Jan Spears

If you want a story that actually fits the "feud" theme, I would recommend Buster Keaton and his first-wife Natalie Talmadge (one of the silent film era Talmadges).

I think what really hurt Gilbert was his first full-length talking picture, His Glorious Night (1929), which had been insufficiently modified from a silent movie script. In particular, the love scenes were in the overemphatic manner of a silent movie and provoked laughter and derision from 1929 audiences. (These scenes were famously parodied in 1952's Singin' in the Rain.) I've always admired Garbo for insisting that Gilbert be cast opposite her in Queen Christina (1933) despite Mayer's vehement objections. (Garbo had cast approval so she could overrule Mayer.) As Garbo and Gilbert's fellow silent movie star Colleen Moore noted, "Garbo had a long memory. She remembered all the times he had helped her career."

Her father-in-law, Doug Sr., also referred to her affectionately as "Billie".

An excellent summary of the 'Ladies of the Grand Guignol' (a.k.a. 'Horror Hags) genre: http://www.terrortrap.com/specialfeatures/grandguignol/

I don't think there's a big enough audience for it (the way there is for Crawford-Davis) but they could do Davis and Miriam Hopkins: https://classicmoviesdigest.blogspot.com/2010/06/bette-vs-miriam-bout-of-divas-meow.html More on Davis-Hopkins (most relevant content is at the end): http://www.altfg.com/film/miriam-hopkins/

Carrying this over from the 'Hagsploitation' thread: "(And there are also a few others confused in there, too, like Katherine Hepburn offering not much help to a book proposal aiming to set the record straight after Mommie Dearest, but expressing her sympathies with Joan.)" You can find the letters to Joan Crawford here, including the Katharine Hepburn letter to one of Crawford's younger daughters in 1979: http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/m.htm In Hepburn's defense, I don't think she and Crawford were ever anything more than passing acquaintances during that period when their respective stays at MGM overlapped (1940-1943) so I doubt she had much in the way of anecdotes with which to rebut Christina Crawford's story. If you read the 1995 letter Hepburn wrote, though, she did say that she never bought Christina's story. Barbara Stanwyck's letter to the daughter (also from 1979) is a great read and shows that Stanwyck held Crawford in high esteem.

I re-rewatched Flamingo Road tonight. Crawford's speech in the carnival tent gets me every time. When Zachary Scott's Field(ing) ask Crawford's character, Lane, what she did in the carnival, at first Lane responds with a list of the tacky roles she performed. But then she slips into a more meaningful key and says: "But most of the time I was just a little tired and dirty . . . Sick of moldy tents and one-night stands and greasy food . . . Sick of having people look at me like I was cheap." Crawford really sells that speech. You have to wonder how much of it was acting and how much it was Crawford drawing on Lucille who lived in the back of a laundry as a young girl and Billie the showgirl who travelled from New York to Chicago to Detroit in her pre-MGM days.

Carrying this over from the 'And the Winner Is . . .' thread . . . CARACAS1914 wrote: "While it seems like a minor point, but was George Cukor really such a good friend of Joan's up to the 60's?" Actually, yes -- they remained fast friends until Crawford's death. Cukor read a tribute to Crawford at the Beverly Hills memorial service, which was also printed in the New York Times: http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/cukortribute.htm You can also read examples of their correspondence during the 70s which illustrate their friendship: http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/letters.htm (Look for January 14, 1970, October 15, 1973, and August 13, 1974.) On the whole, I'm enjoying Feud immensely. But one thing I think it's doing poorly is portraying Crawford as being virtually friendless. That's not true. Crawford remained fast friends with Myrna Loy, Roz Russell and Barbara Stanwyck until her last breath. Younger actresses like Ann Blyth and Diane Baker also spoke warmly about her even after she died, when it was easy to take pot shots at Crawford. enoughcats wrote: "The chapter in that book titled "The Muse" has breathtaking photos of Joan Crawford. She was so much more than later photographs showed." I own that book and the photos are indeed stunning. Of all of Hurrell's subjects in the 20s/30s/40s, Crawford holds the record for the most distinct sittings -- 33, each one comprised of hundreds of photographs. (Norma Shearer comes in right behind her with 32 sittings.) In fact, when Hurrell was under contract to MGM, Crawford would wait until the male stars (who didn't usually want to spend a lot of time being photographed) finished their sittings with Hurrell to go play golf or tennis and Crawford would use the remaining sitting time to have Hurrell take more photos of her. You can call that abnormal vanity. But you can also call it self-discipline.

