Queen Bee (1955) - starring Joan Crawford

That hairdo she wears in this film looks painful.

The face she wears in every film is painful to the observer.

She really slapped the young actress playing her niece. She knocks her a bit off-balance and the girl looks really shocked and hurt. It's delicious.

You made a whole decision? All by yourself?"

It should be a tragedy, but Crawford makes it hilarious.

"Darling, a party is to women what a battlefield is to men. Oh that's right, you weren't in the army, were you? Something about your drinking...?"

The children are improbable, since she was 50 when it was made. And they are pretty much ignored, which may be totally in keeping with her character.

Barry Sullivan is "Beauty." It's that kind of movie.

She could have had the children in her forties. Not impossible. But I believe that the character is much younger than Joan plays her as.

What was La Crawford’s real birthdate anyway? I hear 1904,1905, 1906 or 1908.

At that point her films were basically Charles Busch plays.

According to Betsy Palmer, Joan was enjoying John Ireland's huge cock throughout the filming of the movie.

Natalie Wood was also briefly involved with John Ireland in the 1950s.

But did Monty Clift get a taste of it during RED RIVER, r8?

Ireland was heterosexual so probably not.

John Ireland had a penchant for young actresses.

In his forties, he had flings with Natalie Wood, Sue Lyon, Tuesday Weld, etc.

He was married to actress Joanne Dru, which would have made him Peter "Hollywood Squares" Marshall's brother-in-law.

R10, So was Robert Mitchum, but he was known to let gay guys blow him.

[quote]He was married to actress Joanne Dru, which would have made him Peter "Hollywood Squares" Marshall's brother-in-law.

You mean Pierre LaCock!

Despite the campy title, Queen Bee (1955) is not nearly as fun as Female on the Beach (also 1955), which has more memorable lines and a better story. Crawford did rather well in the 1950s with such gems as Harriet Craig, Sudden Fear, Johnny Guitar, Autumn Leaves and The Best of Everything.

Great old film. I enjoy all the bitchcraft, Joan’s expert phonies (“my, how cozy you all look”).

Betsy Palmer mentioned that Joan was disappointed in the actress who played Jennifer, and that great slap was the real deal.

John Ireland is pretty wooden in his acting, but had other things going on.

It’s a great guilty pleasure to watch Joan chew threw all the scenery.

My God, she looks at her most Groucho-like in R4's pic. Almost as Groucho-like as Dunaway.

The Best of Everything was a 1950s film (1959) but shouldn't be grouped with Joan's other films of the decade. It was actually considered somewhat of a comeback after a two year absence from the screen after husband Alfred Steele's death. And it was the first (and maybe only) time since silent films that Joan didn't get the first or second place in star billing. Instead she was gifted with one of those: "And also starring Joan Crawford as Amanda Farrow" at the end of the line of about 10 other actors.

[quote] The Best of Everything was a 1950s film (1959)

BAE.

FOTB is a better film, it's so sleazily hot and amusing, but Queen Bee's a lot of fun as well.

Jeff Chandler works those stripes so much better than polka dots.

One of my favorite Joan films. I own it on DVD. She just slices and dices everything in her path in this film. Such a fun performance.

A great, terrible movie.

"Female on the Beach" is too hard to watch, because of Jeff Chandler's freakish looks.

[quote]What was La Crawford’s real birthdate anyway? I hear 1904,1905, 1906 or 1908.

She helped Edison screw in the first light bulb. And then she screwed Edison. You do the math.

Crawford was believed to have been born in San Antonio in 1905. But since San Antonio officials didn't require birth certificates at the time, no one knows for sure. Crawford said she was born in 1908, the same birth year as Bette Davis.

The 1905 date is guessed because Crawford entered Stephens College in Missouri in fall 1922. She had to be more than 14 at the time. She dropped out after one semester.

I think it's hilarious when women like about their age by 3 or 4 years. Who the fuck cares whether you're 24 vs 21? And it becomes more ludicrous as they age. Pretending to be a child of only 72 when you're really 75, tee-hee!

That said, no thread about Crawford's campy late career movies is complete without a shout-out to Torch Song. The bright orange hair, the blackface number, Crawford's slatternly mother, who was actually Oscar-nominated (!), "You're paid to get around that leg!" - it's sublime.

Crawford's movies in the 50s can be appreciated without looking for camp, except perhaps Queen Bee and Torch Song.

Surprised that as foxy looking as Jeff was, his ass was as flat as an ironing board. His legs weren’t much to write home about either.

Let me guess, R27... You wouldn't have him if he were "hung with diamonds, upside-down!"?

r27 Esther Williams?

R5: It was very rare for women to give birth in the 40s in those days and much concern with birth defects in that era.

The movie is pretty improbable--either no accent or moving in and out of it. The cousin appears apropos of nothing and is only somewhat explained later-on. The cousin is no beauty and both Ireland and Sullivan were not heart throb material. Columbia never had many contract players and did a lot of films through short-term contracts with producers like Wald who I assume assembled the cast---the whole thing doesn't make sense.

The movie is kindof dumb but the bland acting somehow blunts the trashiness of the plot. Crawford is at her most ridiculous. Yet, it's not fun enough to be camp. The Stoloff/Duning score is nice, but probably recycled from elsewhere.

