Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford was not an actress; she was a movie star. The distinction is a crucial one -- she infrequently appeared in superior films, and her work was rarely distinguished regardless of the material, yet she enjoyed one of the most successful and longest-lived careers in cinema history. Glamorous and over the top, stardom was seemingly Crawford's birthright -- everything about her, from her rags-to-riches story to her constant struggles to remain in the spotlight, made her ideal fodder for the Hollywood myth factory; even in death she remained a high-profile figure, thanks ...