Joan Crawford and Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes MacArthur (née Brown; October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was an American actress whose career spanned almost 80 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of American Theatre" and was one of 12 people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award (an EGOT). Hayes also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, from President Ronald Reagan in 1986. In 1988, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. The annual Helen Hayes Awards, which have recognized excellence in professional theatre in greater Washington, DC, since 1984, are her namesake. In 1955, the former Fulton Theatre on 46th Street in New York City's Broadway Theater District was renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre. When that venue was torn down in 1982, the nearby Little Theatre was renamed in her honor. Helen Hayes is regarded as one of the Greatest Leading Ladies of the 20th century theatre. Early life Helen Hayes Brown was born in Washington, D.C., on October 10, 1900. Her mother, Catherine Estelle (née Hayes), or Essie, was an aspiring actress who worked in touring companies. Her father, Francis van Arnum Brown, worked at a number of jobs, including as a clerk at the Washington Patent Office and as a manager and salesman for a wholesale butcher. Hayes' Irish Catholic maternal grandparents emigrated from Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine. Hayes began a stage career at an early age. She said her stage debut was as a five-year-old singer at Washington's Belasco Theatre, on Lafayette Square, across from the White House. By the age of ten, she had made a short film called Jean and the Calico Doll, but moved to Hollywood only when her husband, playwright Charles MacArthur, signed a Hollywood deal. Helen Hayes MacArthur, also known as Helen Brown in her early years, attended Dominican Academy's prestigious primary school, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, from 1910 to 1912 during which she appeared in The Old Dutch, Little Lord Fauntleroy, as well as other performances. She attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart Convent in Washington and graduated in 1917. Career In the film What Every Woman Knows (1934) Her sound film debut was The Sin of Madelon Claudet, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She followed that with starring roles in Arrowsmith (with Ronald Colman), A Farewell to Arms (with actor Gary Cooper, whom Hayes admitted to finding extremely attractive), The White Sister (opposite Clark Gable), What Every Woman Knows (a reprise from her Broadway hit), and Vanessa: Her Love Story. However, Hayes did not prefer that medium to the stage. Hayes eventually returned to Broadway in 1935, where for three years she played the title role in the Gilbert Miller production of Victoria Regina, with Vincent Price as Prince Albert, first at the Broadhurst Theatre and later at the Martin Beck Theatre. In 1951, she was involved with the Broadway revival of J.M. Barrie's play Mary Rose at the ANTA Playhouse. In 1953, she was the first-ever recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, repeating as the winner in 1969. She returned to Hollywood in the 1950s, and her film star began to rise. She starred in My Son John (1952) and Anastasia (1956), and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as an elderly stowaway in the disaster film Airport (1970). She followed that up with several roles in Disney films such as Herbie Rides Again, One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing and Candleshoe. Her performance in Anastasia was considered a comeback—she had suspended her career for several years due to the death of her daughter Mary, and her husband's failing health. In 1955, the Fulton Theatre was renamed for her. However, business interests in the 1980s wished to raze that theatre and four others to construct a large hotel that included the Marquis Theatre. To accomplish razing this theatre and three others, as well as the Hotel Astor, the business interests received Hayes' consent to raze the theatre named for her, though she had no ownership interest in the buildings. Parts of the original Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway were used to construct the Shakespeare Center on the Upper Westside of Manhattan, which Hayes dedicated with Joseph Papp in 1982.[10] In 1983 the Little Theater on West 45th Street was renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre in her honor, as was a theatre in Nyack, which has since been renamed the Riverspace-Arts Center. In early 2014, the site was refurbished and styled by interior designer Dawn Hershko and reopened as the Playhouse Market, a quaint restaurant and gourmet deli. Book written by Helen Hayes in 1971-72 with friend Anita Loos. Hayes, who spoke with her good friend Anita Loos almost daily on the phone, remarked to her friend "I used to think New York was the most enthralling place in the world. I'll bet it still is and if I were free next summer, I would prove it." With that, she convinced her friend to embark on an exploration of all five boroughs of New York. They visited and explored the off-the-beaten track of the city; Bellevue Hospital at night, riding a tug boat hauling garbage out to sea, they went to parties, libraries, and Puerto Rican markets. They spoke to everyday people to see how they lived their lives and what made the city tick. The result of this collaborative effort was the book, "Twice Over Lightly" published in 1972. It is unclear when or by whom Hayes was called the "First Lady of the Theatre". Her friend, actress Katharine Cornell, also held that title, and each thought the other deserved it. One critic said that Cornell played every queen as though she were a woman, whereas Hayes played every woman as though she were a queen. Hayes was hospitalized a number of times for her asthma condition, which was aggravated by stage dust, forcing her to retire from legitimate theater in 1971, at age 71. Her last Broadway show was a 1970 revival of Harvey, in which she co-starred with James Stewart. Clive Barnes wrote, "She epitomizes flustered charm almost as if it were a style of acting ... She is one of those actors ... where to watch how she is doing something is almost as pleasurable as what she is doing." She spent most of her last years writing and raising money for organizations that fight asthma.

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.