#ClassicFilmReading: Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford by Donald Spoto

 Honestly, Joan Crawford feels like she was a myth. 

We don't even know her exact birthdate, for Chrissakes, but this woman built herself up from the lowest of low class upbringings into a Hollywood titan. I'm often of the opinion that Joan never gets the credit she deserves; she's among the most talented actresses of Old Hollywood but you hardly hear her name in conversation with Katharine, Audrey, Barbara or Bette. 

In Possessed, Donald Spoto reveals in the first few pages that he is a huge admirer of Joan's. He wrote her a fan letter in the '50s and takes a fawning approach to the star. Of the child abuse claims, he's dismissive in the sense that he pokes holes in Christina and Christopher's stories and seems to gloss over any suggestion that perhaps Joan really was her portrayal in Mommie Dearest. 

I do love how thorough this biography is in painting Joan through every decade of her career. In her early life, we see how Lucille Le Sueur pulls herself up by her dancing shoes. In the '20s, she's the Charleston-dancing flapper who parlays that skill into an MGM contract. In the '30s, she becomes the vamp. In the '40s, she settles into her flare for melodramatic roles and this sustains her into the '50s. By the '60s, she's a scream queen and business lady (I'm a Pepsi gal, too, I get it); and then, in the '70s, in the twilight of her life, she's left to reflect on her legacy. 

You never lose sight of who Joan was through this book; Donald does an excellent job in weaving everything together quite astutely. While it isn't as thorough as a 1,000-page tome on Barbara Stanwyck (Victoria, I'm begging: please release Volume 2 already!) it does paint a vibrant portrait of Joan Crawford's life as she lived it. Perhaps someday Joan'll get the 1,000-page treatment. I want to know everything about her. I want to know exactly what her houses looked like; I want to know what she watched on television, couped up in her New York apartment; I want to know what she thought of her contemporaries and what she thought of the next generations. 

This reads almost like a beach read, in a sense. You learn just enough about Joan and what drove her. It would make a good companion piece to the 'You Must Remember This' podcast's Six Degrees of Joan Crawford summer series.

Have you read Possessed? What were your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!