Earl Wilson and Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford Dies at Home By PETER B. FLINT Joan Crawford, who rose from waitress and chorus girl to become one of the great movie stars, died yesterday of a heart attack in her apartment at 158 East 68th Street. She gave her age as 69, but some reference works list her as two to four years older. Miss Crawford had been a director of the Pepsi-Cola Company since the death of her fourth husband, Alfred N. Steele, the board chairman of the company, in 1959, but she had not been actively involved in the business in recent months. A spokesman for Pepsi-Cola said Miss Crawford had no history of cardiac trouble and had appeared to be in good health except for recent complaints of back pains. Miss Crawford was a quintessential superstar--an epitome of timeless glamour who personified for decades the dreams and disappointments of millions of American women. With a wind-blown bob, mocking eyes and swirling short skirt, she spun to stardom in 1928, frenziedly dancing the Charleston stop a table in the silent melodrama "Our Dancing Daughters." As a frivolous flapper she quickly made a series of spin-offs, including "Our Modern Maidens," "Laughing Sinners" and "This Modern Age." Endowed with a low voice, she easily made the transition to sound pictures and went on to become one of the more endurable movie queens. Her career, a chorine-to-grande dame rise, with some setbacks, was due largely to determination, shrewd timing, flexibility, hard work and discipline. Self-educated and intensely professional, Miss Crawford studied and trained assiduously to learn her art. She made the most of her large blue eyes, wide mouth, broad shoulders and slim figured and eventually became an Oscar-winning dramatic actress. In more than 80 movies, she adapted easily to changing times and tastes. When audiences began to tire of one image, she toiled to produce a new one. She made the changes with pace-setting makeup, coiffures, costumes--and craftsmanship. From a symbol of flaming youth in the Jazz Age, she successively portrayed a shopgirl, a sophisticate, a tenacious woman fighting for success in love and/or a career in a male-dominated milieu, and later a repressed and anguished older woman. Exhibitors voted her one of the 10 top money-making stars from 1932 through 1936, and in the late 1930's she was one of the highest-paid actresses. With a finely structured, photogenic face and high style gowns usually designed by Adrian, she idealized what many woman wished to be. In 1945, when her career seemed to be foundering, she rebounded as a doting mother and ambitious waitress who rises to wealthy restauranteur in "Mildred Pierce," a role that won her an Academy Award as best actress. Despite the Cinderella-type roles in many of her early movies, which many reviewers came to term "the Crawford formula," she fought tenaciously for varied and challenging parts, just as she later fought to remain a great star, with what one writer called "the diligence of a ditch digger." In her autobiography, "A Portrait of Joan," written with Jane Kesner Ardmore and published in 1962 by Doubleday & Company Inc., she acknowledged that "I was always a script stealer," which got her into "Our Dancing Daughters." She boldly cajoled producers, directors and writers to gain good roles. When Norma Shearer refused to play a mother in the 1940 drama "Susan and God," Miss Crawford was offered the role. She responded, "I'd play Wally Beery's grandmother if it's a good part!"

Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSuer on March 23, 1905, in San Antonio, Texas. Much of Crawford's youth was spent moving from place to place, but she always found a connection with theater. Abused at home and at school, Crawford saw theater as a way to better her life. In 1924 she left Detroit for New York City to star in the musical Innocent Eyes. In 1925 she signed a movie contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and through a magazine contest sponsored by MGM acquired the name Joan Crawford, a moniker that quickly became known in households across America. Throughout her film career, Crawford starred in a total of 81 films and was nominated for two Academy Awards. In 1945, Crawford won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in Mildred Pierce. Crawford donated much of her time and money to help needy organizations and received a number of awards and certificates in appreciation for her work. In 1955, Crawford married Alfred Steele, chairman and CEO of Pepsi-Cola Corporation, and took on the roles of board member and publicity executive. In the early 1960s, Crawford arrived at Brandeis University to support the arts program. In 1965, the Joan Crawford Dance Studio was dedicated within the Spingold Theater Arts Center to promote dance education. The awards in this online exhibit were previously on display at the Joan Crawford Dance Studio. In 1967, Crawford became a Brandeis University Fellow. A letter of invitation to her induction dinner states that Crawford was elected as a Brandeis Fellow "given her interest, time and service to a host of civic and philanthropic causes which has endeared her to a large public that goes well beyond the pale of the entertainment industry." When Crawford became a Brandeis Fellow, she joined a group of men and women who were recognized as successful and creative individuals in their fields or communities.

