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| children = | parents = Thomas E. LeSueur Anna Bell Johnson | relatives = Hal LeSueur (brother) | signature = Joan Crawford Signature.svg}} Joan Crawford (March 23, 1904〕 Joan Crawford's daughter Christina, in the 1978 biography ''Mommie Dearest'', firmly states 1904 twice: Publicly her birth date was reported as March 23, 1908, but Grandmother told me that she was actually born in 1904. My mother was born Lucille LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, in 1904, although when she came to Hollywood she lied about her age and changed the year to 1908.〔}}}} – May 10, 1977), born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American film and television actress who started as a dancer and stage chorine. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Crawford tenth on their list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Beginning her career as a dancer in travelling theatrical companies before debuting as a chorus girl on Broadway, Crawford signed a motion picture contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. In the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled, and later outlasted, MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hard-working young women who find romance and success. These stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money and by the end of the 1930s she was labelled "Box Office Poison". But her career gradually improved in the early 1940s, and she made a major comeback in 1945 by starring in ''Mildred Pierce'', for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She would go on to receive Best Actress nominations for ''Possessed'' (1947) and ''Sudden Fear'' (1952). In 1955, she became involved with the Pepsi-Cola Company through her marriage to company Chairman Alfred Steele. After his death in 1959, Crawford was elected to fill his vacancy on the board of directors but was forcibly retired in 1973. She continued acting in film and television regularly through the 1960s, when her performances became fewer; after the release of the British horror film ''Trog'' in 1970, Crawford retired from the screen. Following a public appearance in 1974, after which unflattering photographs were published, Crawford withdrew from public life and became increasingly reclusive until her death in 1977. Crawford married four times. Her first three marriages ended in divorce; the last ended with the death of husband Alfred Steele. She adopted five children, one of whom was reclaimed by his birth mother. Crawford's relationships with her two older children, Christina and Christopher, were acrimonious. Crawford disinherited the two and, after Crawford's death, Christina wrote a "tell-all" memoir titled, ''Mommie Dearest''. ==Early life== Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, on March 23; the year is disputed, with 1904, 1905 and 1906 the most likely estimates, all cited in varying sources,〔 the third child of Thomas E. LeSueur (died January 1, 1938), a laundry laborer, and Anna Bell Johnson (died August 15, 1958), neither of whose years of birth can be conclusively established. Anna Bell Johnson was of English, French Huguenot, Swedish, and Irish ancestry. Her elder siblings were Daisy LeSueur (ƒ 1902) and Hal LeSueur. Thomas LeSueur abandoned the family a few months before Crawford's birth but reappeared in Abilene, Texas, in 1930 as a reportedly 62-year-old construction laborer. However, after his death on January 1, 1938, his age was given as 71. Crawford's mother subsequently married Henry J. Cassin (died October 25, 1922). This marriage is listed in census records as Crawford's mother's first marriage, calling into question whether Thomas LeSueur and Anna Bell Johnson were ever legally wed.〔 The family lived in Lawton, Oklahoma, where Cassin, a minor impresario, ran the Ramsey Opera House. Despite his own relatively minor status as an impresario, Cassin managed to get such diverse and noted performers as Anna Pavlova and Eva Tanguay during his career. Young Lucille was reportedly unaware that Cassin, whom she called "Daddy", was not her biological father until her brother Hal told her.〔Newquist, pg. 25〕 Lucille preferred the nickname "Billie" as a child and she loved watching vaudeville acts perform on the stage of her stepfather's theatre. The instability of her family life affected her education and her schooling never formally progressed beyond elementary school.〔Denby, David, "Escape Artist, The Case for Joan Crawford", ''The New Yorker'', January 3, 2011.〕 Her ambition was to be a dancer. However, one day, in an attempt to escape piano lessons to play with friends, she leaped from the front porch of her home and cut her foot deeply on a broken milk bottle. She had three operations and was unable to attend elementary school for 18 months.〔 She eventually fully recovered and returned to dancing. Cassin was accused of embezzlement and although acquitted in court, was blacklisted in Lawton, and the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, around 1916. Cassin was first listed in the City Directory in 1917, living at 403 East Ninth Street. A Catholic, Cassin placed Crawford at St. Agnes Academy in Kansas City. After her mother and stepfather broke up, she stayed on at St. Agnes as a work student, where she spent far more time working, primarily cooking and cleaning, than studying. Later, she went to Rockingham Academy, also as a work student.〔 While attending Rockingham she began dating and had her first serious relationship, with a trumpet player named Ray Sterling, who reportedly inspired her to begin challenging herself academically.〔Thomas, pgs. 23–24〕 In 1922, she registered at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, giving her year of birth as 1906. She attended Stephens for only a few months before withdrawing after she realized she was not prepared for college. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Joan Crawford」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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