Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford

by Donald Spoto

I never had any close chums. Instead of being pretty, I was “different” {because} my mother wasn’t a very good seamstress, so my dresses were always too long or too short. I kept thinking I might be popular if I stood out more, so I did three things—I walked around looking as though I was self-assured, but I came off brassy. I did little things to mother’s dresses to make me look different, but I came off {like} a freak. And I worked my ass off learning how to dance, but I became an exhibitionist… I was lonely at home and lonely at school, but a lot of it was sheer stubbornness and perverseness. I guess maybe I didn’t want to conform, and I paid the price for that. So when I decided I was going to be a dancer, it was for three reasons: I wanted to be famous, just to make the kids who had laughed at me feel foolish. I wanted to be rich, so I’d never have to do the awful work my mother did and live at the bottom of the barrel—ever. And I wanted to be a dancer because I loved to dance … I always knew, whether I was in school or working in some dime store, that I’d make it. Funny, but I never had any ambition whatsoever to be an actress. During her time