Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford

by Donald Spoto

Very many people, then and later, presumed that Joan Crawford saw Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as a ticket to the upper realms of Hollywood society. But such a judgment is not merely cynical: it fails to recognize that Joan already had far greater fame and that Douglas, notwithstanding his many minor movie roles, was nothing like a star. In fact, it was he who stood to benefit from their association, as he acknowledged years later. “To be honest, in her own way, she taught me a great deal and pushed me to a fuller height as my own self and away from the person hiding his shyness behind such affectations as imitating Barrymore and pretending to an unreal aestheticism.” As for matters monetary, she could not have had any such ulterior intention, for the senior Fairbanks did not support his son but instead had set up a delayed and modest trust fund for him—"and so I was not the rich young heir everyone imagined,” as Douglas admitted. More to the point, her income far exceeded his for the entire time of their relationship and marriage. For all that, the magnetism between Douglas and Joan was immediate,