[quote]It was very rare for women to give birth in the 40s in those days

I don't agree with that at all. The term "change of life" baby didn't just pop up out of nowhere. My Grandma and two of her sisters all had babies in their 40s back in the late 40s. My Grandma was 44 when she had my uncle. While it is probably more difficult to conceive as you get older, it does happen and it happened back then, especially without any type of reliable birth control.

Columbia never had many contract players

Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak beg to disagree.

Met Betsy Palmer at Chiller years ago and she signed my Queen Bee.

She LOVED Crawford and said they had a great time filming, especially Joan who was "getting it every night from Ireland."

She said it was a bunch of "bunk" about Crawford hating all her female co-stars because they never had an issue. Though she did bring up Joan loathing the young girl character and really slapping her hard but added "well she was a bit of a flake anyway so she had it coming."

Palmer was a trip and loved talking about something other than THAT other film she is known for.

In Mommie Dearest Christina wrote that Joan's mother told her that Joan was born in 1904.

R32: Two people isn't "many". Their business strategy was "low overhead": short term contracts, borrowing from other studios, not having a ton of contract players like MGM or even more low rent studios like Warner or Universals, each of whom would have had multiple Novak and Haworth clones.

The 1910 census lists Lucille's age as 5. (She was living with her mother, brother and stepfather.) The information on that census was to have information correct on the date April 15, 1910.

If Crawford's birthday was between January 1 and April 15th, she would have already celebrated her 5th birthday when the census was taken and that would indicate she was born in 1905.

Of course, her family could have been mistaken as to little Lucille's age at the time, but that seems unlikely.

[quote] It's a pip.

Is it the bee's knees?

Crawford's 50s films are all a scream. She was holding onto being a STAR no matter what! Most of her contemporaries were either retired or were scrounging around for whatever they could get, but Joan was still starring in movies.

OP Is this film now ready for a Ryan Murphy re-make with the cast of The Boys in the Band?

most of her contemporaries were...scrounging around....

I be your pardon, r38.

Most of them were r40. There were only a few who were still starring in films in the 50s.

r40, I AGREE!

R38 No question: Joan's '50s movies ("Queen Bee," "Torch Song," "Female on the Beach," "Harriet Craig") range from respectable to ludicrous, but they are all camp heaven. "Torch Song" may be the most unintentionally hilarious picture ever made.

Christina has been quoted as saying that of all her mother's pictures, "Queen Bee" --which is basically 90 minutes of Joan being mean to everyone-- was the one that most closely captured what her mother was like in real life. She felt that in "Queen Bee," that's her mother up there.

I turned the role down. I was really tired and it would have been too much of a stretch even for me. I suggested Joan, always a very poor actress and after reading the script knew that playing herself would be so much easier.

I never understood Betsy Palmer's career. She was a good actress, pretty in an interesting way and she had a beautiful speaking voice. Strange that she wound up doing mostly game shows.

I recall a car scene in Queen Bee. Joan is so short alongside John Ireland that she looks funny. And there's the marvellous scene where Joan smears cold cream over her mirrored reflection when she hears bad news.

R45, Betsy was married to a doctor during the majority of her prime years. Based in NYC, in addition to her years on "I've Got a Secret" she did a lot of theatre, both regional and Broadway, replacing Lauren Bacall in Cactus Flower and Ellen Burstyn in Same Time Next Year.

Almost anyone whose fame was unclear except for game show appearances was usually turned out to be a fairly successful Broadway person: Phyllis Newman, Bert Convy, Besty Palmer, among others. It was because the shows shot in NYC and the Broadway pool of actors was more accessible and cheaper than the Hollywood ones.

I worked with Betsy in the early 1980s. I'd had a huge crush on her a child watching her on I've Got a Secret so I was thrilled to find she was as sweet and genuine as she appeared on TV. Her marriage to a doctor and life as a wife and mother in suburban NJ did keep her throughout the late1950s and 1960s from much film work but that was the bargain she made for what she thought would be a saner lifestyle. But by the early 1970s (with the women's lib movement) she became very disillusioned with the choices she made and got a divorce. She related strongly to the themes of A Doll's House and did several regional productions of the play over the decade.

r48, I was a young fan of all those game show panel ladies like Betsy, Arlene Francis, Phyllis Newman, Dina Merrill, Polly Bergen and Peggy Cass, but I'd say most of them rarely appeared in genuine Broadway hits in the 1960s and became far better known as part of the Goodson/Todman stable.

William Holden and Glenn Ford were Columbia contract players for a time.

None of Joan’s fifties films are as over the top as THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO. That was howlingly bad and hysterical.

R50: You really are tiresome. The point was that Columbia did not have the kind of contract stable that other studios had. The also did not have the infrastructure to provide the kind of training that say, MGM did.

Jennifer was played by Lucy Marlow who was also the simpering Lola Lavery in A STAR IS BORN in 1954.

R26 thinks "The Damned Don't Cry," "Harriet Craig," "This Woman Is Dangerous," "Johnny Guitar," "Female on the Beach," "The Story of Esther Costello" and "The Best of Everything" can be "can be appreciated without looking for camp." Those plus "Queen Bee" and "Torch Song" make up nine of her eleven theatrical releases in the 1950s, and each one is a camp treasure.

