Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford

by Donald Spoto

She took Christina to an exercise class with drama coach Claudia Frank. They went backstage to visit Margaret Sullavan, who was appearing in Janus, and they audited classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. “If you ever decide to make this your life,” Joan told Christina, “I want you to know it won’t be easy. It has to be your own choice, and I’ll never push you. But if you do it, I want you to do it well.” Joan urged her daughter to study drama formally at a university, but after a year, Christina abandoned her studies at Carnegie Tech and took a small apartment in Manhattan. Joan expressed her “displeasure” at this turn of events, “but once she’d made those decisions, my attitude was that if she wanted to tackle the adult world, more power to her.” Thus began a long period of estrangement