Here's Why Bette Davis Called Faye Dunaway 'The Worst Person In Hollywood'

Fiery actress Bette Davis had some famous feuds, including her rivalry with Hollywood star Joan Crawford that spanned virtually both of their careers. But Crawford wasn’t the only one to incur Davis’ wrath. You see, Davis hurled some scathing remarks at Faye Dunaway — on live TV no less — that made her feelings loud and clear.

Verbal slaps

It’s true that Davis had a tongue as sharp as her wit, and many stars received one of her verbal slap downs. But the shots she took at Dunaway were particularly brutal. So what could have caused such a devastating attack? It all goes back to the time they shared on set. 

Infamy

That’s right: Dunaway and Davis worked on a TV movie together back in 1976 called The Disappearance of Aimee. It was nowhere near as famous as some of the films either celebrity starred in, yet it has gained some infamy. That’s because no matter what you see onscreen, you know below the surface there’s tension. 

Friction

According to Davis, something happened during filming that caused a clash between her and Dunaway. But there are rumors suggesting other reasons for their friction. So to get to the truth of the matter, you have to understand a little bit about Davis and her relationships with fellow celebrities in Hollywood. 

Swing for the fences

Davis hasn’t pulled any punches in the past. Take her clash with Crawford, which has yielded some of her best swing-for-the-fences’ comments. On Crawford’s death, Davis is quoted as saying, “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good… Joan Crawford is dead. Good.” That shocker has never been absolutely confirmed, though, in Davis’ defense. 

Close-ups

There are plenty of confirmed quotes, though. Davis also had a stinging barb for Lillian Gish, with whom she starred — and clashed — in 1987’s The Whales of August. “She ought to know about close-ups,” Davis said of Gish that year. “Jesus, she was around when they invented them!”

Prickly actress

So it seems that Dunaway was just one in a long line of people who got on Davis’ wrong side. The prickly actress even clashed with other beloved celebs such as swashbuckling star Errol Flynn. Sure, she admired his good looks, but that didn’t stop her from slamming his acting.

Beautiful person

Davis said Flynn was “the most beautiful person we’ve ever had on the screen.” So far, so complimentary. But she ended with, “He openly said he knew nothing about acting, and I admired his honesty because he was absolutely right.” Meanwhile, Flynn described Davis as “dominating everybody around, and especially me, or trying to.” Did poor Dunaway suffer likewise?

Playboy image

The carefree Flynn was more of a playboy, and his image matched the action heroes he starred as. Davis, on the other hand, was dedicated to her craft above all else. She apparently even turned down a huge role because she didn’t appreciate Flynn’s acting. 

Appalling Flynn

In 2017 the blog Love Letters to Old Hollywood wrote how Davis could have been Gone with the Wind’s leading lady, Scarlett O’Hara. But she rejected the role upon hearing Flynn would star opposite her. She’s quoted as saying she walked away because “the thought of Mr. Flynn as Rhett Butler appalled me. I refused.”

Stage slap

That wasn’t Davis’ only conflict with Flynn. Even if she wasn’t as publicly harsh to him as she was to Dunaway, Davis didn’t make it easy on her male co-star. In The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex she turned what should have been a stage slap into a full-blown wallop, as Flynn himself described. 

Shooting stars

“I felt as if I had been hit by a railroad locomotive,” Flynn claimed. “She had lifted one of her hands, heavy with those Elizabethan rings, and Joe Louis himself couldn’t give a right hook better than Bette hooked me with. My jaw went out. I felt a click behind my ear and I saw all these comets, shooting stars, all in one flash.”

Personal feuds

Besides personal feuds with the likes of Crawford, Flynn, and Dunaway, Davis had some witty snipes for unnamed stars, too. Take her opinions on her peers, for instance.“I never did pal around with other actresses,” Davis said in 1989’s Betty & Joan: The Divine Feud. “Their talk usually bored me to tears.” She felt even stronger about the younger generation. 

Big swing

In another famous Davis quote, the actress whined, “Some young Hollywood starlets remind me of my grandmother’s old farmhouse — all painted up nice on the front side, a big swing on the backside, and nothing whatsoever in the attic.” But Davis saved her most acidic insults for the people who really riled her up. 

Intense feud

Which brings us nicely to Davis and Crawford, an intense feud that’s become legendary. There have even been books and a movie about it. So why were the stars always at each other’s throats? Well, Crawford was already big news when Davis found celebrity in Hollywood, and it was a case of hate at first sight. 

