Joan Crawford's Oscar Dress
Could anybody do drama like Joan Crawford?
There's not showing up, and then there's Joan's Oscar win. Her gown was ready, but we'll never know what she would have looked like, because when Joan Crawford received her Oscar for Mildred Pierce, it was bedside and Joan was resplendent in her pajamas and dressing coat as the statuette was presented to her in front of the flashbulbs of the press.
Because of course, not every winner has shown up to accept their prize, though in the Best Actress category it hasn't happened since Katharine Hepburn's final win in 1982. [She famously declared that she would never attend the Oscars, and was forced to keep that promise because she was stubbornly attached to it, and only appeared once to pay tribute to Lawrence Weingarten in 1974, when he received the Irving J. Thalberg Award.]
But Joan Crawford's first Oscar nomination for Mildred Pierce in 1945 had come after months of publicity and showy tactics to garner the nod; to say nothing of the years spent yearning for the appreciation and applause that her fellow actresses received. Mildred Pierce is a great film and a great performance from Joan, it seems inconceivable that she wouldn't have won the Oscar for it, but if you knew just how much Joan wanted the admiration and the awards, you'd know how much it meant to her.
And unfortunately, the pressure got to her in the run up to the ceremony in 1946.
By the evening of the Oscars, she'd worked herself into such a state that she was now fully ill.. So when her name was called, Michael Curtiz, her director, accepted on her behalf.
In a post-win interview with Louella Parsons for the April 1946 issue of Photoplay, Joan recalled how her nerves got the best of her in the days leading up to the Oscars.
"It kept running through my mind like a broken record, ‘Can I win? Can I win?’ My nerves began to rip into shreds. And then I would think, ‘Do all of them go through this—or is it just me?’ As the time drew near I noticed I was unable to eat, I was losing weight by the pounds. Sixteen pounds, to be exact. And then, five days before the night, I caught the flu. In my run-down condition, it was bound to hit me harder than if I had been in my usual health. My doctor put me to bed immediately—but even then I supposed I would be able to make the Awards whether I won—or lost."
We've heard it time and time again, "we accept the award on their behalf" and that's usually the last time any of us ever hear of an actor or actress winning an award they weren't present to accept. But not Joan. We know exactly what happened next, because the press showed up to her house to watch Michael Curtiz deliver the statue to her.
I think there's a side of Hollywood history that's very much wink wink sure Joan was sick but you can't argue that the woman knew how to stage drama and earn press. It might not be as flashy as the Moonlight-La La Land mix up or David Niven's streaker, but it's still a fun bit of Oscar lore.
She'd tell Modern Screen in 1947 that she was happy with the way her win played out: "I would have cried all the way up to get it, and all the way back, and made a fool of myself.”
Never change, Joan.
Comments
Post a Comment