Al Steele did leave Crawford a fair amount of money when he died in 1959. But, the estate taxes ate up a large part of the inheritance. Also, Crawford and Steele had undertaken the very expensive renovation of the New York apartment. All of this left Crawford with a major cash flow problem in 1959. In part, that's why she took the supporting part (her first in over 30 years) in The Best of Everything. Regarding Garbo and her drift into retirement, one other factor that may have played into her thinking was how Mayer brought in Greer Garson and Hedy Lamarr in the late-1930s. In essence, Mayer divided the Garbo persona in two and hired two different actresses to fill each half: Garson to do the heavy lifting on the "prestige" parts that Garbo had been doing and Lamarr to fill the glamorous, "exotic" European role that had been a big part of Garbo's image in the 20s and 30s.

I don't know that there was one particular thing that spooked Garbo into permanent retirement. Ostensibly, she was still on the roster at MGM during the war years. And she did commit to a project with the producer Walter Wanger in 1948. (The movie was never made due to financing problems.) My guess is she came to the realization that her era had come to an end and that she would never enjoy again the kind of lavish treatment she had enjoyed as one of MGM's foremost stars from the mid-20s to the early-40s. As for Shearer, I suspect that life at the studio was a whole lot less fun after Thalberg died at the age of 37 in 1936. She had to contend with LB Mayer and the studio brass, who tried to cheat her out of the percentages -- worth millions of dollars -- Thalberg had earned from the pictures he had produced and to which Shearer was entitled as his widow. (Shearer got Mayer & co. to back down when she went to Louella Parsons with the story.) Also, many of the people Shearer had known at MGM from its inception were gone: Thalberg was dead. His trusted confidante Paul Bern was either a suicide or a murder victim. Bern's wife, Jean Harlow, had died unexpectedly and senselessly. Thalberg and Shearer's friend (and Garbo's former paramour) John Gilbert had died in 1936 with his career in a shambles. Shearer's friend Ramon Novarro was let go in 1935. In addition to Garbo, many of Shearer's contemporaries who had helped build the studio into what it was had transitioned or were transitioning out: Marion Davies, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, Roz Russell. For all intents and purposes, it was a different studio by the early 40s. Finally, Shearer wasn't as astute in choosing vehicles for herself as Thalberg had been. She turned down Susan and God (1940) because she didn't want to play the mother of a teenaged daughter. (The part went to Joan Crawford, who wisecracked that, "I'd play Wally Beery's grandmother if it's a good part!") She also turned down Mrs. Miniver and Now, Voyager (both 1942); the former winning Greer Garson a Best Actress statue and the latter gaining Bette Davis a Best Actress nomination. So, Shearer may have realized that she wouldn't necessarily have been the best steward of her own career absent Thalberg's help. Regarding Gable and Garson, the 1945 movie they appeared in together -- Adventure (which, interestingly, also featured Joan Blondell) -- was a big success but, by all accounts, Gable and Garson didn't enjoy working together.

Here is a very good featurette about the making of Straight Jacket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rz1lpIcBGs Diane Baker, who starred opposite Crawford in Straight Jacket (and 1959's The Best of Everything), makes some particularly perceptive comments about Crawford. Crawford was definitely too old for the part and this was the point where Crawford started playing characters who were meant to be younger than her actual age at the time. But, she peels paint in her scenes with Sydney Greenstreet. And she sure is believable in the nighttime carnival scenes with Zachary Scott. It's hard to know in those scenes where Lane begins and Lucille/Billie the showgirl ends.