Romantic rivals

Davis disapproved of the media’s fascination with Crawford’s private life. This came to a head when Crawford’s divorce to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. stole the thunder from Davis’ movie, Ex-Lady. The pair were also romantic rivals for the affections of both Clark Gable and Franchot Tone, the latter of which starred opposite Davis in the 1935 movie Dangerous

End the animosity

Both women fell hard for Tone, but it was Crawford who dated and later married him. And despite Crawford’s attempts to end the animosity, Davis rejected her every effort. In fact, Davis’ jabs at Crawford were worse than her thoughts on Dunaway — or at least, longer-lived. Over the years they ended up criticizing every aspect of each other’s lives. 

Except Lassie

According to Bette And Joan: The Divine Feud, Davis claimed that Crawford had “slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie.” Yikes. She also allegedly said, “The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”

Diva Dunaway

That should bring some context to Davis’ conviction when she verbally lashed out at Dunaway on live TV. But what could the latter actress have done to attract such ire? Well, for starters, Davis wasn’t the first actor to find Dunaway difficult to work with. She’s known as something of a diva in professional circles. 

Downward slide

Dunaway’s breakout role was in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, and her career grew from there. She was at the height of fame in the 1970s when she starred in Chinatown and even won an Oscar for her performance in Network. Since then, though, her reputation has taken a little bit of a hit.  

Looking flushed

Yep, throughout her career there have been allegations of diva-like behavior. The 1999 book by Peter Biskind called Easy Riders, Raging Bulls describes how Dunaway hated using her dressing room toilets. Thus she would get staff members to flush the toilets and even use trash cans herself instead, claimed the book. Dunaway denies these claims.

Bad behavior

One of Dunaway’s co-stars on the 1981 film Mommie Dearest also recalled some bad behavior. In 2019 Rutanya Alda told Page Six, “My first day on the set, [Dunaway] slapped me. Instead of doing a stage slap, she slapped me on the cheek, hard and for real.” Other accounts tell similar stories. 

Horrified

Paul Huntley, who designs wigs for Broadway shows, toured with the show Master Class starring Dunaway. And he recalled one particular incident when the star was unhappy. He said, “Faye didn’t like how the hairpins were being presented and she slapped my assistant’s hand. [The assistant] was horrified and did not know what to do.”

Terminated relationship

Reports of mistreatment at Dunaway’s hands continue into recent years. In fact, she was at the center of a flurry of accusations in 2017. The actress was working in a Broadway show called Tea at Five until producers let her go. They told The New York Post that they “terminated their relationship” with Dunaway. 

Dangerous

But the show’s crew cited Dunaway’s behavior as the reason. According to Page Six, the actress dictated how no one except her could wear the “distracting” color white. There was also talk of her throwing objects, slapping people, and generally making working conditions “dangerous.” So did Davis experience such things on set with Dunaway?

Clashed

Remember how we mentioned that Davis worked with Dunaway in 1976 on a movie titled The Disappearance of Aimee? That’s when they clashed. But Davis didn’t bring up the topic until nearly a decade later, during a 1988 interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. And she didn’t pull any punches. 

Worst person in Hollywood

Carson asked Davis, “Who’s one of the worst people you know in Hollywood? That you wouldn’t want to work with again?” And even though her host said she didn’t have to answer, without missing a beat Davis replied, “One million dollars, Faye Dunaway. Everybody you can put in this chair will tell you exactly the same thing.” 

Totally impossible

Davis continued, “She’s just totally impossible. I don’t think we have the time to go into all the reasons. Let’s put it… she’s just uncooperative. Miss Dunaway is for Miss Dunaway.” So was it the working conditions that caused such animosity? Well, that depends on who you ask. There’s a theory that a deeper reason incited the backlash. 

Mediocre

Dunaway portrayed Crawford in a 1981 film called Mommie Dearest based on the allegedly abusive childhood Christina Crawford suffered through her adopted mother. Whatever the truth behind that, the film was not a critical success, receiving only a mediocre 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The reviews were not positive, either. 

Traffic accident

Flavorwire’s Jason Bailey wrote. “The character is rendered such a grotesque, its moments don’t accumulate to an arc or even a readable profile. They just pile up, like cars in a traffic accident, and all we can do is gawk.” Meanwhile, Associated Press’ Yardena Arar wrote how Dunaway plays Crawford “as a laughable caricature.”

