers, where she started landing roles that would bring her broad acclaim. In Of Human Bondage, she finally found the kind of role she relished for the rest of her career: The Bitch. Her next film, Dangerous, garnered her her first Oscar. She claimed it was out of pity. She won her second Oscar with her portrayal of a headstrong Southern Belle in Jezebel.
Her battles with the studio became the stuff of legend. She set the bar for decent women’s roles and fought the studio game like a man. She insisted that she was as big of a box office draw as any of the studio’s male stars, and demanded they treat her accordingly.
Warner Brothers played along, but only as long as her films brought in the cash. When her box-office appeal started to sag in the late 1940’s, Warner Brothers unceremoniously released her from her contract and she found herself freelancing. She bounced back in 1950 with the classic All About Eve. It was the role of a lifetime for Davis, and the movie garnered more Oscar nominations than any other film in history until Titanic broke the record. Davis was nominated for Best Actress, but that third Oscar eluded her one more time.
The 50’s saw Davis working, but in weaker and weaker films. She even did some Broadway, and in fact she was backstage in her dressing room after a performance of Night of the Iguana when there was a knock at the door – and Joan Crawford entered the room.
Both actresses needed a hit that would restore their Hollywood clout. The project Crawford pitched at Davis that night was Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
The battles that happened during the filming have become the stuff of camp Hollywood legend.
The film surprised all by becoming a giant international hit. It established a whole new genre for maturing Hollywood actresses: the crazy lady in the horror movie.
Crawford was married four times, the last time being to Pepsi-Cola executive Alfred Steele. She appeared in 86 films, and was nominated for Best Actress three times. Her last feature film was Trog a bad B-movie horror flick, in 1970. She gently retreated from public life, appearing only to accept the occasional tribute. She died in 1977. After her death, her adopted daughter Christina wrote the book, Mommie Dearest, which painted a nasty and cruel picture of life with Crawford. It was widely denounced in Hollywood, but that didn’t stop it from becoming a movie.
Davis was married four times as well. Unlike Crawford, however, she was still alive when her estranged daughter B.D. wrote My Mother’s Keeper, detailing life with an erratic and alcoholic Bette. Davis kept working right until the end, with 107 films to her credit, and wracked up nine Best Actress nominations. Her last movie was Wicked Stepmother in 1989. She died later that year.
HEDDA HOPPER started in Hollywood as an actress. She appeared in 134 films, both silent and sound, before switching gears and becoming the Czarina of Hollywood gossip. In 1936, she got her first radio show, and in 1938, she became the ultimate Hollywood columnist. Hopper knew a lot about feuds, because she herself had a lifelong rivalry with the only other Hollywood columnist with any power, Louella Parsons. She died in 1966.