Love this photo of Joan and Norma together again at an event in 1959: http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/59joannormawaldhwood.htm During that period (1925-1942) when their careers overlapped at MGM, Joan and Norma were rarely photographed together -- the publicity photos for The Women being the big exception. But by 1959, passions had cooled and, while they would never be friends, I like to think that a certain conviviality had developed between these two survivors of the hothouse atmosphere that was MGM during its Golden Age. (The man seated to Crawford and Shearer's left was Jerry Wald, who was a great friend to Crawford and produced some of her greatest films at Warner Brothers -- Mildred Pierce (1945), Humoresque (1946), Possessed (1947), Flamingo Road (1949) and The Damned Don't Cry (1950). It was Wald who convinced Crawford to take the supporting part of 'Amanda Farrow' in his 1959 production of The Best of Everything to help her take her mind off of Al Steele's recent death and because she needed the money.)

I rewatched Flamingo Road (1949) with Crawford, Sydney Greenstreet and Zachary Scott (Crawford's co-star in Mildred Pierce) this weekend. I love the first 45 minutes or so as the movie exerts a steadily building pressure. But I find that the pressure begins to evaporate at the halfway mark as not enough time is devoted to Crawford and Greenstreet going toe-to-toe. Instead, there's too much of Crawford's romance with David Brian and too much of political corruption involving Greenstreet and Brian. It's as if the director/producer/writer couldn't make up their minds as to what kind of picture they were making in the second half. Was it a film noir? A "women's picture"? A message picture about political corruption? That being said, Crawford is great during the first half, especially when she meets Scott at night in her carnival tent and she gives her speech about being tired of life as a carnival dancer.

Garbo was able to sail above the fray almost from the moment she stepped on the MGM lot. She hit in a big way almost immediately and wasn't the least bit intimidated by Mayer, Thalberg and the rest of the front office. For all that Crawford felt that Shearer had an unfair advantage because of her marriage, Shearer -- as caracas1914 noted correctly -- had had to overcome some notable physical deficiencies including a cast in one of her eyes that gave her the appearance of being cross-eyed. Also, as Irene Mayer noted, Shearer didn't always get the roles she wanted. Even with The Divorcee, Thalberg had originally turned down his wife's request for the part because he didn't think she was sexy enough (!!!). (I can only imagine what his home life was like after he told Shearer that.) The only reason it worked out in Shearer's favor is that her fellow MGM star and friend, Ramon Novarro, had started working with George Hurrell in 1929 and he showed Shearer the extraordinary photos Hurrell had taken of him. That was how Shearer hit on the idea to work with Hurrell to change her image enough to convince Thalberg to give her the part. Greer Garson's emergence at MGM in the early 1940s as the top dramatic actress at the studio surely infuriated Crawford. But I have a hard time seeing Crawford in Garson parts like Madame Curie. And I doubt that Crawford's fans really wanted to see Crawford discovering radium!!!

There's some justification for her feeling that way as, during the 1932-37 period, her movies were (somewhat) more modestly-budgeted than those of Garbo and Shearer but earned more for the studio than those of the other two did . Crawford had to have felt that she was subsidizing the lavish prestige pictures of Garbo and Shearer. But, as Irene Mayer alluded to in her memoir, Crawford chose to ignore the fact that Garbo and Shearer were big earners for the studio in the period 1925-1932 and had earned those prestige pictures. (And, truthfully, I think Garbo hit her peak during the 1932-37 period with Queen Christina (1933), Anna Karenina (1935) and Camille (1936). So, I'm not unhappy that Crawford may have helped pay for those pictures.)