Razzie award

Dunaway was even nominated for two Razzie awards in 1982 for her performance as Crawford — one for Worst Actress and another for Worst Actress of the Decade. She “won” the former. So was it possible that Davis didn’t like Dunaway because she took on the role of Davis’ biggest rival?

Noteworthy

It’s possible, but unlikely. None of Davis’ comments about Dunaway ever mentioned Crawford. And the fact that Davis named Dunaway as the worst person she’d worked with instead of Crawford is particularly noteworthy. If you’re wondering what made Dunaway so bad to work with though, Davis went into further detail in her interview. 

Tabernacle

Davis elaborated on how Dunaway would treat people onset. “We did [the film about] Aimee Semple McPherson in Denver, Colorado in a big, big tabernacle,” she told Carson. “I was Aimee’s mother. [Dunaway] was playing Aimee, of course. So 5,000 people [extras for the film] were going to get boxed lunches coming to the tabernacle. And 20 minutes later, we are still all sitting there.”

Letter to daddy

The actress continued, “The audience was getting a little upset as you can imagine. So I thought, ‘well, you better do something.’ So I said, ‘well, I think I’ll entertain you ...while we wait.’ And I sang, ‘I’ve written a letter to daddy’ and I sang the whole song for them. Which helped a little bit.” 

Speculation

Something that is worth noting is that Davis performed that very same song in the movie, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? This could be significant because it’s the first and only time Davis worked on a film with her rival, Crawford. There’s been speculation that Davis was poking fun at both Dunaway and Crawford with the reference. 

Unprofessional

Davis concluded her anecdote to Carson with, “No, [Dunaway] truly, seriously ...she’s a very unprofessional, difficult woman.” At the time Dunaway herself made no retaliation, though according to IMDb the comments had enraged her. But she did respond in a fashion in her 1995 book Looking For Gatsby, six years after Davis passed away. 

Silent too long

In the autobiography, Dunaway comments, “I was silent too long about ...Bette Davis. I didn’t want to get into fights in the press, and I think that silence contributed to the image problems.” Yet there are others who’ll support Davis’ reports, including Jill Sobule who worked on The Disappearance of Aimee with Davis and Dunaway.

Valley of the dolls

Sobule told Page Six, “Faye Dunaway was hours late and we were all waiting for her, sweating through our costumes on the hottest day of the summer in an un-air-conditioned church. “[When she] finally arrived, she was in the foulest mood and didn’t know her lines. She yelled at people and huffed off the set ...It was like something out of ‘Valley of the Dolls.’” 

So rude

IMDb described how Rutanya Alda also experienced an unpleasant atmosphere on the set of Mommy Dearest. “Joan got her way in a ladylike way,” she described. “Faye was despised because she was so rude to people. Everyone was on pins and needles when she worked, and everyone relaxed when she didn’t. I wish Faye had learned from Joan.” But while Crawford may have been good at putting on a front, it seems she, too, had some secrets she was trying to hide.

She kept her true age a secret

Did you know that nobody is certain how old Crawford actually was when she died? Of course, it seems crazy to imagine given how famous she was! We know her birthday was March 23, but the year is unknown, because no birth certificate was ever uncovered and Crawford certainly wasn’t telling anyone. After all, in the acting world it’s handy to be able to knock a few years off your age.

She might have had a secret husband

Crawford was married four times officially. But was there a secret first husband lost to history? Well, some biographers think so. The story goes that Crawford wed a man named James Welton before finding fame, though she hid the marriage. As archaic and weird as it sounds, women signing up to studios had to swear they were unmarried, so there wasn’t any other option. Allegedly, the relationship didn’t survive this and they divorced.

She had a bizarre nickname for her maid

If you wanted to work for Joan Crawford, you had to accept some strange conditions first. The actress nicknamed her trusty German maid “Mamacita,” and she explained the strange reason for this in her 1971 book My Way of Life. Crawford wrote, “I had just returned from Rio de Janeiro, where all I had heard was mamacita, papacita, cousincita, everything-cita, so without thinking I called out, ‘Mamacita!’ Back she cried, ‘Ya! Ich comming!’ The name has stuck ever since.” We’re not sure how the star heard so many Spanish words in Portuguese-speaking Rio, but hey.