One does not "look for camp," R26, despite the aversions of your peculiar eye in missing the obvious. With these Crawford films, the camp rains down like a gale of sap, mascara, bravado and desperation, with or without the directors' will or wishes.

But acting as if camp qualities deprive a film of serious consideration or enjoyment for other merits does film criticism no good. The joy of camp often is found in the doubleness of the production.

However, with Crawford in the 1950s, she was rather a neon casino sign of camp in her performances, often apparently reveling in the melodramatic overages and precisely hilarious timing, phrasing and mannerisms that tore holes through the crap writing and often-mediocre production values. She simply became too big for what movies were doing, like the Fifty-Foot Woman unable to fit into the cramped environs of domestic woe, social outrage or genre claptrap.

Yield to Queen Joan and don't think she needs your misplaced viewing to think that "Johnny Guitar" can be seen for one second without laughing, cringing and applauding at the same time.

Columbia was not a big a studio as MGM or Warners or Paramount but they certainly groomed actors and provided training. For a period in the 1940s Jack Cole even had a dance studio there.

R54, marry me.

[R54] Bravo

R54 it's the pictures that got small.....

Careful, r55, you're going to piss off the Columbia Never Had Contract Players Troll.

Nellie Betsy

I remember the first time Betsy was about to play Nellie Forbush (I think in a City Center revival), they surprised her on I've Got a Secret with a contestant whose secret was that he was a hairdresser who would cut off Betsy's hair that night on camera because it had to be short to wash it onstage 8 times a week.

It was traumatizing for Betsy and for me!

R61, Yes! I remember watching that "live".

I posted in another thread on Sunday that I was switching back and forth between Queen Bee and this episode of The Flintstones...

No, if anyone is pissed off it's the troll who has no sense of probabilistic reasoning or Hollywood history

Meanwhile, Jack Lemmon, Judy Holliday Terry Moore and Aldo Ray were all Columbia contract players in the 1950s.

Don't forget Ann Miller.

R41 Crawford, Davis, Hepburn, Stanwyck, de Havilland. Colbert, Dietrich all starred in major films in the 50s though obviously their careers as leading ladies in films was slowing down for them and many of them did start transitioning to TV and stage work.

Dietrich only did a few films in the 50s, she was busy with her cabaret act. She was very lucky that she could perform in another medium.

I love DL. I saw the thread title and my thoughts immediately went to Ireland and his (reputedly) big dick and Joan's sampling of it (atta girl!) The beauty of Crawford is you have the youth, beauty and star power of her early films, the chunk of 50s very signature women pictures and then the final chapter of her campy late work. Full service girl, our Joan. If only they still made 'em like that.

Also, I for one thought Jeff Chandler was one hot fuck. But then that Salt & Pepper look has always gone straight to my balls as long as I can remember.

Joan was born in 1905

BC

Who am I? Chopped liver?

Yes, Donna won a (well-deserved) Oscar for From Here to Eternity (beating out Majorie Rambeau, as Joan's mother, in Torch Song).

Joan backed out of Deborah Kerr's role in that due to a wardrobe dispute -- and did Torch Song instead!

Not one of her smarter moves...

Fay Wray -- same age as Joan was reduced to a little character role in Queen Bee -- while Joan was still headlining at fifty.

That's impressive.

For your reading pleasure.....

"The beauty of Crawford is you have the youth, beauty and star power of her early films, the chunk of 50s very signature women pictures and then the final chapter of her campy late work. Full service girl, our Joan. If only they still made 'em like that."

*

Oh, but they do, r69!

Two Columbia contract players...

"Miss Lange" isn't fit to shine Joan Crawford's shoes.

But, r77, wouldn't you agree that r69's career trajectory description also fits Lange?

No.

Another Crawford movie showing today.

"Harriet Craig" (1950) will be showing on OTA channel Movies!TV starting at 11:40AM (CST).

Description from the website

[quote] Harriet Craig runs a household with an iron fist, manipulating others in order to keep her place perfect, no matter the cost.

Co-stars Wendell Corey.

Roz did it first, r80.

I saw Betsy get chopped on I've Got A Secret, too.....it was traumatic for her......

Later that same year.....on the New Year's Eve show - she and her leading man from South Pacific sang The Soliloquies and it was quite charming..... That episode showed up on the Game Show Network years ago when they were showing those old entertaining shows.....

Berserk! with Ty Hard-on is on TCM tonight.

R73 But of all those gals, it was only Katherine Hepburn (born 1907) who was able to keep doing prestige work through the 1960s.

[quote][R73] But of all those gals, it was only Katherine Hepburn (born 1907) who was able to keep doing prestige work through the 1960s.

She only made three films in the '60s. She did very little work by then, but was able to live on her wealth through spells on unemployment when Joan and co. had to keep working, working, working.

Betsy Palmer turned up as Aunt Ginny on Knots Landing!

R85 Only three films but garnered Oscar wins and nominations. Prestige theatre work too. And while Joan Crawford was parading around wearing tiaras and gloves, Hepburn was being photographed like this. In tune with the times.

[quote]Only three films but garnered Oscar wins and nominations.

