Why didn’t Joan Crawford have biological babies?

Too many abortions can ruin your womb.

OP. Joan had multiple miscarriages, before giving up and adopting children.

Joan should've listened to her body, it was trying to tell her something.

OP, I'm an Elder Gay (57) who was incredulous when I was younger that my parents' generation did not discuss certain topics. Joan Crawford was of a generation between my parents' and grandparents' generation. They never discussed personal subjects like the one one you asked, and they would never address it in public or private (except...maybe...between the couple's themselves involved in the decision, their doctor, or their closest intimate).

My generation had the talk show.

Your generation has social media. Everything is out there.

Still, there may be some topics that are none of our business and should be kept private.

I'm one who thinks Joan Crawford got shafted by her daughter, because the daughter was cut out of the will. Joan Crawford was a career woman in an incredibly sexist world. Her career spanned several decades and she was a good actress. In such a world, a woman couldn't have it all. Most actresses in Hollywood then had to give up their careers or put them on hold if they wanted a family. Joan Crawford didn't. Was she a lousy parent? Probably. Was she the monster her daughter made her into? I don't think so.

R3 How did you know I’m young? Haha

Tons of people were sterile back in the day due to childhood diseases, STDs and botched abortions

She was too Ottoman* for pregnancy, thus suffered multiple complications in each carriage, and always lost the unborn before term.

She generally didn't take care of herself, either. Big drinker. Didn't think she needed sleep, for whatever reason--she was wrong, obviously.

*No, I don't mean Turkish, for you simpletons out there. Ottoman as in needy, greedy, multi-disabled, with a universal personality, prone to imitate others, unoriginal and usually schizophrenic.

She had too many abortions. It made her unable to get pregnant and STAY pregnant.

R4/OP...just a wild guess.

I reconnected with a high school friend recently. He's straight and married. When I asked a mutual friend about him a few years ago, he replied "Oh, so and so is married. They don't have children. I never asked him why." I thought, "why on earth would you?"

I know straight couple who do not have children. One couple told me (unbidden) that they didn't want them. For others, it may be because it's a painful subject. It's their business. Not mine.

Why I was a younger, closeted man, I remember nosy not so nice acquaintances (frenemies nowadays?) would ask, "Why don't you have a girlfriend?" It was intrusive and made me feel little. When I came out, I knew it was stupid to feel the way that I did, but it still does not lessen the privacy of the topic.

Abortion does not make it harder to sustain pregnancy in the future.

R9 if you really were a doctor you would know that back alley abortions frequently lead to difficulties getting conceiving and carrying to term.

I don't think Granny Crawford's abortions were done in prestigious, five-star hospitals though. Yes, and probably STDs did shut down her oven too.

No fetus could have survived 9 months in her evil womb.

Myrna Loy and Jane Russell were both infertile due to back alley abortions.

She had something like 10 abortions before she realised that having children could be used to advance her career, OP.

Children would only have gotten in the way of Joan's erotic lifestyle.

[quote]Emerine had casually mentioned that Billie should look her up in Chicago sometime, though... That was enough for Billie to take a train there, only to discover that Emerine was out of town. In desperation Billie crashed agent/producer Ernie Young's office (Emerine had mentioned his name in passing); he hired her on the spot, then sent her off to do revues in Oklahoma City and at Detroit's Oriole Terrace. (Some of these shows apparently involved "entertaining" traveling businessmen after-hours. According to Jazz Baby, Joan was at one point arrested for prostitution during this time.)

She had a rough life, and a back-alley abortion (or 10) for someone who struggled as hard as she did would be expected.

Her innerds were even more fucked up than her acting.

Clark Gable had to show Joan how to keep herself clean...down there. She had crabs more than once and in her early Hollywood days had bad personal hygiene. Clark hated dirty women and she took it to heart.

OMG. Of course, she’d been traumatized by wire hangers!

That's an odd thing for Gable to have done. He was notorious for his awful bad breath. His leading ladies detested having to do kissing scenes with him. He may not have properly cleaned his dentures.

He was also known for his smelly smegma. Billy Haines hired Gable once back when he was new to Hollywood and hustling. Haines hired him again but sent over a bar of expensive perfumed French soap with a note telling him to use to clean out his foreskin before coming over. Haines was BFF with George Cukor and Gable was afraid Haines had told the story to Cukor (he had). It was one of several reasons Gable didn't want to work with him on Gone With the Wind. Cukor, of course, was replaced as GWTW's director by one of Gable's closest friends, Victor Fleming, partly to make Gable happy. But Cukor's leaving GWTW was a long complicated story with many different reasons in play, although basically it was because Cukor and Selznick had different ideas about telling the story and the longer Cukor shot, the more behind schedule and over budget he was going.

I was pregnant seven times with Franchot - I lost them all. Fuck you, OP!

She had more babies pulled out of her than a burning orphanage.

off topic, but i know of a straight couple, (the guy is hot and a bodybuilder) whose wife had genital herpes (don't ask me how i know)... and i wonder how did they/she get pregnant? i mean doesn't the guy have to worry about getting it as well each time they have sex?

so? did he and she time their screwing when she was fertile AND she wasn't having a outbreak and hope screwing alot without protection during this small window did the trick? i guess it did because they did have a child... the only other way i can think of is him shooting a load in a cup and she being inseminated this way?...

