Short Biography

Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, the third child of Tennessee-born Thomas E. LeSueur (1868–1938) and Anna Bell Johnson (1884–1958). Her older siblings were Daisy LeSueur, who died very young, and Hal LeSueur. Although Crawford was of mostly English descent, her surname originates from her great-great-great-great grandparents, David LeSueur and Elizabeth Chastain, French Huguenots who immigrated from London in the early 1700s to Virginia, where they lived for several generations.

Crawford`s father was said to have abandoned the family in Texas; Crawford later said she had been only a few months old when her father left. Her mother later married Henry J. Cassin. The family lived in Lawton, Oklahoma, where Cassin ran a movie theater. The 1910 Comanche County, Oklahoma, Federal Census, enumerated on April 20, shows Henry and Anna living at 910 "D" Street in Lawton. Lucille was then five years old, thus showing that 1905 was her likely year of birth, although later on, she would shave some years off and claim she was born in 1908.

Growing up, she preferred the nickname "Billie", and she loved watching vaudeville acts perform on the stage of her stepfather`s theater. Her ambition was to be a dancer. Unfortunately, she cut her foot deeply on a broken milk bottle when she leapt from the front porch of her home in an attempt to escape piano lessons and run and play with friends. She was unable to attend elementary school for a year and a half and eventually had three operations on her foot. She eventually overcame the injury and returned not only to walking normally, but to dancing as well.

Around 1916, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Henry Cassin was first listed in the City Directory in 1917, living at 403 East Ninth Street. While still in elementary school, she was placed in St. Agnes Academy, a Catholic school in Kansas City. Later, after her mother and stepfather broke up, she stayed on at St. Agnes as a work student. She then went to Rockingham Academy as a work student. In 1922, she registered at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and gave her year of birth as 1906. She attended Stephens for less than a year, however, as she recognized that she was not academically prepared for college.

She began as a dancer in a chorus line under the name Lucille LeSueur, eventually making her way to New York. In 1924, she signed a contract with MGM, and arrived in Culver City, California, in January, 1925.

Crawford started out in Silent films. As Lucille LeSueur, her first film was Pretty Ladies in 1925, which starred ZaSu Pitts. Pretty Ladies was the first and only time Crawford used her birth name professionally. According to the book Stardust and Shadows: Canadians in Early Hollywood, features a quote from Crawford herself, claiming that it was Sam De Grasse who said that her name LeSueur sounded too much like `sewer`. A contest in the fan magazine Movie Weekly became the source of her well-known stage name. The female contestant who entered the name Joan Crawford was awarded $500. Though Crawford reportedly detested the name at first, saying it sounded like "crawfish", and called herself JoAnne for some time, she eventually became used to it. (Her friend, actor William Haines, quipped "You`re lucky- they could have called you Cranberry and served you up with a Turkey!")

Crawford first made an impression on audiences in Edmund Goulding`s Sally, Irene and Mary (

Miscellaneous Information

Measurements

Bust: 35" -  Waist: 5 "  Hips: 37" (Shoe size: 4c)

Friends and Family

May Robson [Friend]

Lew Wasserman [Friend]

Marie Prevost [Friend]

Marilyn Monroe [Friend]

Margaret Sullavan [Friend]

Helen Hayes [Friend]

Steven Spielberg [Friend]

Adela Rogers St. Johns [Friend]

Ann Blyth [Friend]

Constance Bennett [Friend]

Dorothy Sebastian [Friend]

Rosalind Russell [Friend]

Paulette Goddard [Friend]

Barbara Stanwyck [Friend]

Eve Arden [Friend] (Joan`s best friend)

Myrna Loy [Friend] (Joan`s friend since 1925)

William Haines [Friend]

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