She had a troubled relationship with her daughter

A lot of what’s alleged about Crawford’s personal life comes from her adopted daughter Christina. She’s the one who wrote the book Mommie Dearest – a memoir that utterly slammed her parenting. And no, the relationship never healed. Crawford told a Vanity Fair magazine journalist in 1976, The problem was I adopted [Christina], but she didn’t adopt me.”

She had some unusual beauty tricks

In the days of Old Hollywood, actresses would try almost anything to be beautiful. To that end, Crawford had a few slightly odd beauty techniques of her own. The actress reportedly cleaned her face every day using ice cubes and witch hazel, and according to House & Garden magazine, she chewed gum to keep her famous jawline firm. Who even knows if this helped with her looks, but it clearly didn’t hurt them.

She married the man Bette Davis loved

Did you know that the Davis-Crawford feud all started with a battle over a man? The former was apparently in love with co-star Franchot Tone, but it was Crawford who wooed and married him. Davis said in a 1987 interview with Michael Thorton, “I have never forgiven her for that, and [I] never will… She took him from me. She did it coldly, deliberately, and with complete ruthlessness.”

Her name was chosen via a contest

Crawford’s original name was Lucille Fay LeSueur, but the bigwigs at MGM Studios reportedly didn’t like it. According to the website At Home with Daneen, publicity head Pete Smith allegedly thought it sounded like the word “sewer.” He set up a contest called “Name the Star” in a magazine, and the winning entry was “Joan Crawford.” Except the actress herself never liked it, because it was so similar to “crawfish.” But she stuck with it nonetheless.

She may have had liaisons with women

Some think Crawford might have been bisexual. While she certainly had highly publicized relationships with men, there were also constant rumors that she was happy to romance women as well. Allegedly, Marilyn Monroe was one of her conquests. It’s also been suggested by those close to her that she had a crush on Bette Davis – though that feeling soon turned to mutual hate.

Her childhood was tough and dangerous

Crawford grew up in poverty, and by her own account it was a miserable life. The young girl was expected to work relentlessly if she wanted to earn her keep. According to biographer Mark Knowles, Crawford once injured herself badly on a broken bottle – but still had to help her mother scrub floors while recovering. And during the star’s boarding school days she had to clean and serve food in order to pay for her place.

She stole a role from her daughter

In 1968 Christina Crawford fell sick while doing CBS TV series The Secret Storm. So, Crawford came up with the absolutely bizarre idea of standing in – despite being 40 years older than her daughter and the character. Christina told The New York Times during that point, “I couldn’t exactly jump up and down in bed about it, but it was fantastic she would care that much.” Sadly, those words would seem mighty hollow later on.

She refused to be ‘grandmother’

Apparently, Crawford didn’t let the grandkids call her “grandmother.” Was this vanity, a fear of growing old, or something else? Her grandson told the website Legendary Joan Crawford in 2007, “She preferred a self-created nickname: ‘JoJo.’ It was a natural nickname, derived from her first name. It rolls off the tongue and was easy for a child to remember and master.”

She also feuded with Mercedes McCambridge

Yep, Joan Crawford made a lot of enemies. During filming on Johnny Guitar, a jealous Crawford went out of her way to make things miserable for her co-star Mercedes McCambridge. In fact, she even allegedly threw all her clothes out into the road at one point! Ernest Borgnine claimed in his 2009 memoir Ernie: The Autobiography, “Joan Crawford hated Mercedes McCambridge with a passion. She called her all kinds of insulting names, and [the] poor [woman] would fall apart.”

Her children were adopted via illegal means

Crawford wanted to adopt children as a single woman, but this was forbidden in California where she lived. So, she reportedly ended up using illegal “baby brokers” and obviously this led to huge trouble. At one point, the biological mother of her child Christopher came and demanded the boy back. Crawford gave him up and ended up naming a different adopted son Christopher.

She would re-clean after her housekeepers had been round

Did you know that Crawford hated messiness? Yep, she told Roy Newquist as much for his 1980 book Conversations with Joan Crawford, saying, “Maybe I’ve always been a nut when it comes to cleanliness. When I was a kid I’d scrub the hell out of the rooming houses and crummy apartments my mother and her husbands lived in… and even after I had the money to hire an army of housekeepers and maids I ended up doing the cleaning myself because they never got things really clean.”

She threw shade at Bette Davis during the Oscars

Bette Davis attended the 1936 Oscars wearing an old dress, since the actress didn’t expect to win. But when she did, Crawford – who was there with Franchot Tone, the man she’d stolen from Davis – allegedly smirked to her rival, “Dear Bette! What a lovely frock.” She also turned away when her much politer husband gave Davis a hug.

