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Joan Crawford was born Lucille LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas in 1905 (later, she would claim she was born in 1908). Her father left her mother before she was born, and her mother re-married while she was a toddler, and for a while she grew up thinking that man was her father. Her mother divorced and re-married yet again before she was 16, moving to Kansas City. Lucille (now called Billie Cassin) started dancing as a chorus girl in Chicago, Detroit and New York City. In 1925, she went to Hollywood, and after her first movie, Pretty Ladies (where she was billed as Lucille Le Sueur), a movie magazine held a contest to pick her new name and the winning entry was Joan Crawford. Crawford had more determination to be a star than any other actress, before or since. One of her early major roles was as the love interest in Harry Langdon's Tramp, Tramp, Tramp in 1926, and by 1928 she had appeared in 24 movies, some small parts and some important ones. In 1928, she had the starring role in Our Dancing Daughters, and that made her a major star. In 1931, she made Laughing Sinners with up and coming star Clark Gable, which led to a series of movies they co-starred in (they also had a years long affair!). Throughout the 1930s, Crawford was one of MGM's top stars, in films like Grand Hotel, Rain, and The Women, plus a slew of romantic melodramas. She had a quickie marriage in 1923, and in 1929 she married Douglas Fairbanks Jr., which lasted until 1933, and in 1935 she married Franchot Tone, which lasted until 1939. In 1940, while unmarried, she adopted a daughter, Christina. In 1942, she married Phillip Terry, and together they adopted a boy, but their marriage only lasted until 1946. In 1943, after 18 years, MGM and Joan parted ways, by mutual consent. But Joan was not willing to fade from the limelight, and she made several very memorable movies with Warner Bros, including Mildred Pierce (winner of the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Humoresque, Possessed (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Sudden Fear (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), and Flamingo Road. My very favorite movie of hers is the bizarre 1954 Nicholas Ray western, Johnny Guitar (if you have not seen it, I highly recommend it!). By 1956, however, her career was finally winding down, and she married Alfred Steele, President and CEO of the Pepsi-Cola Company. This might have worked out well for her, but he passed away in 1959, and Joan stayed on the Board of Directors of Pepsi until her forced retirement in 1973. In the 1960s, Joan, still not willing to "fade away" appeared in a series of increasingly low budget horror movies, the best of which was What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with Bette Davis, with whom Joan had had a bitter feud for years in the 1930s and 1940s. Joan passed away in 1977 at the age of 71. It is easy to remember the crazy lady she clearly was (see Mommie Dearest, based on the bitter tell-all book by her adoptive daughter, Christina), but it is also important to recognize that she had an amazing talent, and that her own remarkable perseverance kept her a major star for over three decades

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Important Added Info: Note that starting in the very early 1910s (around 1912, when studios realized that people were more likely to go to a movie if it had a star they liked in it), studios created sets of special "personality" posters, which theaters that showed their movies could hang in their lobbies. These had a big advantage over posters for specific movies, because they could be used whenever a movie with that star was shown, which meant they could be used over and over! Because studios realized this, they made these posters on a high quality paper stock, sometimes with a "linen" texture, and sometimes with elaborate border designs, and almost always with great quality color printing. They almost always measured exactly 22" x 28", the same as "half-sheets" (which were then known as "displays", except that they were taller than they were wide, and that the images almost always had a "full bleed", meaning that there were no blank borders. They almost always showed a head and shoulders image of the star, and the image on these posters is often very close to actual life-size! They almost always have the name of the star and the studio they worked for at the bottom. Even though there were many sets of these from many studios over a period of approximately 30 years (they were rarely made after the early 1940s), very few survive, likely partially due to World War II paper drives, and partially due to the fact that they were never folded and the paper they were made of sometimes aged poorly. We at eMoviePoster.com were just consigned a very special collection of 99 of these "personality" posters, which we are auctioning in separate auctions. They were collected starting in the mid 1980s, and the collector who assembled this collection tried to "upgrade" condition whenever possible over the years, so many of them are in excellent condition (sometimes likely the best surviving example), and on the ones where they are in lesser condition, it is because the collector never could find one in better condition! Now he has consigned them to us, and they will find new owners. If they were kept together, they would surely make an incredible display for the walls of any place where lots of people gather, like a museum, a restaurant, or any similar place. Of course, it is more likely that these will find many, many separate new homes, but we hope that they end up publicly displayed wherever they end up!

Note that MGM became a major studio after its creation (through merger) in 1924, and at some point in the 1920s, they created two different sets of personality posters to promote their stars, and in the 1930s, when they had "more stars than there are in Heaven", they created four more sets! You can tell the sets apart in two ways. One is that all of the posters from a set have the same border design and the stars and studio names are written in the same font and layout. The other is that you can look at the age of the star in the image (although that might possibly be deceptive, because they might have sometimes used a slightly younger version of a star!). The MGM sets were likely made every two to three years, and some major stars carried over from set to set, but with the passing years, some stars would be dropped and new stars added. These posters are extremely rare as it is likely few theaters ordered them, and fewer still saved them, and in addition, they could be easily torn, and if they were not stored carefully, they would become fragile, and it is likely many were damaged and discarded for that reason! Note that the high quality paper stock these posters were printed on does not always age very well, and can become fragile (usually resulting in chips around the edges of the poster). Because of their fragile nature and their age, we intend to send all of these personality posters in large flat packages, and never roll them into tubes (unless the buyer insists)! PLEASE DO NOT BID ON THIS POSTER, UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO PAY THE COST OF SHIPPING IT IN A LARGE FLAT PACKAGE!

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