I've always thought that the "feud" between Crawford and Shearer was a one-sided one emanating entirely from Crawford's direction. I do think the Shearer-Thalberg marriage bothered Crawford as, in her view, it put her at a competitive disadvantage. But Crawford and Shearer were very different performers and personalities and I really don't see many instances where one could have substituted in the repertory of the other. During that portion of the silent era when Crawford and Shearer's careers at MGM overlapped (1925-29), Shearer was playing "nice girls" and Crawford hit it big in 1928 playing the flapper in Our Dancing Daughters. During the sound era, they largely went their own ways with Crawford playing shop girls on the rise and Shearer increasingly moving into "prestige" pictures based on historical or literary characters (i.e. Romeo & Juliet, Marie Antoinette). The one instance when Crawford probably did have a legitimate complaint about the Shearer-Thalberg marriage and the effect it had on the studio involved the 1930 movie, The Divorcee. It was a much sought-after role and it might have gone to Crawford, whose image at the point would have made for a good fit for the part. But Shearer wanted the role and, with the aid of now-legendary photographer George Hurrell, transformed her image in a number of highly sexual photos that convinced Thalberg to give his wife the part. The rest is history: The Divorcee was a big, big hit in 1930 and Norma Shearer won the Best Actress Oscar for the part. Adding insult to the injury of Shearer's Oscar win was the fact that the studio never secured an Oscar nomination for Crawford in the entire time she was at MGM. This during a time when the industry nominated Shearer 6 times and Garbo 4 times. Still, LB Mayer's daughter, Irene, had the best take on the Crawford-Shearer "feud" in her memoirs: "Joan tried harder than anyone else had ever tried. With increasing recognition, her determination became almost tangible. She blamed her overwhelming sense of rivalry on the preferred position Norma Shearer came to hold as Irving's wife, ignoring the fact that even Norma didn't always get the roles she wanted. She also overlooked the fact that Norma had been with the company since early Mission Road and had traveled a long way. The truth was that, as the ever-growing group of MGM actresses reached stardom, each found the competition intense. Every one of them had come up through the ranks except Garbo; she began as a star."

I continue to be impressed at the use of very real Hollywood events in the dialogue to add period flavor to the episodes. For instance, when Joan Blondell (Kathy Bates) was recounting how MGM pushed Crawford out in 1943 after 18+ years with the studio, she referenced Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. Of course, Crawford, Garbo and Shearer were the great troika at MGM from the mid-1920s to the late-1930s. (Shearer was at the founding of the studio in 1924 and Crawford and Garbo joined the following year.) As late at 1939, they were still having big hits for the studio -- Crawford and Shearer with The Women and Greta Garbo with Ninotchka (for which Garbo was Oscar-nominated.) In the early 40s, though, they started to run cold. Garbo's primary audience was in Europe and that was lost to her with the start of World War II. She and Louis B. Mayer agreed to wait out the war before filming the final movie under her contract but, before the war ended, they agreed by mutual consent to void her contract. Shearer, without her husband Irving Thalberg (legendary chief-of-production at MGM who died in 1936) to guide her career and at odds with Mayer, opted to retire in 1942. Crawford hung on until 1943 but, by then, the studio had lost interest in her and the best dramatic scripts were going to Greer Garson. (You saw a little bit of that competition with the scene in Mayer's office where Crawford requested the lead in Madame Curie, which went to Garson and who received an Oscar nomination for the part.) So, that little bit of narrative recited by Bates/Blondell was all true and accurate. I also liked how the show introduced an (unseen) Louella Parsons, who was Hedda Hopper's great rival for dominance as the top gossip columnist in Hollywood. And how Crawford effortlessly played them off against one another to forward her own agenda. So many great performances in this series. I can see Lange and Sarandon getting nominated for Emmy's for Best Actress and Bates, Davis and Hoffman getting nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

Al Steele didn't own Pepsi. He was Chairman of the Board and CEO. When he died in 1959, he left an estate of some value to Crawford. But, estate taxes diminished the value of the estate to almost nothing. Also, he and Crawford had undertaken a very expensive renovation of a New York apartment at the time of his death. So, she really was cash poor in the run-up to the making of Baby Jane. She took a part in the 1959 movie The Best of Everything for the money. It was a supporting part and it was seen by Crawford and the rest of Hollywood as a comedown after 30 years of playing leads. (The irony of it was that she stole the movie from the ostensible leads.) She didn't make another feature for three years after that. Pepsi was also trying to get rid of her during this time and she had to fight like hell to stay involved with the company.

