Ferocious Ambition

Joan Crawford’s March to Stardom

By: Robert Dance

Narrated by: Greg D. Barnett

Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

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

A Most Excellent Film Biography

Of all of the Joan Crawford biographies and other related books I have read, this is the best. This book provides excellent context to her complete filmography and weaves in how Crawford's personal life and personality shaped her career choices and the results of the work she created. At 10 hours, the audiobook is efficient in covering a 50+ year career, and was so enjoyable I could have listened another 10 hours. The reader has a very pleasant voice and provides great delivery of this excellent material. Despite having read a number of other books about Ms. Crawford, I learned a number of new things with this book which is always exciting. One of my many highlights is the detailed itinerary of a "day in the life .." described in the last chapter of the book. This highlight is embolic of many treasures found throughout the book. If you think you have read or heard it all already, as I thought, you have not until you read this book.