Earl Wilson (May 3, 1907 – January 16, 1987) Earl Wilson (May 3, 1907 – January 16, 1987), born Harvey Earl Wilson, was an American journalist, gossip columnist, and author, perhaps best known for his 6-day a week nationally syndicated newspaper column, It Happened Last Night. Life and career Wilson was born in Rockford, in Mercer County in western Ohio, to Arthur Wilson, a farmer, and Chloe Huffman Wilson. He attended Central High, where he reported on the doings of the school, using his father's typewriter to write his stories. Young Earl's mother encouraged him to pursue a career outside of farming. Wilson contributed to the Rockford Press and the Lima Republican Gazette, which would be the first to pay him for his writing. He also wrote for the Piqua, Ohio Daily Call before enrolling in college in 1925. Wilson attended Heidelberg College for two years before transferring to Ohio State University where he worked on the Lantern, the university’s student-run daily newspaper. He also held part-time jobs with the Columbus Dispatch and the capital city’s International News Service Bureau. Wilson graduated from Ohio State University in 1931 with a B. S. in journalism. In 1935, Wilson began work for The Washington Post, meanwhile sending samples of his work to one of the editors at the New York Post. Later in 1935, Wilson arrived in New York to begin work with the Post, taking a room in a boarding house on Bleecker Street. There he met Rosemary Lyons from East St. Louis, IL, a secretary whom he wed in 1936. The couple struggled for several years until Wilson's work at the Post began to take off. Their only child, Earl Wilson, Jr., was born on December 1, 1942. His column, which he took over from a writer who went off to war in 1942, was originally considered "filler." It eventually ran until 1983. As the column grew in popularity and importance, Wilson worked 18-hour days, typically arising in the late morning, telephoning news sources, and taking reports from several assistants. In the evenings he would set out for dinner at Toots Shor's or a similar theater district restaurant, accompanied by his wife, Rosemary, known to his readers as "B.W." (for Beautiful Wife). The pair made the rounds of night spots until the wee hours of the morning. By the early 50’s, the Broadway gossip columns had become an important media outlet; columnists exercised a great deal of power in providing publicity for the celebrities of the day. But, whereas gossip columnists as a group were not held in high regard, Wilson had the reputation of being different: he was a trained journalist who double-checked facts, he was much influenced by his Mid-western upbringing and avoided innuendo and sensationalism, and he sought to cover his stories as real news items. With a reputation for being fair and honest, Wilson was trusted so much that celebrities willingly gave him their stories. His chronicling of the Broadway theatre scene during the "Golden Age" of show business formed the basis for a book published in 1971, The Show Business Nobody Knows. He signed his columns with the tag line, "That's Earl, brother." His nickname was "Midnight Earl". In later years, the name of his column was changed to Last Night With Earl Wilson. In his final years with the Post, he alternated with the paper's entertainment writer and restaurant critic, Martin Burden, in turning out the column. (Burden, who died in 1993, took over the Last Night column full-time upon Wilson's retirement.) Wilson is also the author of two books, Show Business Laid Bare,[1] and an unauthorized biography of Frank Sinatra, Sinatra – An Unauthorized Biography.[2] The former book is notable for revealing the extramarital affairs of President John F. Kennedy. In the early 1950s, Wilson was an occasional panelist on the NBC game show, Who Said That?, in which celebrities tried to determine the speaker of quotations taken from recent news reports. On January 19, 1952, Wilson guest starred on the CBS live variety show, Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town, in which hostess Faye Emerson visited Columbus to accent the kinds of music popular in the Ohio capital city. Wilson appeared in a few films as himself, notably Copacabana (1947) with Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda, A Face in the Crowd (1957) with Andy Griffith, College Confidential (1960), and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) with Buster Keaton, Paul Lynde and Don Rickles. Wilson also hosted the DuMont TV show Stage Entrance from May 1951 to March 1952. Death Wilson died in a hospital in Yonkers, New York, in January 1987, after suffering from Parkinson's Disease for several years. His was survived by his only child, Earl Wilson, Jr., a songwriter for the musical theatre. Wilson Sr.'s wife, Rosemary, predeceased him in February 1986. Legacy The Beatles dedicated their first set on the Ed Sullivan Show to Mr. Wilson. Wilson was portrayed by Christian McKay in the 2016 film Florence Foster Jenkins.