The book Mommie Dearest ripped her family apart

Christina Crawford published Mommie Dearest in 1978, and to this day it’s disputed as to whether the star did any of the things her daughter accused her of. Christina’s adopted siblings – twins Cathy and Cindy – have claimed she outright told untruths in her book. And the latter’s son Casey told The Guardian in 2008, “I have always been very careful not to call Christina a liar, but clearly she had a completely different experience from my mother and my aunt Cindy.”

She bullied Anne Helm off the set of Strait-Jacket

Crawford kickstarted yet another feud when she did the film Strait-Jacket. Anne Helm claimed in the 2001 book I Was a Monster Movie Maker by Tom Weaver, “She really wanted me off the picture, and I knew that. But by that point, there was no way I even wanted to be on the picture. She was a very sick woman.” And once Helm left the picture, Davis apparently called her up to trash-talk Crawford.

She dressed up even when taking out the trash

Joan Crawford was determined to always look beautiful and well-dressed – no matter the occasion. And sometimes there wasn’t even an occasion at all! In the 2008 Crawford biography Not the Girl Next Door, writer Charlotte Chandler noted that the aging actress dressed to the nines “even to throw out the garbage.”

She allegedly injured Bette Davis on purpose

Things were at an all-time low between Crawford and Davis during the filming of their only joint movie: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? And according to Harper’s Bazaar, Crawford decided to physically hurt her enemy by weighing herself down with rocks. That way, whenever Davis had to carry the actress it would cause agony to her back!

She acted like a friend to her fans

Joan Crawford’s relationship with her fans was a bit of an odd one. In fact, some might say she was a bit too close to them! As per Vanity Fair, the star apparently set aside hours each day to answer fanmail while always wearing particularly nice dresses. Crawford constantly tipped off her fans as to where she would be and signed autographs while there. The actress reportedly even had a fan staying in her house the night before she died.

She had Pepsi machines installed on her film sets

Crawford’s fourth husband was Al Steele – chairman of the Pepsi-Cola company. And she absolutely flung herself into the role of Pepsi brand ambassador. Not only did Crawford reference the soft drink in as much of her work as possible, she ensured a Pepsi vending machine was available on all her film sets.

She snubbed Joan Collins

Actress Joan Collins was named after Joan Crawford, but she never got a chance to tell her that. The former wrote in her 1997 book Second Act that as soon as she met Crawford, “Her eyes swept me dismissively from top to toe, her lip curling disdainfully at my low-cut white organza top and full black and white tulle skirt. She obviously didn’t like what she saw so she didn’t deign to speak to me…” Ouch.

She was abandoned by her father figures

Looking back at Crawford’s early life, perhaps it’s not surprising that the star turned out as cold as she did. The actress was the youngest of three small children when her father abandoned the family. Crawford’s mother then married again to a man named Henry Cassin, who was rumored to be a gangster. Though the latter left when the star was only ten, and she began supporting herself not long after that.

She rigged an Oscars ceremony in her favor

When Davis – not Crawford – got a Best Actress nomination for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? the latter wasn’t about to take it lying down. She would beat her hated enemy one way or another. In addition to campaigning against Davis, she called up all the other Best Actress nominees and offered to accept on their behalf if they won. When Anne Bancroft was declared the winner, Crawford got to go onstage and claim her award while Davis could only seethe.

She romanced Clark Gable

Crawford allegedly had an on-off fling with her frequent co-star Clark Gable. She certainly held a torch for him romantically – she said so herself – and yet the relationship never seemed to cross into serious territory. Perhaps that’s because studio heads hated the romance and constantly demanded that they end it.

She went back on her committal to do another film with Davis

Warner Bros. badly wanted Crawford and Davis to reteam after the success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? A script called Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte was written and both actresses were supposed to star. Except, Crawford quit the set before two weeks were out, claiming – possibly falsely – that she was ill. Director Robert Aldrich even went so far as to hire a private detective to get her back, but that failed. Apparently, she simply wouldn’t work with Davis again.

She kept her furniture covered in plastic

Crawford’s dedication to cleanliness was so intense that she kept her furniture plastic-covered. Her interior designer Carleton Varney told The Observer newspaper in 2002, “There were more objects wrapped in plastic in [Crawford’s] apartment than in an A&P meat counter… Her mania never prevented her from living well, if you disregard the bother of having to ‘break the seals’ on rising from a plastic-covered couch in warm weather.”

