Did Joan Crawford commit suicide?

It's basically just the neighbor who thought that, but she was one of the only people who had regular contact with Joan so she'd know.

Only Joan has the answer, “for reasons which are well known to them.”

I don't know her.

Narcissists don’t commit suicide.

Lonely ones do, R4. Especially if they're in pain. Mental or otherwise..

No they don’t, r5.

According to the article at R1 "The author also has two upcoming projects based on Mommie Dearest, including a two-act musical adaptation of the book, and the final installment in her memoir series."

Has this woman EVER accomplished anything on her own, anything that didn't pertain to her mother? Crawford was a crap mom, but Tina's a chunky little ghoul who seemingly only lives to write and talk about her mommie dearest. She's spent her entire life doing that, and it's creepy and depressing.

Yes they do, R6.

I think that Al Steele may have alluded to some mental imbalance....right before he took that nasty fall.....

Joan wasn’t an attractive woman. I have never seen her look beautiful in any film or still photograph.

[quote]I think that Al Steele may have alluded to some mental imbalance....right before he took that nasty fall.....

As you well know, Lucille and I were not friends, but husbands do fall down.

She was 30s-40s attractive, R10.

She was good looking, but no where near attractive enough to be proclaimed as the "most attractive actress" as often claimed by her fans. I can think of multiple actresses from her era that were better looking, tbh.

R10 I agree. She wasn't a good looking woman. No one could accuse her of being a beauty. But she was a very glamourous woman and she had a certain style. I can see men being attracted to those things.

She always seemed too hard to me.

I UNDERSTAND!

R11 You ARE wicked, aren't you?

Joan seemed to give off both glamorous, and cheap good time slut vibes at the same time. I think this is what endeared her to both men, and women.

She looked great here.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[R10] have to disagree. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In her youth and until her 40’s she was beautiful. Of all the old movie stars I find Joan stands the test of time better than a lot of them. Watch the end of Humoresque (bit of a nod to Garbo Queen Christina) and some of the close up shots, absolutely stunning. Like a piece of sculpture. She also has a beautiful profile in any photo. Equal to Garbo. Try and get past the Mommie Dearest stuff.

Agreed, R19.

Bette Davis laughed when she heard of Joan's passing.

I love them both but that was very mean of Ms. Davis.

Hard-faced, extremely masculine-looking, and don't get me started on the evil she radiates. A truly ugly woman.

Suicide is plausible to me. She was isolated, declining physically, drinking. A few days before her death, she had even given away her dog. Whether or not someone today thinks she had been a great beauty in her prime, she had that reputation, and now she she very unhappy with what she saw in the mirror. She didn't even want to venture out for fear of unflattering photos appearing in papers. She was constantly watching television, probably seeing beautiful young actresses on talk shows or ads for new movies, seeing the people who were getting what once had been hers. She felt the world had passed her by.

If you're living with thoughts such as those, and positive reinforcement from people who care about you is only sporadic if it's there at all, it's easy to get out of balance, to feel death is better than this hollow non-life.

R6, why do you say narcissists don't commit suicide? I am genuinely asking.

I can’t believe she wasn’t even 70 when she died. That’s really sad. I always thought she was much older for some reason.

When a narcissist does attempt suicide, the method chosen is likely to be one of high lethality. The "cry for help"-type of self-harm with a low chance of lethality (for example, superficial wrist cutting or taking a few dozen Valium when sure to be discovered) is what is rare in that personality. The most common trigger for the narcissist's lethal attempt is feelings of shame, vilification, humiliation.

That Christina gave Joan a lot of pain and stress over the years.

I believe she was aware that Christina was going write a book of lies and that was the final straw for poor Joan.

Thankfully, Joan lives on with her wonderful films and interviews and most people accept that Christina was just a spoilt ungrateful bitch and don't believe the lies in that evil book.

She might have. If she had pancreatic cancer, I can totally understand why.

Then again, people like Joan…

Okay r10 and r13. I guess Hollywood and the viewing public were mistaken and Joan Crawford was actually a plain or ugly woman. Look at photo of her in her prime and tell me that's not an exceptional woman. I don't know what fucked up standard you're using if you think Joan Crawford was a dog.

