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The definitive Joan Crawford

By Cathie Beck, Special to the Rocky

Published February 29, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Joan Crawford received three Academy Award nominations and one Oscar but still answered all her fan mail.

Photo by Collection Of Paul Morrissey

Joan Crawford received three Academy Award nominations and one Oscar but still answered all her fan mail.

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Not the Girl Next Door

* Nonfiction. By Charlotte Chandler. Simon & Schuster, $26. Grade: B+

Book in a nutshell: This consummate celebrity biographer (of Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman and Groucho Marx, to name a few) has taken on yet another uber- legend. This time it's Joan Crawford, the larger-than-life superstar of the first half (and part of the second) of the 20th century. Drawing on interviews with Crawford, as well as reminiscences of those who knew her, Chandler has created an intimate, frank and studied portrait of the Hollywood icon.

Lucille LeSueur was born in San Antonio, Texas, sometime around 1908 (no official record exists and Crawford insisted upon this year). She was married four times, became one of Hollywood's brightest lights by the early 1930s and was nominated three times for an Academy Award, winning once.

Chandler exploits her standard resources to deliver believable quotes from those who knew her well - and in some cases, intimately - long before Crawford's adopted daughter made Mommie Dearest one of Crawford's unfortunate and oft-spoofed legacies.

Best tidbit: Warren Cowan, who represented Joan, relates an anecdote that speaks volumes about Crawford: "The first time I met Joan was when I drove to her home one morning. I knocked and rang the front bell, and there was no answer. So I walked around the back of the house, and there was a kitchen door, which was half door and half window. I looked in, and there was the maid scrubbing the kitchen floor, wearing a bandanna on her head. I rapped on the door and she saw me and came to the door. I said, 'Excuse me, is Miss Crawford at home?'

"She said, 'You must be Warren. It's me, Joan.'

" . . . She was incredible. She answered all her fan mail. . . . She was the most disciplined person."

Pros: No one can beat Chandler for thorough research and painstaking storytelling.

Cons: One tends to wonder to what extent quotations have been edited, rewritten, rearranged, etc., in order to be more readable.

Final word: This is the definitive book on Crawford's life and her career. It's entertaining while offering convincing authenticity.