Only because she didn't sully her reputation in the minds of snobby '60s critics. I much prefer Baby Jane and Sweet Charlotte to anything she was doing then.

[quote]And while Joan Crawford was parading around wearing tiaras and gloves, Hepburn was being photographed like this. In tune with the times.

She just looks like a dyke. Joan was really up to date with her style. Even in the '60s. Maybe too much so actually...

Short hair for women came in BIG for '50s... but it didn't necessarily suit Joan by that point. She's Queen Butch in Queen Bee.

....

"berserk" instead of ty hard-on's character in lust with diana dors (britan's really really bad answer to marilyn) he lusted after crawford's character Monica... in real life, depending on the truth of crawford's age, she was 22 years older (at least) than hardin...

"female on the beach"? forget jeff chandler...instead? how about the small almost extra role in that movie with SUPERHUNK physique model and b- list sword and sandal movies the one and only ED FURY blows (no pun intended) chandler away in every way, looks and of course body....

Joan's later career -- say 1945 - 1965 -- was much better than her early career.

We never really even remember most of films from her '30s box-office peak.

Like Crawford would have been capable of *this* in 1968, r88...

I don't like it, R92.

Queen Bee my fuckin' ass! Bitch wasn't nuthin' but 4'10" - I'd slap her down with one hand, and steal her vodka tonic with the other before she hit the floor!

Perfectly fine that you don't, r94. However, Kate's standing in 1968 was such, that she was given this entrance...

Katharine Hepburn never had children or husbands to support. She got to keep all her money for herself. Same with Garbo. In her later years, Hepburn said in interviews that she never regretted not having children because she knew she would've been a shit mother. She was very smart.

In contrast, Bette Davis supported her entire family as well as several of her husbands. She didn't have a lot of money left over for herself.

R95, that is one of my most favorite scenes in all of classical moviedom! That, and THIS!

- R94

That's just not on par with what Crawford did on The Lucy Show.

Great acting isn't about to what length a person can go to make you forget who they are and become someone else, great acting, even good acting, is about a person's willingness to reveal themselves and therefore something about the human condition. All the other stuff is just surface and, apparently, impressive to idiots. Crawford manages that on The Lucy Show. Hepburn could never have done that.

I love Hepburn, but Davis was much more versatile as an actress. Davis could play anything, from street whores to royalty. Hepburn could only play WASPy upper-class ladies.

All of the great ladies had their own lanes. Some of them were narrower than the others. On the infrequent occasion they'd venture out of them, the results could be a pleasant surprise, but usually unsuccessful.

And while I agree that Davis probably had a wider variety of roles, r99, she had her misfires. She wasn't the right type for A Catered Affair or Beyond the Forest.

And don’t forget at the end Davis was doing anything that offered to her. She never said no.

Hepburn wanted to be a star not an actress.

Crawford was the same way. Ego led to really dumb moves like walking off From Here to Eternity. She would've been divine in that role.

[quote]And don’t forget at the end Davis was doing anything that offered to her. She never said no.

Davis's daughter BD was a miserable leech, as was her husband. They never worked and Bette supported them and their kids at a VERY comfortable standard of living for two decades. Bette would've died flat broke if she hadn't cut BD off when she did.

BD wrote the book after Bette had her strokes because Bette wasn't expected to live and BD would've had no way to make $$$ otherwise.

R102, Bette walked off her final film, "Wicked Stepmother", but Larry Cohen completed it with the footage he had.

R104, Bette made "Where Love has Gone" to pay for BD's lavish wedding when she was only 16.

Good value! They were married until his death only a few years ago.

R88 Personally I would rather watch Crawford in anything over Hepburn. But whether you like it or not Crawford was a joke by the time she did Straight-Jacket. A joke.

We are in on the joke, though, R108. That's part of the fun!

Berserk (1967) is on TCM tonight. Joan on the tightrope! Hunky (but deplorable) Ty Hardin!

R108 I agree. I'd rather watch Crawford's drunken performance on the Lucy Show over The Lion in Winter but that's me. Fact is Hepburn was still an actual A list movie star. Crawford was not.

I can watch all of Joan’s performances. She gave her all in every performance.

You bitches are STILL talking about my mother? GET. A LIFE.

We ARE one of her fans, you little creep.

Kate wanted to be an actress *and* a star, r103. Joan would have been terrified to set foot on stage, let alone do Shakespeare.

And don't forget, Kate starred in a huge Broadway musical COCO for a year on Broadway and a year on tour.

She didn't only do upper class. Some of her better known films roles in which she played working class women: Alice Adams, Little Women, Woman of the Year, THe African Queen, Pat and Mike, The Rainmaker, Summertime, Desk Set......

Start your own thread! Bette vs. Joan is an acceptable diversion in a Joanie thread, but otherwise, give us a break. One of these things is not like the other.

And then there's Barbara Stanwyck ...

Now I have to pull out that quote from that book I used to have:

"Stanwyck may never have been as good as Davis at her best, but she was never as bad as Davis at her worst. In fact, she never gave a bad performance.

[quote]Crawford was a joke by the time she did Straight-Jacket. A joke.

Oh, dear.

r110, see r83, and try to keep up.

That gal knew how to work the lens....

