Joan Crawford, drunk on Pepsi and wearing a turban, talks about Bette Davis and her Oscar triumph

Joan Crawford in that interview is younger than Cate Blanchett, Robin Wright, Reese Witherspoon, and Jennifer Lopez to name a few, but looks like she could play their mother.

R1 Everyone looked older back then, that's why.

[quote] I was home in bed with a 104° temperature.

Obviously she was prone to exaggeration.

She's so warm, gracious, generous and unassuming.

I love how she just created her own accent

Her eyes are so intense.

She was mortified when that frau interviewer called Gable short.

[quote] Joan Crawford in that interview is younger than Blanchett, Robin Wright, Reese Witherspoon, and Jennifer Lopez

Check your math. She was born in 1904 so she was 64 years old in that interview.

She looks decades younger than Madonna!

There is no way Gable was 6'3".

Did Gable bone the old gal?

Yea Joanie is exaggerating a bit there. Never knew she had such a high opinion of Audrey

Joan at the black jack table with that cig.

I was hoping the interviewer would have asked Ms Crawford about the double digit number of abortions she’d had.

R1, if you take the botox, filler and un-do all of the surgery most celebrity women have today, they would look their age. The booze and smokes didn't help, to be sure, but she looks about her age there without enhancements.

Gable was 6'1/2".

Typically it's rounded up.

Let me tell you about that 1/2".

"Off-screen, Lombard was much loved for her unpretentious personality and well known for her earthy sense of humor. She loved playing pranks during filming, and once joked about husband Gable (widely acknowledged the "King of Hollywood"), "If his pee-pee was one inch shorter, they'd be calling him the Queen of Hollywood"."

Joan Crawford really was the ultimate Movie Star. She played and looked the part, and lived like one too.

I say the same about Elizabeth Taylor too. If celebrity perfumes were a thing during Crawfords day, she would have definitely had a perfume with her name on it. She would've made serious $$$$$$ too.

To bad that wasn't the case.

Joan Crawford and Elizabeth Taylor are definitely two of the greatest Movie Stars of the 20th century. They epitomized what it was to be one. If your going to be a Film Star, those are the standards you want to live up to. Just in your own personal individual way of course.

She takes credit for putting Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? together. And then only offers praise for Davis.

R19, In interviews, Bette credited Joan for having brought the book to the attention of Robert Aldrich.

Joan got it financed and even let Bette take the showy role.

R21, Can you even imagine Joan as Baby Jane?

My god I LOVE her in that interview! So intense and engaged. Interesting that she singled out Margaret Sullavan first, an actress and woman as unlike herself as could be.

I wonder what she though of the interviewer calling her a personality rather than an actress? No one took movie stardom more seriously than Joan, not only as a star but also as a fan herself of the movies. She speaks of all the other stars in awe.

Yes, she just needed to relax and let herself go.

R24: Its called swilling a few tumblers of gin.

We need to bring back the matching turban.

At the beginning Joan tries to talk to the interviewer but she's turned facing the camera blankly smiling waiting for them set up another take lol. The rudeness and janky start of these old interviews always gets me.

R10 Gable and Crawford made several films together and had an on and off affair for a few years.

Interesting about her trying to make Ethan Frome with Bette Davis in the 40's. The movie didn't end up getting made until 1993.

She was certainly more polite about Ms Davis than Bette was about her!

Oh thank god. When I first clicked on the video, I was worried it was going to be another lame parody by Drew Droege or some other unfunny queen.

She really is sloshed in this interview.

[quote] She's so warm, gracious, generous and unassuming.

You must be as drunk as Joan is in that interview.

[quote]Yes, she just needed to relax and let herself go.

I think she began to "let herself go" upon being retired by Pepsi in 1973.

Don't fuck with me r34.

Didn't Joan publicly shame Liz for her trashy behavior unbecoming of a true star?

R36, Yes, but she later publicly apologized.

R28, Crawford's sexual congress with Gable lasted for 20 years, not "a few years."

It probably was the healthiest, least bullshit, most honest relationship in her life.

That's not exactly a turban on Joan's head as it seems to perch on the back of her crown rather than wrap around her forehead. How in the world did she manage to keep it from falling off, especially in her drunken state?

That's a turban, hon.

I think Joan and Clark did nine films together, they had great chemistry. These are a few off the top of my head, all are very entertaining.

Dance Fools, Dance

Possessed (1931)

Chained

Dancing Lady (a hoot!)

Strange Cargo (last film together and quite good).

Joan is so great here. The more I watch these old interviews, the more I realize how perfect Lange was in “Feud.”

She wore this same garish outfit when she was interviewed by David Frost. She didn’t appear to be drunk in that interview, but she had the same phony, Stepford wife demeanor.

