Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford

by Donald Spoto

When her old friend Rosalind Russell was honored at a reception at the Rainbow Room that September, Joan gladly attended; they had never lost contact since their first meeting and collaboration in 1934. The party was a noisy, crowded affair, but the two old friends managed to steal a few moments together. Russell, cheerful and valiant, was very ill with rheumatoid arthritis, and she was suffering the side effects of frequent cortisone injections. She did not tell anyone that she had also recently received a diagnosis of cancer. The press took pictures all evening, and over the next several days Joan was not the only one horrified at the newspaper photos: it seemed as if editors had gleefully selected the most unflattering shots of the two stars. “If that’s the way I look,” said Joan, “they’ve seen the last of me.” With extremely rare exceptions, she kept her word: for the next three years, Joan was virtually a recluse. In her