Stanwyck followed Davis and Crawford in taking a hagsploitation role. She had to scream a lot in Roger Corman's The Night Walker, which is an okay movie although cheaply made.

It was her last movie role -- she spent the rest of her career in TV.

r116 but she still played them like upper-class women.

Poor R90 just can't reach the caps key and those ellipses probably have a shortcut.

Apart from e.e. cummings, sometimes, and Emily Dickinson, who was writing cursive with a pen, creative typography invariably detracts from a person's content.

Because most of us don't trust the ravings of lazy, self-absorbed "stylists" The posts here might as well be scrawled with their feces, for all the appeal they offer visually.

Crawford’s best performance was in “Grand Hotel.” Her 50s movies lacked subtlety, and her extreme face lift made all her expressions look freakish.

Did she really have a face lift?

Her looks did change a lot as she aged, but I never thought she had work done. Was that even a thing in the 50s?

^^ Face lifts were popular as early as the 1940s.

I think if Joan had had a facelift, Christina would've wrote about it in MD.

Joan drank and smoked constantly, that probably had a lot to do with the change in her appearance. Bette Davis got haggard AF by the 50s from all the booze and cigs.

OMG, "Christina would've WRITTEN about it" not wrote about it. Sorry!

We need an edit function on here!

I think Joan did the trick or pulling back her facial skin with hooks and tape hidden by her wigs. Eva Gabor and many older women did that back in the day.

R75 I agree.

{quote]Joan drank and smoked constantly

In those days all the elegant ladies smoked. And there was nothing wrong with having an afternoon highball after getting home from the studio and an occasional aperitif, an after dinner Irish coffee and a night cap. That's just how it was done in those days. Hell, the British still do it.

It wreaks havoc on your looks r134.

Amen, r134!

R11, Funnily, Peter Marshall's real name was Ralph [bold]LaCock[/bold] !!!

Sorry, all, for the repetition! Just now see R13's post.

Guess I'm a Hollywood square...

Of course, Joan had a face lift. All the wealthy women and movie stars did back then, even Gary Cooper. But they were done sensibly, not like the plastic surgery of today with the bloated lips and cheek and chin implants. The exception was Hedy Lamarr who had terrible procedures and ruined her face by the time she was 50.

Joan often wore her hair pulled off of her forehead and temples in the 1970s, not allowing for the hiding of any sort of tapes and strings. She may have used them with other hairdos and wigs but often did not.

Dietrich, Lucy and Davis never had facelifts, well Davis didn't until the late 70s.

It seems to me that Joan Crawford is at her most drag-queen-like in "Queen Bee." Tons of fun.

Joan had gone completely off the rails by the 50s. Drinking non-stop and being a total bitch to Christina every chance she got.

She managed to survive that decade as an above-the-title star, which was quite an achievement.

"Torch Song" is a much better Joan movie.

Here is a photo of Joan in 1950. Nothing but glamour.

^^ A rather frightening form of glamour, though. ^^

in "Mommie Dearest" we are shown joan's alleged beauty treatment including her going to sleep every night with straps on her face to i guess keep her face firm and young and so on... i wonder though if such straps even would work? then or now?...

and i still don't know what she washed her face with! i've heard witch hazel, i've heard hydrogen peroxide, etc...

[quote] … Hepburn said … she would've been a shit mother …

I'm sure, R96, that Miss Hepburn would NOT have used that language.

[quote]i still don't know what she washed her face with! i've heard witch hazel, i've heard hydrogen peroxide, etc...

Most likely Absolut R146.

r147 Hepburn used that word about 20 times on the phone with LIFE magazine when they wanted her to do a photo shoot with Bette Davis in the 80s.

[quote] …Hepburn used that word about 20 times …

I don't believe assertions without evidence.

r150 it was in one of the Bette Davis bios. The author interviewed the person at LIFE magazine. Kate was known to swear a lot in private.

[quote] … Kate was known to…

I don't believe gossip heard third-hand. I'm not Donald Spoto.

Whatever r152. It's in the bios, from firsthand accounts. Go look it up if you want.

Joan alert: Berserk is on TCM *right now*. OMG!

[quote]And don't forget, Kate starred in a huge Broadway musical COCO for a year on Broadway and a year on tour.

Yeah. It was a disaster.

[quote]She didn't only do upper class. Some of her better known films roles in which she played working class women

No, she didn’t. The characters were supposed to be working class but she played them the same way she played everything, ie as herself.

R147, Hepburn had no problem with cussing/swearing in private or in interviews.

She had no problem with saying "shit" in Coco, though Ginger refused to on tour, and it took just a little coaxing from Warren Beatty for her to say "fuck" on screen in "Love Affair".

R81 And better.

[quote] saying "shit" in Coco

No, she said 'merde'.

[quote]Joan backed out of Deborah Kerr's role in that due to a wardrobe dispute -- and did Torch Song instead!

I think it was more of a billing dispute as Joan was demanding billing over Burt Lancaster, and other issues arose as she basically did herself in and was removed from the film. It's a damned shame as she would have been quite good and was more like the character.

[quote]in "Mommie Dearest" we are shown joan's alleged beauty treatment

Both the book and movie were works of fiction. So I would be careful to use either one as some sort of source material on Joan's regimens.