[quote]Narcissists don’t commit suicide.

Is that like a rule you've just made up?

Narcissists believe they're the most important thing in the world. And although they often suffer from depression, they very rarely engage in any other type of self-harm than addictive behaviour. At least that's what I've read in psychological magazines.

0% of people who commit suicide are narcissists. How can anyone think that this is a logical assessment?

Someone knows nothing about something called research. Narcissism as a syndrome overlaps with borderline personality disorder. Both attempt and successfully commit suicide.

Highly stressed alcoholic hysterics are a set up for a cardiovascular event- which she had. There are many times in her life when the suicide bell could be rung. She was a very unstable and abusive woman, damaged is probably the best word. That did not stop, probably propelled, he enormous drive and will. But you can only fight substance abuse for so long. Liz Smith would tell what she knew to be true about her subjects after they passed away, not while alive. Liz said Cristina’s book was accurate and all Hollywood knew it. I believed her. I also had a friend I worked with in the 70s who knew her. He would go to her apt and drink and play cards- everything was covered in plastic, she could be funny, but she was pretty obviously an imperious and angry woman who drank a lot.

R33: you talk out of your ass.

R34 makes sense.

After some of the (few) insightful comments in the Naomi Judd thread, it's not hard to believe anyone with some celebrity doesn't have issues with how they are perceived (especially when combined with already very shaky mental health).

R23, the irony is that she looked very good without makeup as an older woman, but she didn't look like *Joan Crawford* without it, so she layered it on. When friends showed up to her apartment and she wasn't wearing any makeup, they were surprised how youthful she looked. But she didn't look like the movie star she still wanted to look like.

Joan stopped drinking two years before she died. She took a nasty fall, lost consciousness, and when she woke up on the floor she had two black eyes, a cut on her forehead and her face was banged up pretty good. She was so shaken by that she quit drinking immediately.

She died from pancreatic cancer.

r25 she was 73.

A candid photo of Joan in the 30s. She was lovely as a young woman.

Joan had always been a heavy smoker and drinker until those final years, but she was rather progressive in some ways: she understood skincare (particularly as a pale, freckled redhead), personal fitness (she jogged and even lifted weights), and moderate eating. She was extremely knowledgeable about clothes and dressing for her petite body. It's a shame she didn't reinvent a post-movie star persona as a hipper, classier, more elegant NYC woman.

Our Aunt Lucille was Joan's neighbor in the fifth avenue apartment.

She really knew hot to live it up while she was alive.

Truly astonishing to track where this thread started to where it is now. Joan died in her 60s, so sad! Bzzz wrong 73. Joan committed suicide. Bzzz wrong pancreatic cancer. Joan drank herself to death, waaah! Bzzz wrong died a teetotaler.

Marisa Berenson should have played her in the movie. They could have avoided all the camp Faye brought to it.

If she decided to spare herself the final stages of pancreatic cancer, IMHO she was completely within her rights. Pancreatic cancer is horrible, even today it's deadly and even the most extreme treatments can only buy a person a little time. Most people who suffer from the disease die within months of the diagnosis, and they waste away and suffer terrible pain.

So maybe Nature did Joan a solid and sent a heart attack along before the painful end came, maybe Joan decided that Nature wasn't doing a good enough job and took matters into her own hands. We'll never know which.

Liz Smith was an an alcoholic herself and her occupation was a gossip columnist. I would not believe much of what she or any other columnists had to say about anyone. It is there job to make up stories.

Plenty of good friends of Joan like Henry Fonda, James Stewart & Barbara Stanwyck who all visited Joan on a regular basis never saw any evidence of child abuse. Christina saw a way to make money at Joans expense and after she wasn't around to defend herself.

You cunts are getting on my nerves.

Laughing at all the haters (probably just one person's multiple accounts) claiming Joan was ugly when she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world in the 1930s. And thankfully we have proof of that with all her great films from that era like Grand Hotel, Possessed, and Letty Lynton.

