Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford

by Donald Spoto

With this character and this movie, Joan Crawford commenced what might be called a third act in her motion picture career. From 1925 to 1938, she had represented successively the raging party girl, the sensual but irrepressible working woman, the benighted or isolated victim and the society matron. From 1939 to 1943, she brought a remarkable technical complexity to a wide variety of roles in no fewer than five first-rate films (Strange Cargo, Susan and God, A Woman’s Face, When Ladies Meet and Above Suspicion). But Mildred Pierce took her and audiences to a new level, in which she would embrace types oftenshunned by actors eager to maintain a loving fan base. Henceforth, the women Crawford played would be tougher, more seasoned, more resourceful. This was, of course, no preseason game plan, mapped out as a program from 1945: it became a logical if accidental development she embraced when it occurred.