[quote] Joan backed out of Deborah Kerr's role in that due to a wardrobe dispute

A likely storey put out by the PR Department!

The fact is that the ultra-serious Zinnemann realised that Joan was an appallingly-mannered, midget-sized, camp diva incapable of playing a normal woman with normal emotions.

Berserk (1967) just ended on TCM. Once again, the killer was Joan's daughter (just like in Strait-Jacket). What is it with all things Joan and socially maladjusted daughters?

Christina, is that you at R161?

Has there been a DL thread on Coco, and I don't mean James.

R158, You're wrong, sweetie . . .

"Maybe Katharine Hepburn should have just said merde. In the 1970 musical Coco, after the failure of her comeback couture collection, Coco Chanel, in the form of Hepburn, walked to the stage apron and said straight out to the audience, "Shit!" It got the biggest laugh in the show, but when Chanel herself got wind of the profanity Hepburn had adlibbed into the script, she refused to see the musical. When Ginger Rogers starred in a summer-stock tour, she went on talk shows in full goody-two-shoes mode to proclaim that she had excised the horrid word."

^ Is that a quote from somewhere?

^ Is that a quote from some second-hand source?

I never miss a René Auberjonois musical.

R166 - there a wiki link to the New York Public Library Hepburn papers and one about the use of bad language in the show though you have to wade through 33 pages on the site.

When Hepburn was declared "box office poison" in 1938 after a string of critical and financial disasters, Bette Davis was the Queen of Hollywood, entering the most productive and successful years of her career. So there may have been some genuine resentment against Bette on Kate's part.

Apparently, Joan was also listed on that famous list, as were Dietrich and Astaire, but they're rarely mentioned or connected with that distinction as much as Kate.

r155, Coco was hardly a disaster and it was because of Hepburn's stardom and charisma that it became a hit and ran two years on Broadway and the road. That's the point. Joan couldn't have accomplished that in 1970.

And yes, Kate always played herself but so did Joan and Bette. And Cary and Clark and Marlene and Marilyn and Audrey and so on......

[quote]Coco was hardly a disaster and it was because of Hepburn's stardom and charisma that it became a hit and ran two years on Broadway and the road. That's the point. Joan couldn't have accomplished that in 1970.

The play was awful and she was awful in it. She only did it win a Tony (she was obsessed with awards) and lost, even though she was at most powerful ever at that point. I don't really see Coco being any less successful with Crawford, Rogers, or Carol Channing in the role. I watched Joan's '60s appearances on What's My Line recently and was surprised at the huge applause she got. More than any other celebrity guest on the show that I can remember.

Hepburn shouldn't really be discussed with real actresses.

[quote]And yes, Kate always played herself but so did Joan and Bette.

Nope. Davis often tried to challenge herself and her audience and really created characters independent of herself.

Bacall speaks of Hepburn and the 1970 Tony Awards.

Joan would have been terrible in "From Here to Eternity". She was not ensemble player and the male stars (Lancaster, Clift, & Sinatra) probably weren't going to put her on a pedestal. Also, no one could do frigid like Deborah Kerr and by then Joan was starting to resemble Groucho Marx.

Apparently Crawford was horrible to everyone esp. the young women on the set of "The Best of Everything", where she took a small part because she'd spent the recently departed Al Steele's money on their new apartment. I can't imagine how she would have worked on "Eternity"., esp. given that the film was filled with people who were better actors than her, including the many character people in smaller parts.

R173, Also, Crawford would have been too old for the role. Joan did form a friendship with Diane Baker during "The Best of Everything". She requested that Diane be hired for "Strait-Jacket" when the original actress did not work out. Joan and Diane again appeared together in the unsold pilot "Della".

Torch Song was Joan's big MGM comeback after an absence of more than 10 years and it was, at least in pre-production, a grand and glamorous musical as only that studio could produce them, even as late as 1953. So it probably seemed to Joan at the time to be a very satisfying consolation prize if she did indeed lose out on From Here to Eternity, a gritty b&w film set on an army camp and produced by the much inferior and miserly (in Joan's eyes) Columbia Pictures.

All hindsight, of course.

Oh dear God R123 - The Night Walker was produced by William Castle NOT Roger Corman.

You are off the Trivia Team.

R175: Except of course, Eternity swept the Oscars that year which overshadowed Joan's camp classic.

r172, thanks for posting the charming clip of Ms Bacall. It goes a long way in explaining why she was so beloved by her close friends if not some of her co-workers and the general public. She saved the best of herself for only those she really trusted.

I get Queen Bee mixed up with Harriet Craig. So much Joan, so little time.

R155 Coco was not a disaster. The point is Hepburn was starring on Broadway in a million dollar musical with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It was the most expensive show in Broadway history at the time. It was a vehicle fit for a true star. Meanwhile Crawford was appearing on The Tim Conway Show and Secret Storm.

G keeps trashing Kate Hepburn (four-time Oscar winner). G is so bitter about losing SEVEN Oscars. LMAO!

Rita Hayworth was offered the role of Karen in From Here to Eternity first, but she wanted to take a vacation after filming Miss Sadie Thompson and turned down the part as Columbia wasn't going to delay start of work on From Here to Eternity so Rita could take a vacation. Joan was offered the role next. Rita would have been an interesting Karen though they would have had to tone down her glamour to be a convincing military wife.