I'm jealous she had Franchot.

I think this was more nerves than drink. She didn't really like doing live interviews which is why there are so few as compared to Davis.

R29. Charlton Heston wanted to make a film of Ethsn Frome, but the Wharton estate would never sell him the rights.

R44, Bette had him too.

She had him? I thought she just wanted him.

If the gas station was close to home and the last place he was seen, then it sounds like the husband. I wonder if they (particularly the husband) had money problems.

Franchot was Joan's second husband. Bette wanted him, which in part explains her bitterness towards Joan.

Thanks for posting this interview. Although not a big fan of Crawford, I thought she looked beautiful here, especially for early 60's. She comes across as immensely watchable, from the accent, to the turquoise earrings and pink outfit. I think her demeanor was very strict and well-practiced, very dominating. I think Mommie Dearest was pretty spot-on with added campiness, though, for entertainment. Interesting interview. She sure had the "It Factor".

I did like her in Baby Jane and a few others.

There's a big age difference in the two female characters in ETHAN FROME, and I assume Joan saw herself as the pretty teenaged Mattie, not the old and haggard Zenobia, who IIRC is about 40. Joan was way too old fto play Mattie by the time she got to Warner's. No wonder the project never got off the ground, Jack Warner wasn't that stupid.

[quote] Crawford said one of the main reasons she signed with Warner Brothers was because she wanted to play the character "Mattie" in a proposed 1944 film version of Edith Wharton's novel Ethan Frome (1911).

Joan loved Smirnoff and Pepsi. What a fucking lush.

[quote]I think she began to "let herself go" upon being retired by Pepsi in 1973.

She'd been letting herself so since she turned her first trick.

I think R36 means Joan's cruel comments about Marilyn Monroe and her skintight gold dress (Marilyn turned up to collect an award in 1953 and stole the show).

Part of Joan's quote:

"But they don’t like to see it flaunted in their faces. . . The publicity has gone too far. She is making the mistake of believing her publicity. Someone should make her see the light. She should be told that the public likes provocative feminine personalities; but it also likes to know that underneath it all, the actresses are ladies.. "

talk about believing publicity.

R56 is right. Not 1960 as portrayed in Ryan Murphy's Feud.

R56, Joan apologizes for comments once made about Elizabeth Taylor at 7:30.

R45 are you kidding? There are tons of Joan live interviews. If it seems like there are a dearth of them, well, remember she died over a decade before Davis did and was basically in seclusion the last several years of her life.

Every town where Joan went for Pepsi there was a local media circus, with her zooming her way through a dozen interviews every hour or so. It was all meticulously organized so she could do maximum media in minimum time. In this article she complains about 19 interviews taking 3 hours instead of 1 1/2...and those were just the interviews for that day.

She was all piss & vinegar. Much love 💕

Which year could she have won for "Sudden Fear"? She was terrific in that, opposite her ugly leading man.

Someone posted a quote about when she found out who had been cast, something like "This is no way to treat A QUEEN!"

R62 . . .

ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Nominees (1953)

Shirley Booth

Come Back, Little Sheba

Julie Harris

The Member of the Wedding

Bette Davis

The Star

Susan Hayward

With a Song in My Heart

Joan Crawford

Sudden Fear

Was there ever a feud between Elizabeth Taylor and Joan?

R63 I mean which year could she have feasibly won in? 1947 or 1948 look comparatively weak. I realise there was no beating Shirley.

R62. Joan lost to Shirley Booth, recreating her heart-breaking Lola in “Come Back, Little Sheba.” (Ironically, Davis was approached about doing the film but said no one could match Booth in the role—she was right). No one could beat Booth that year—not Davis for “The Star” (supposedly based on Crawford), nor Julie Harris, also recreating her stage triumph as Frankie Addams nor Susan Hayward lip-syncing to Jane Froman (she was much better as Lillian Roth three years later).

Booth’s win contradicts Rex Reed’s silly assertion that the Oscar should not go to someone “visiting” film. Booth’s performance is one of the best ever on film.

R66 I agree, Shirley was unbeatable and Bette was a good gal to not pinch the role. That's why I asked which other year she could have won in.

Shirley fukin "Hazel" Booth won over Joan Crawford?! WTF??

I'd say it's more toque than turban, r40.

Joan is wearing a turban. Here's a good toque example.

Joan could have won over Jane Wyman

Vanity Fair described this as a fur toque.

Well its not. A torque has a brim.

Susie said she'd rather have gotten her Oscar for I'll Cry Tomorrow than I Want to Live, r66.

A rather forceful brim I imagine, r73.

R72, Looks like Lucy's pubes.

Thank you for sharing, r76, but I really wish Gary had talked you out of it.

R74 Susie is nuts. Her work in I Want to Live! is so fucking good.