R47 Myrna Loy is another one who was a lifelong friend of Joan and claimed Christina's stories were all bunk. Myrna was very fair-minded and progressive so if she felt there was any truth in the stories, she would have been one of the first to say so. And what's more telling is that Myrna actually worked alongside Christina on a play. She said it was the most horrible experience of her life and Christina was a deeply entitled and troubled woman who was horrible to everyone around her and a complete liar. You can look at the link which has excerpts from her autobiography about her experience.

Others who supported Joan included her first husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who to his dying day and in his autobiography, claimed Joan was never a violent woman. That when she was angry, she just closed herself off from other people and never hit anyone or even threw things.

Another thing to remember is that Joan's twin daughters supported her to the very end and same with her grandson. Christina is a verified liar because she claimed the twins weren't really twins and they sued and won the case. They also wrote letters to Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck after Joan's death because they were planning on writing their own book to counter Christina's and wanted these two stars to chip in with anecdotes. I don't know why the twins never ended up writing or completing the book, but the letters have been posted online where both Katharine and Barbara agree that Christina is a horrible liar.

At the bottom of this page are letters where Barbara, Katharine, and Marlene Dietrich talk about Joan after her passing. Katharine said she didn't believe in the stories about Joan and that her kids were spoiled.

Marlene's words are priceless

[italic]"I am shocked that Paramount bought that filthy book, "MOMMIE Dearest," and made that frightful bitch who write it rich (and that rhymes). I did not know Joan Crawford, but nobody deserves that kind of slaughter. Too bad she did not leave her where she found her, so that she could now spit her poison in the slums of some big city. I hate her with a passion, and I know the public will.

Fay Dunaway should be ashamed of herself, but then she probably needed the money to pay her liquor bills."[/italic]

Dietrich would say that though, wouldn't she, because she was an abusive mother as well.

In hindsight it's ridiculous how important Joan took herself and her career, and life.

Marlene's comment about Faye is just a reminder that no true Joan fan would ever like Faye let alone that abominable bastardization of Joan that Faye played in that godawful film.

You nellies calling me a liar?

Helen Hayes and her chump son were frauds. Bitch was probably just jealous that she was already playing grandmother roles in the 50s whereas Joan was still playing the mother of small children and shacking up with men decades younger than her.

No one knows what really goes on between family members behind closed doors, not even close friends. And just because one child isn't abused doesn't mean another isn't. Children in the same family can have vastly different experiences.

Just looking at photos of Crawford, those wide, psychotic eyes, it's not hard to believe she could be a monster.

R58/R59 is clearly one of the Christina Crawford simps and not even trying to hide it.

R53 Marlene was not abusive. Neglectful yes but never abusive.

Dietrich forced an aggressive lesbian friend onto her straight teenaged daughter among a lot of others thing Maria Riva chronicles in her book. Dietrich was also a raging narc.

Hon, neglect is a form of abuse.

Marlene was self absorbed. Tough most people in the entertainment industry are.

Didn't Judy Garland say that Marlene gave her a recording of one of Marlene's performances once and it was just the sound of applause?

R65 Judy was a pretty great raconteur. Here she is telling the story of Marlene's record.

BTW, the Marlene story starts at 6:24 there.

I think Joan has my favorite last words of anyone.

There was a nurse in the apartment who was taking care of Joan. On the last day, or very shortly before, things seemed pretty dire. It was assumed that Joan, while still alive, may never be conscious again. The nurse was overcome, and in a chair across the room from Joan started to pray.

I guess Joan did wake up, and heard the nurse praying. She said "Don't you DARE ask GOD to help ME!" and she died shortly after.

Says a lot about Joan, and her life.

R68 I think the actual nurse said that story was made-up by Christina. Considering that she was a Christian scientist by the end, I can't see Joan making a comment like that anyway. What really happened was a few days earlier, Joan had asked for people not to pray for her.

R69 it's one of those stories- I think it was Dick Cavett who used to say "I don't know if this is true, but it ought to be true."

Fay Dunaway should be ashamed of herself, but then she probably needed the money to pay her liquor bills."

Fuck you r71...Mommie Dearest is ICONIC and so is Dunaways portrayal of Crawford

"Have a happy day! Love, Joan"