[quote] Coco was not a disaster.

Her performance was. And the musical was. Has it ever been revived?

Yes, lots of cost lots of money though. But we really don’t know if it would’ve been any more or less successful with Crawford in the role.

Haworth would have been bad in away that was different from Joan.

Kerr struck the right note---plain enough to be believable as a frigid army wife and subtle enough to bring off the "I've never been kissed like that before" cliche in a way that seemed convincing.

[quote] G keeps trashing Kate Hepburn

She started it though.

John Ireland was so hot when he was young

Too bad he was such a bland actor. He ended his career is some awful quasi-soft core porn thing with Yvonne DeCarlo.

I LOVE LOVE the movie "the night walker" with stanwyck! my favorite black and white "suspense" movie of all time i think! the creepy eerie music, the makeup of her blind and burnt husband coming back to haunt her, her not able to tell reality from her nightmares, the scary mannequins, and so on....

i remember seeing this movie when i was very young and it scared and creeped me out big time! even now, if i was at home with all the lights off it would give me the "willies"!....

Moot point, r183. Crawford didn't/wouldn't perform on stage. Besides, she wasn't getting A-list film offers, why in the world would she get offered an expensive, splashy Broadway musical?

[quote]Her performance was. And the musical was. Has it ever been revived?

You are tedious. She won the Tony. It doesn't matter what in your opinion "the real reason" was for the win, point is she won a Tony for it.

[quote]Yes, lots of cost lots of money though. But we really don’t know if it would’ve been any more or less successful with Crawford in the role.

No one but no one would have invested in Joan Crawford. Not on B'way, not on film.

That's why she was reduced to doing schlock like Trog.

She didn't win the Tony, r190.

r190 please view r172.

Thank you. Though I agree with you entirely about Kate's star power in Coco.

R191 Oops sorry. Nominated.

But let's face it Betty, Kate's singing was nearly as bad as yours.

[quote] … Coco …

Kate may have been wonderful but she shouldn't be playing Frenchwomen (nor Spaniards or Greeks).

And yet, with a simple bobbed wig and Cecil Beaton's divine costumes (copied from the Chanel originals) she evoked Gabrielle Chanel very well. It's amazing how much Kate looked like her.

But Kate's voice!

English people laughed at her behind her back (Keith Michell said her raucous voice sounded like a crow or seagull)

R192, When Danielle Darrieux replaced Kate in Coco on Broadway, it closed in two months.

Loved her in the animated series "The Critic"

Those dulcet, menthol-cool tones!

A friend of mine had to go on an arranged escort date with her in the late 1940s. In a limo hired by the studio. She made him take his shoes off at the door. She had the car stop on the way to the gig and told him to pick up some vodka for her (wish I could remember the brand). He was much younger and obviously gay, so it was really more of a "male assistant" evening, although in public and when he "took" her home she played it like it was a date.

She drank 100 proof Smirnoff. I don't know how she was able to function, drinking that all day.

I assume the last two posts r200 and r201 refer to Joan?

I think that's safe to assume, r202. Kate didn't really start to have a drinking problem until pretty late in life.

R203, Kate said in interviews that if she drank hard liquor she wouldn't shake.

R203 link

Why are y'all stinking up Joan's thread with Hepburn stuff?

good film

So many of those old Hollywood divas turned into cranky drunks. Davis, Crawford, Dietrich, Stanwyck, Kate, Lucy, the list goes on.

Check out the Hollywood heavyweights enthralled by Sinatra singing at the 1969 Oscars at 5:50.

Here's a Tony show presentation of Coco. Why are all the dresses red? You get to hear Kate sing at the end.

It's true, r204. Essential tremors do subside with alcohol. But certain side effects include...

I know a woman with Parkinson's who drinks to help with the tremors. She says it works. The part she leaves out is that she's been an active alcoholic for decades.

Essential tremors aren't the same as Parkinson's (which Kate didn't have).

[quote] Why are all the dresses red?

For the same reason, R110, that most of the decor in Cukor's 'A Star Is Born' was grey. And the same reason that Cecil Beaton did the Ascot Scene in 'MFL' in black and white.

Back to Joan...

But Joan bogarted the whole fucking line.

Why would twats ask who is being referred to on a Joan Crawford thread?

Oh. Because they're twats.

[quote]You get to hear Kate sing at the end.

Jesus!

Hepburn's singing makes Bacall's sound like Julie Andrews!

[quote] You are tedious. She won the Tony. It doesn't matter what in your opinion "the real reason" was for the win, point is she won a Tony for it.

She didn’t win. Get your facts straight.

[quote]No one but no one would have invested in Joan Crawford. Not on B'way, not on film.

We don’t know. Davis got a Broadway musical off the ground a few years later.

Broadway simply isn’t film. Tonys are not Oscars. Broadway stars are not film stars.

Ann Reinking was in the Coco ensemble!

Bette Davis' attempt at a 1970s Broadway musical MISS MOFFAT truly was a disaster that could be squarely laid on her shoulders since she opted out citing unspecified illnesses when the show was in early out of town tryouts. Unlike Hepburn and Bacall (and Lucy in WILDCAT years earlier), Bette didn't have the discipline and strength to weather the rigors of a Broadway musical schedule and regimen.