Crawford’s grandson hid that he was related to her

In 2007 Casey LaLonde told the Legendary Joan Crawford fansite, “The years following JoJo’s death were punctuated with the publication of Mommie Dearest by aunt Christina. My mother appeared on Good Morning America in May 1981 to defend her mother. I realized that day that JoJo was a tremendous Hollywood star because my classmates and teachers interrupted the morning’s lessons to watch the broadcast. That also marked the day I began keeping the name of my grandmother a secret. I had a belly full of Mommie Dearest jokes. No one but my closest friends I grew up with knew who I was.” But this didn’t last, and he defends her reputation now.

She drank a lot of alcohol

Crawford was by all accounts a heavy drinker, and it got worse as she got older. Apparently, her biographer Lawrence J. Quirk thought that she drank mostly to ease her terrible loneliness. Her friends also sometimes couldn’t tell that she was drunk, but other times Crawford would become completely erratic.

Crawford’s director on Mildred Pierce hated her

The 1945 film Mildred Pierce was one of Crawford’s biggest hits. But according to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s official website, director Michael Curtiz didn’t even want her in it in the first place! She was apparently considered “box office poison” at that point in her career. Curtiz wanted Barbara Stanwyck for his lead and allegedly called Crawford “a has-been” with “high-hat airs.” But she got the last laugh – the star won a Best Actress Oscar for the film.

She kept a fridge in a strange place

Crawford apparently kept a fridge in her bathroom, which seems pretty unhygienic. Designer Judy Becker recreated the actress’ room for the miniseries Feud. And she spoke to Vanity Fair about it in 2017, saying, “She could keep her witch hazel and her lemons and her ice cubes and her vodka there, all of which were used to help preserve her appearance. Well, except the vodka... that was for her mental health.”

She became a Christian Scientist

Crawford was raised Catholic, but later she became a Christian Scientist. It seemed to help her mental health – especially when it came to quitting drinking. In 1976 she told a Vanity Fair journalist, “I’ve become a Christian Scientist. I find it very positive and comforting and a kind of protection.”

She had an awkward encounter with Rita Moreno

Actress Rita Moreno told an interesting tale during her 2008 show Little Tributes. After winning her Oscar in 1962, she allegedly went backstage to find a drunk Crawford there. The latter trapped her in a hug – “She was built like a linebacker” – preventing her from getting to the press room. Later, Moreno remembered getting a letter from Crawford reading, “how generous and kind of you to come visit me in my dressing room.” But they’d apparently never been in one!

She left her daughter and son out of her will

We do know this for sure about Crawford’s parenting: she left daughter Christina and son Christopher out of her will. That said, the other children received some of that fortune and she left a fair sum for her secretary as well. Yet Crawford stated clearly in her will, “It is my intention to make no provision herein for my son Christopher or my daughter Christina for reasons which are well known to them.” Ouch.

She retreated from public life after being photographed unflatteringly

Crawford stopped appearing in public once she got older, and the star told her biographer Charlotte Chandler why. The actress revealed in Not the Girl Next Door that one bad photo – taken at a book party for her friend John Springer – was enough. And she gave Chandler the heartbreaking line, “My life as I had enjoyed living it was largely over because my life as Joan Crawford was over.”

She accepted an Oscar from her bed

To this day, Crawford remains the only person to win an Oscar while tucked up in bed. The star claimed that she had the flu – but nevertheless photographers were there and Crawford was dressed in all her finery. Upon being given the Oscar for Mildred Pierce, she told the reporters gathered in her room, “Whether the Academy voters were giving the Oscar to me, sentimentally, for Mildred or for 200 years of effort, the hell with it – I deserved it.”

Her last film was slammed by critics

Joan Crawford’s career ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Her final film was a bizarre British horror sci-fi called Trog, where she played a scientist. She reportedly wasn’t great on set either – needing cue cards to remember her lines and allegedly getting drunk. It was savaged by critics, but there’s some who think it’s worth a watch.

Her daughter claims she killed her rich husband

Christina Crawford made some pretty strong allegations against her mother in 2013. During her show Surviving Mommie Dearest, she claimed that Joan Crawford outright murdered Al Steele by pushing him down a flight of stairs. It remains very much just an unproven claim – and something that in fact could’ve come straight out of a Crawford movie.