Bette and Joan The Divine Feud Read Online Free PDF Page B

test was screened for Goldwyn, he stood up in the theater and screamed, "Who did this to me?" The producer would be added to her list of old scores to settle, but in the meantime Bette assessed her liabilities. "I was not prepared for motion pictures," she said. "My movements were much too broad. I also had a crooked tooth, of which I was aware, but I had no idea it would stand out like a locomotive."
     

    Bette makes Broadway debut in "Broken Dishes" November, 1929.
     
    Undaunted, she had the tooth fixed and prepared for her next test. "I had no doubt in my mind that I would be given a second chance," she said. "I wasn't a fool. Mother and I knew that talking pictures would soon be very popular. The movie producers would
need
actresses who could talk. Certainly I could do that very well."
     
    Joan Goes Straight
    "I had always known what
I wanted, and that was beauty
. . . in every form ... a
beautiful house, beautiful man,
a beautiful life and image. I was
ambitious to get the money
which would attain all that
for me."
    —JOAN CRAWFORD
    Upon the signing of her new contract with M-G-M, Crawford's salary was raised to fifteen hundred dollars per week, with an upfront bonus of ten thousand. She became a member of Louis B. Mayer's ("Call me Papa") family of stars, which also included Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, Norma Shearer, and Greta Garbo. Crawford was now entitled to receive all of the privileges and protection that the powerful studio could offer. In Joan's case the latter service proved beneficial. She had already been involved in a few legal skirmishes with stores in Los Angeles. Once she was apprehended leaving a woman's specialty shop with merchandise not paid for; another fashion establishment claimed that Mrs. Anna LeSueur, her mother, ran up bills that she refused to pay. Joan had already been cited twice by the Los Angeles Police Department for speeding when a third, more serious infraction occurred. She was driving at a rapid pace along Hollywood Boulevard, ignoring the red lights, when she hit a woman crossing the street. Attempting to leave the scene of the accident, she was apprehended by a policeman. Bursting into tears, Joan then tried to bribe the policeman and was taken to the local Hollywood precinct. Allowed one call, she called Howard Strickling, in charge of publicity at M-G-M. Strickling called L. B. Mayer, who called his friend the chief of police (who would later be hired to head Metro's security division). Joan was released without being booked, and after Howard Strickling visited the injured young woman in the hospital, with a thousand dollars in crisp, clean bills, all claims against the star and the studio were dropped.
     

    Joan in her first M-G-M talking film, "Untamed," November, 1929.
     
    In September 1928 Crawford was not as fortunate in keeping the news of another indiscretion out of the tabloids. That month she was named as "the other woman" in two divorce cases. One plaintiff told the Los Angeles
Herald
that "the Venus of Hollywood" stole her husband and she was suing Crawford for damages. Another woman claimed her husband was the recipient of "expensive gifts" from Joan, and spent long weekends with her in "motels and resorts, up north." Both men, one an assistant camera-operator, the other a carpenter, were employed by M-G-M; after a consultation with their bosses, they returned to their wives, temporarily.
     
    Joan, as a result, was called before Louis B. Mayer. She was now a star, he told her. She had responsibilities, not only to the studio, but to the hundreds of thousands of young people ("My public," said Joan) who wrote to her each week. She had a choice, Mayer went on. She could continue to burn herself out by kicking up her heels with riffraff in speakeasies and hotel rooms, or she could become a bigger star, by practicing selection and discretion in her private life and increased zeal and devotion in her professional one. "He told her she had to put a lid on it," said a