One other piece of dialogue I liked was when the crew member, on the first day of shooting Baby Jane, enthused about Crawford's face and how, "you could film it from any angle." This was taken directly from legendary director George Cukor's tribute to Crawford after she died (see the first full paragraph): http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/cukortribute.htm

Agreed. If Lange and Sarandon tried to imitate Crawford and Davis too closely, they would resemble Crawford and Davis impersonators too much and the camp factor would overwhelm the underlying story the mini-series is trying to tell. Overall, I loved it. I thought Lange had the best scene when she was in her bedroom and she started recounting the slights (real and imagined) that she felt she had endured from Davis in particular and Hollywood more generally. You really saw that, beneath the formidable exterior, Crawford was a bundle of insecurities. I thought the period aspect was great and the producers/writers really did their homework with all the references. For instance, the dialogue about "Franchot" (Franchot Tone, who was an MGM star during the 1930s) was all true. Both women wanted to marry him in the 30s and Crawford did. (He was her second husband after Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) When Hedda Hopper snidely mentioned to Crawford that she knew she was selling her "William Haines custom furniture", she was referring to Billy Haines who was Crawford's fellow star at MGM during the silent movie and early talkie eras. His career petered out in the early 30s (while Crawford's continued to soar) not least because he refused to give up his life partner, Jimmie Shields, to contract a phony, studio-arranged marriage. (Crawford once said of Haines and Shields that, "they are the happiest married couple in Hollywood.") Haines reinvented himself as a successful interior decorator and one of his first clients was Crawford, which is how Hopper knew which dig to make with Crawford. It was little touches of dialogue like these that really added to the period flavor. Finally, loved Judy Davis as Hedda Hopper, especially the scene in which she none-too-subtly blackmailed Crawford into giving her the snippy quote about Marilyn Monroe.

I tracked down Sarah Bradford's 1996 bio of Elizabeth II for the exact quotes about Elizabeth and Margaret's education that I referenced earlier in this thread. Here's what she wrote: "The education of women was not considered important in royal and aristocratic circles, where it was regarded merely as a necessary tool for those unfortunates who would have to earn their living and irrelevant to the needs of girls whose destiny was marriage. Queen Mary seems to have been the only member of the family who was concerned that the girls should be well-educated. She remonstrated with her daughter-in-law over the fact that the children's education was confined to their governess. 'I don't know what she meant,' the Duchess of York told a friend. 'After all I and my sisters only had governesses and we all married well -- one of us very well . . ." (Bradford, p. 40) And this about Queen Mary's role in Elizabeth and Margaret's education: "To [governess] Crawfie's curriculum, which included the singing, dancing, music and drawing considered accomplishments suited to the education of a young lady . . . , Queen Mary insisted on adding subjects that she considered essential for royal children. 'Her Majesty felt that genealogies, historical and dynastic, were . . . for these children, really important. The Queen also suggested that the children should be taught the physical geography of the Dominions and India . . ." (Bradford, pp. 40-41) Bradford also includes this tidbit about Queen Mary and her sense of duty: "[Queen Mary's lady-in-waiting] Lady Airlie went so far as to say that her [Queen Mary's] sense of the duty of a monarch was so strong that she approved of Catherine the Great 'on the grounds that she loved her kingdom to the extent that she would go to any lengths for it, even commit terrible crimes'." (Bradford, p. 42]

I do think there's something to the idea that events overtook everyone. The abdication crisis came as a huge shock to the Royal Family not least to Princess Elizabeth's father, who considered himself completely inadequate to the task of being King. (As it turned out, he became a very good King and history has been kind to him.) Nazism continued to gain steam in the late-30s and then the War broke out in 1939. After the War ended in 1945, that might have been the ideal time to focus on Elizabeth's education but then she got engaged in 1946, married in 1947 and gave birth to Prince Charles in 1948 and Princess Anne in 1950. Her father's health also started to decline around this time. So, at least in part, Elizabeth's education -- or its lack -- may have been a victim of history. (I don't know what the excuse would be for Margaret, though.)

