Biografie

Was asked to take over Carole Lombard 's role in Ein Kuß zuviel (1942) after Lombard died in an airplane crash returning from a war bond tour. Crawford then donated all of her salary to the Red Cross, which found Lombard's body, and promptly fired her agent for taking his usual 10%.

She had a cleanliness obsession. She used to wash her hands every ten minutes and follow guests around her house wiping everything they touched, especially doorknobs and pieces from her china set. She would never smoke a cigarette unless she opened the pack herself, and would never use another cigarette out of that pack if someone else had touched it.

She once said in an interview that she and her arch-rival and Was geschah wirklich mit Baby Jane? (1962) costar Bette Davis had nothing in common. In reality, they had a handful of similarities in their personal lives. They both had fathers who abandoned their families at a young age, they rose from poverty to success while breaking into films during the late 1920s and early 1930s, had siblings and mothers who milked them financially once they became famous, became Oscar-winning leading ladies, were staunch liberal Democrats and feminists, had four husbands, had adopted children, and had daughters who wrote books denouncing them as bad mothers.

She disliked her "new" name and initially encouraged others to pronounce it Jo-Anne Crawford. In private, she liked to be referred to as Billie.

She was so dedicated to her fans that she always personally responded to her fan mail by typing responses on blue paper and autographing it. A great deal of her spare time and weekends were spent doing this.

I need sex for a clear complexion, but I'd rather do it for love.

[In Die Frauen (1939)] Norma Shearer made me change my costume sixteen times because every one was prettier than hers. I love to play bitches and she helped me in this part.

If you start watching the oldies, you're in trouble. I feel ancient if Menschen im Hotel (1932) or Die Braut trug rot (1937) comes on. I have a sneaking regard for Solange ein Herz schlägt (1945), but the others do nothing for me.

Love is fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.

Nobody can imitate me. You can always see impersonations of Katharine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. But not me. Because I've always drawn on myself only.

The Sixth Sense (1972) - $2,500

Das Ungeheuer (1970) - $50,000 (estimated)

Pilot (1987) - $50,000

Es geschah um 8 Uhr 30 (1965) - $50,000

Wiegenlied für eine Leiche (1965) - $50,000 + 25% in profits + $5,000 in living expenses