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Ferocious Ambition

Joan Crawford’s March to Stardom

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Ferocious Ambition

By: Robert Dance
Narrated by: Greg D. Barnett
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About this listen

Joan Crawford's remarkable forty-five-year motion picture career is one of the industry's longest. Signing her first contract in 1925, she was crowned an MGM star four years later and by the mid-1930s was the most popular actress in America. In the early 1940s, Crawford's risky decision to move to Warner Bros. was rewarded with an Oscar for Mildred Pierce. This triumph launched a series of film noir classics. She teamed with rival Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, proving that Crawford, whose career had begun by defining big-screen glamour, had matured into a superb dramatic actress.

Her last film was released in 1970, and two years later she made a final television appearance, forty-seven years after walking through the MGM gate for the first time. Crawford made a successful transition into business during her later years, notably in her association with Pepsi-Cola.

Overlooked in previous biographies has been Crawford's fierce resolve in creating and then maintaining her star persona. She let neither her age nor the passing of time block her unrivaled ambition, and she continually reimagined herself, noting once that, for the right part, she would play Wally Beery's grandmother. But she was always the consummate star, and at the time of her death in 1977, she was a motion picture legend and a twentieth-century icon.

©2023 Robert Dance (P)2024 Tantor
Entertainment & Celebrities Film & TV Gender Studies Inspiring

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An inspirational woman

Mommie Dearest Who? This book is an incredible highlight into the drive and ambition Joan Crawford had to make it into the film industry and also maintain a certain status in a successful attempt to remain important and relevant. I've seen most of her movies, I found her mesmerising to watch, she is a striking figure to watch on screen and still a mystery to me. Despite this book explaining how she became a movie star, I still find that Joan Crawford is still a mystery to me. I believe that's a great appeal in a woman. I enjoyed listening to the narrative of the book based on Joan Crawford. I believe that in comparison to the movie or book 'Mommie Dearest' this book brings the Actress back to life with a better understanding of her strive to make it as an Actress. While the movie fails to highlight who Joan Crawford was on a personal level and lacks an understanding of the woman she was or even was trying to be.

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