Princess Victoria (Vicky) was very well-educated during the 1840s and 1850s. Her letters to Queen Victoria have been published and they reveal just how intelligent and educated she really was. The educations of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret were a major point of contention between Queen Mary and her daughter-in-law, the future Queen Elizabeth. Queen Mary didn't hesitate to point out what she felt were the sizeable gaps in the two princesses' educations. For her part, Queen Elizabeth professed to be puzzled by Queen Mary's criticisms. She said something to the effect that neither she nor any of her sisters had had much in the way of formal education and that we all married well -- one of us very well. I'm not sure when Queen Elizabeth said this -- it may have been before the abdication crisis. But her attitude reveals just how little value she (and her husband) put on any kind of extensive education for young girls.

Episode 25 - One Love . . . Two Angels (Part 2) - 05/07/80 Note: This episode picks up exactly where the first part left off. Synopsis: Kelly survives a murder attempt but she and Kris discover they have both fallen for the same man (Patrick Duffy). Meanwhile, Tiffany and Bosley are forced to solve the case and keep the team from fracturing completely. I hate this episode with an absolute passion and I hate it because the core story -- two Angels fighting over some guy like they are in junior high school -- directly contradicts the show's central premise as established over four seasons. That premise depicts three articulate, capable female professionals working together to achieve a common purpose, and doing so as friends whose friendships with one another trump everything else in their lives. By having Kelly and Kris fighting over some guy they have only known for no more than a few weeks (based on the progression of the story), they come across as juvenile idiots. When Bosley lays into the Patrick Duffy character for breaking up the team and destroying a friendship, I can't help but think that he should be saying this to Kelly and Kris. Infuriating! I also hate how Robert Reed's character murders Patrick Duffy's character during the episode. It's a cheat because it helps Kelly and Kris avoid having to choose between their friendship and this guy. (That Duffy's character comes across as an emotional five-year-old only contributes to the head scratching notion of why Kelly and Kris would have fallen in love with him in the first place.) The person who really comes across well in this episode is Tiffany, who actually remembers that she is a professionally working detective. She is the one who does the legwork on this case and figures out that the whole thing has been a con all along. Ironic that Shelley was let go prior to the filming of this episode and yet this is one of Shelley's (and Tiffany's) best episodes in Season 4. Aaron Spelling and company treated Shelley very poorly with her dismissal but at least she went out on a high note. The only other mitigating factor in this episode is Robert Reed's performance. We're so used to seeing him as Mike Brady that it's jarring to see him as such a cold-blooded villain. Grade: F (as a Charlie's Angels episode. If you ask me what the "Jump the Shark" moment was for this show, I would say this episode -- and not 'Exit Stage Left . . . Kate Jackson' or Shelley and Tanya Roberts joining.) Grade: A (as Tiffany's farewell episode) Grade: A (for Robert Reed's performance. He was so much more than Mike Brady.)

Episode 24 - One Love . . . Two Angels (Part 1) - 04/30/80 Synopsis: A lawyer contacts Kelly and suggests that she may be the long-lost daughter of a wealthy man. Prior to his murder, the man embraces Kelly as his daughter Margaret but Kelly engages the Angels and Bosley to find out the truth. For all intents and purposes, this is another Kelly solo episode. With the exception of a brief team scene at the beginning of the episode, Kris, Tiffany and Bosley don't reappear until the 37 minute mark. The three of them have a team scene together and then Shelley has a scene with Jaclyn and Cheryl has a scene with guest star Patrick Duffy (as the lawyer.) While delving into Kelly's background as an orphan is interesting, this episode might as well be from a Kelly spin-off series. One super irritating thing about this episode is when Kelly says that Kris, Tiffany, Bosley and Charlie are the only family she has. I'm sure Sabrina and Jill would love to have heard that! It's weird to think that guest star Patrick Duffy was filming on an ABC show when the 'Who Shot JR?' episode on Dallas was aired right around this time. Interesting appearances: In addition to Duffy, veteran film star Ray Milland plays Kelly's potential father. Robert Reed, fresh off the legendarily bad Brady Bunch variety show, appears as a villain. Grade: B+ (as a Kelly origin story) Grade: C (as a Charlie's Angels episode. The rest of the team is even less useful in this than they were in An Angel's Trail.)