Joan Crawford: 'The Last Years'

[scenesixty]

Has anyone read/bought this recent book yet 'The Last Years' about actress Joan Crawford?

NOT to be confused with 'Not The girl Next door' - heavily critized for being way too sanitsed-and saccharined!!

Many books are around about Joan-but the best in my opinion was by Bob Thomas.

[midnight sheep]

It's a great book.I read it years ago.
Joan Crawford The Last Word is also excellent.It puts paid to Christina Crawford's Mommie Dearest and shows that many of the incident described in her book could not have happened.
Joan was a strict parent yes but not a child abuser.

[Kitty Whiskers]

I've always been deeply suspicious of Mommie Dearest as a factual book. A lot of it just doesn't ring true, and if you read between the lines Christina comes across as a bit of a sh*t - especially during her teenage years.

I think Joan had her issues, but she was by all accounts a hard worker, an independent woman, a considerate co-worker (unless you were Bette Davis) and dedicated to her fans. She had to take a lot of flack in a notoriously bitchy profession and in the end was dumped out of the A list to appear in drek like Trog, yet never complained.

I'll be getting The Last Years as soon as I can lay my hands on a copy.

[CaptainWaggett]

Has anyone read/bought this recent book yet 'The Last Years' about actress Joan Crawford?

NOT to be confused with 'Not The girl Next door' - heavily critized for being way too sanitsed-and saccharined!!

Many books are around about Joan-but the best in my opinion was by Bob Thomas.

Is this the one by Carl Johnes? If so, it was published in 1979 Or is there a recent book with a similar title?

[Kitty Whiskers]

Is this the one by Carl Johnes? If so, it was published in 1979 Or is there a recent book with a similar title?

Oh, that's a good point, CaptainW! I'm just assuming there's a new one out!

[scenesixty]

Is this the one by Carl Johnes? If so, it was published in 1979 Or is there a recent book with a similar title?

Captain! My mistake-it is indeed the (1979) book! Sorry-for error!

[The Thunder Ch]

She had to take a lot of flack in a notoriously bitchy profession and in the end was dumped out of the A list to appear in drek like Trog, yet never complained.

Hey, Trog wasn't that bad! A bit corny, a bit of padding with the dinisaur fight, derivative...but not that bad! (And it had Simon Lack in it, albeit briefly!)

[Rick C]

For all our devoted readers, "Trog" had its own thread on Britmovie exactly two years ago, and the Rick C archive was honoured to be able to post memorabilia items in posts numbers 25 and 28:-

http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/fi...6670-trog.html

[Ray]

Is this the one by Carl Johnes? If so, it was published in 1979 Or is there a recent book with a similar title?

I bought the Carl Johnes book when I was in LA in 1979. It is a paperback with just 172 pages, but it paints a very real picture of Crawford by someone who really got to know her very well in her last years.

The other book with a similar title is The Last Word by Fred Lawrence Guiles, which is also worth reading.

My favourite apart from the excellent biography by Bob Thomas, is Conversations with Joan Crawford by Roy Newquist published in 1980.

[orpheum2]

For some reason there are people out there who seem keen to rubbish everything set out in Mommy Dearest.
Well i am just reading a biog of Oscar Levant.His widow states that they were invited to dinner by Crawford.After dinner Mrs Levant and her husband and the other guests were taken up to the childs bedroom.the child was woken up.Crawford asked the child to show the guests her thumb.her thumb was covered by a rubber protector and the child was made to admit she sucked her thumb..In my view people who rubbish the daughters claims just dont know what they are talking about as they were not present in the Crawford household.

[MonicaMC]

For some reason there are people out there who seem keen to rubbish everything set out in Mommy Dearest.
Well i am just reading a biog of Oscar Levant.His widow states that they were invited to dinner by Crawford.After dinner Mrs Levant and her husband and the other guests were taken up to the childs bedroom.the child was woken up.Crawford asked the child to show the guests her thumb.her thumb was covered by a rubber protector and the child was made to admit she sucked her thumb..In my view people who rubbish the daughters claims just dont know what they are talking about as they were not present in the Crawford household.

I am reminded of something a family law judge here said after an afternoon of hearing custody modification cases: "There's one side, there's the other side, and then there's the truth."