Miss Moffat was a terrible show, Davis never should've agreed to do it.

Yes, Miss Moffat was awful. It was only able to get funding on the Davis' name.

An overview of the Miss Moffat musical. The show sounded dreadful.

R225, Here's an audio recording of the show in previews . . .

Nell Carter!

^Here it is . . .

^Seriously . . .

Rudy Lowe was in the production. He said they expected to be on the road for close to a year before heading back to Broadway. It was not meant to be. But what an experience.

The thing about Miss Moffat is that even though it was based on a Bette Davis film, The Corn Is Green, it wasn't one of Davis's better films. If you've ever tried to watch it, it's a chore to get through. They updated the story for the musical so it took place in the Jim Crow South and Miss Moffat was the white savior of the poor black kids. Even in the early 70s, that was dated and rather offensive.

Also, audiences going to see Bette Davis on stage didn't really want to see her as a prim Southern schoolmarm. They wanted to see Bette Davis as Margo Channing. Miss Moffat was just a poor choice for a musical and as a vehicle for Bette Davis.

Miss Moffat was also sadly one of director Josh Logan's final attempts on Broadway after an illustrious career. I wonder if there were shirtless sharecroppers in any of the numbers?

Don't forget...

It did have a lovely window card...

[quote]Broadway simply isn’t film. Tonys are not Oscars. Broadway stars are not film stars.

But a chair is not a house, and a house is not a home . . .

That message is absolutely psychic, Dionne!

We *must* ask ourselves, whose Sadie Thompson was better? Joan's, or... Bette's?

Davis looked really haggard in those Miss Moffat photos. Didn't she have a facelift not too long after?

Coco and Miss Moffat were both originally written for Helen Lawson. She called them both a pile of crap and turned them down.

Instead she spent most of those years on game-shows like Hollywood Squares and Password.

Wait, was Joshua Logan a homosexual?

"Harriet Craig" was on the other; it was very good, a fine uber-bitch role for Joan Crawford, though they changed some important details of the play, first filmed with an excellent Rosalind Russell under the original stage play's name "Craig's Wife".

Back at r82, r241...

Harriet Craig is when I usually pinpoint the start of her Butch period.

The original Mrs. Craig, Miss Chrystal Herne...

Katharine Hepburn starred in a television version of "The Corn is Green" in 1979 directed by George Cukor.

Torch Song was (surprisingly) good. Hot dancers.

Craig's Wife was revived in 1947 with the stalwart Miss Judith Evelyn. Also televised in 1952.

^ Oops, I meant on radio.

Carol Channing starred in The Corn Is Brown.

ew

What WAS the sin of Craig's wife?

I mean she just wanted to keep a nice house is all.

My mother called it "crazy clean" and boasted she could never be accused of such an obsession.

[quote]What WAS the sin of Craig's wife?

And how did it compare to the sin of Madelon Claudet?

R251, Wearing white after Labor Day, Rose.

You could have at least signed your post Beverly Sutphin.

[quote]Unlike Hepburn and Bacall (and Lucy in WILDCAT years earlier), Bette didn't have the discipline and strength to weather the rigors of a Broadway musical schedule and regimen.

Well, it wasn't exactly her first Broadway musical. Bette had starred in a popular, yet fairly short-lived review in 1952 called "Two's Company" which was a hit as long as she showed up to perform it, which wasn't for long. The show was choreographed by Jerome Robbins and Tina Louise was a member of the chorus!

Davis was also in the original company of Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana" on Broadway, but as earlier, after the show had opened and she'd driven everyone crazy, she got bored and quit.

[quote]Davis was also in the original company of Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana"

In the title role, of course.

Thank you Mrs. Steele @ R257. Can you believe how these other thirsty hags have tried to take over your thread?

Bette's alcoholism had really taken its toll by the time of Miss Moffat. She didn't have the stamina for eight shows a week.

Also, she probably realized what a piece of shit the show was after they started staging it and thought "what the hell have I gotten myself into?"

START of my Butch Period?

I was butch before I quit having periods.

But not at the time this photo was taken. Periods, that is.

It's time to celebrate my 1950s career more, you cunts.

Ignore the "wisdom" and feel the truth.

One of the best things about "Queen Bee" is the costuming.

I've wondered if she or Jean Louis remembered Barbara Stanwyck's velvet dress in "Christmas in Connecticut" in the Christmas Eve scene and opted for a skirt. The bow is so "ta da."

Jean Louis' sketch.

Well, a little lost in translation, perhaps? Just a little?

Joan's big finish!

John Ireland was also in "I Saw What You Did" with Joan on 1965. She liked him.

R260, That must have been her bullet tits period.

She looks like Rose McGowan in R260's pic.

While far from the best Crawford vehicle, this campfest is one that I always enjoy re-watching again and again when it's on TCM or similar. The screenplay is terrible, but Joan and Betsy make the most of what material they were given. The slap is always fun - and worth replaying a couple times even if you don't bother to make it through the entire film. Of the so-bad-they-are-excellent Crawford films, Berserk! has to be my favorite.

r90 Ed Fury is absolutely divine.A real sex god!