There is still no cure for Herpes but there are now several anti-viral drugs that can usually keep it well under control and prevent outbreaks.

[quote] Abortion does not make it harder to sustain pregnancy in the future.

If said abortion involves a coat hanger, I imagine it does.

Maybe it’s true that she hated hangers. It’s sadistic but funny actually.

I love Joan, but I think she was in the streets early on and had to get multiple "procedures" which left her unable to carry a child to term.

[R9] You are dead wrong. Abortion involves the scraping of the uterine wall in the process of eliminating the fetus, which can result in the build up of scar tissue. If there's too much scar tissue then the fertilized egg can't attach itself to the uterus in future, wanted pregnancies.

For what it's worth, Joan claimed to have become infertile by "picking up something" from raw milk (a per CONVERSATIONS WITH JOAN CRAWFORD). As for those supposed 7 pregnancies with Franchot (referenced in the ridiculous MOMMIE DEAREST) there is no evidence for a single one of them - it was never announced that Joan was pregnant and there's no record of her being hospitalized during the years of her marriage to him.

[R18] Assuming that you're joking because Joan was notorious for her fastidious personal hygiene.

No r28, I read it in one of the biographies written about her.

[quote] Abortion involves the scraping of the uterine wall in the process of eliminating the fetus

Only the D&E method involves this, and it’s primarily done in second trimester abortions. First trimester abortions (which account for 90% of abortions) are done either by suction or medication (abortion pill).

Got a link for that, r6? Can’t find “ottoman” with that definition through google or Merriam-Webster

A penised person cannot get pregnant.

R29 I don't believe that Gable story either. If it's true then we'd have to believe that Doug Jr. didn't object to a smelly, lousy cooch but Gable did?

Mary Pickford wouldn't have a odiferous whore in her home!

You can say a lot about Joan, but you can't question her hygiene.

[Quote]Clark Gable had to show Joan how to keep herself clean...down there.

This is absolute horse shit. Where did you read this, Darwin Porter?

Darwin Porter writes fantasy.

Joan was a known carrier of crabs. Heard about this way before Darwin Porter.

[quote] Your generation has social media. Everything is out there.

To a degree. People post stuff like wedding photos & baby pictures. They don't really reveal stuff like infidelity, debt, & multiple miscarriages. As soon as people get a whiff of something real, then the poster asks that people "respect our privacy at this difficult time."

[quote] One couple told me (unbidden)

What a cool word, "unbidden." I'm going to have to use it.

[quote]r2 Joan should've listened to her body, it was trying to tell her something.

Yeah ... that ONE of her was enough.

[R36] Cite your source. I've read almost everything about Joan and have never come across such nonsense. Joan was already a star by the time she worked with Gable - she was a woman of the world and was daily groomed by a professional studio staff to ready her for the cameras. Gross horseshit is what it is.

Joan had crabs Mr. Sister @ r40. Does this hit close to home...crab boy?

Her cunt broke.

It happens.

The crabs comment was a joke, I think.

Ridiculous.

R31, it may not be listed in the dictionary because that version of "Ottoman" is somewhat of a colloquial term.

R28, r30 is correct. Abortion seldom involves any kind of abrasive or repetitive uterine scraping.

Abortion doesn't make it harder to get or stay pregnant in the future. There is no evidence that it does, just retarded speculation and goofy theories about botched procedures done with crude, rudimentary tools.

Same with STDs. One can get pregnant and carry to term, no matter what type or assortment of STDs they might have. There's no known STD that has contraceptive properties, contrary to what you might have otherwise heard.

Before she became famous Joan was a whore.Multiple abortions and the effects of STDs left her uterus a very nasty place.

Joan may have caught crabs at one time (who hasn't?), but she had been with MGM for 5 years before Gable came to town. I'm sure the studio taught her how to keep clean, if she had a problem.

My friend's grandma was known as the "fix it lady" back in the day. She'd come up with concoction to deal with unwanted pregnancies. God only know what was in it, but I'm assuming that Joan, before she was "Joan" probably went to more than one "fix it lady' to take care of a problem. God only know what those potions were doing to the insides of women.

Many women of that time were rendered infertile because of botched illegal abortions. And of course many of them bled to death or got infections from unclean instruments. It was horrific.

She was sterile because she couldn't stop washing her pussy.

[R50] Yes that's true. While I get it that abortions are a relatively safe procedure today, that was not true in the past - otherwise the legacy of women dying from "back alley" abortions wouldn't exist. The uterus was often damaged and scarred, sometimes making it difficult or impossible for the woman to conceive in the future. No need to color this with veiled pro-abortion rhetoric about how safe and wholesome it all is.

Stanwyck was another one who adopted so I wouldn't doubt she had a number of back alley abortions as well early in her career. She ended up not speaking to her adopted son at the end of her life. I read an anecdote about someone being outside Louis B's office after he had had a big row with Norma. She came storming out of his office yelling something to the effect of I've fucked too many men here to let this stop me! I wish I could have been able to say that in a place I worked.

Some things even a fetus won't do.