CRAWFORD, Joan

(1905–1977)

   Nominated three times for the best actress Academy Award, winning the award outright in 1946, Joan Crawford was one of Hollywood’s greatest stars. In life she defined what American culture considered ultimate glamour. In death, with the posthumous publication of her daughter’s tell-all biography Mommie Dearest (1978), Joan Crawford transcended traditional Hollywood stardom. While Crawford is rarely associated with Westerns, her 1954 Johnny Guitar, regarded as a mediocre film when produced, today is considered one of her finest films and, by many critics who usually scorn Westerns, one of the 1950s finest artistic Westerns.

   This early feminist Western pits a strong, independent businesswoman, Vienna (Crawford), against her rampaging community. She already owns most of the town and is poised to make a fortune when the railroad comes through, but her ambitions reach far beyond the town. She gets framed for a stage holdup, however, and the sister (Mercedes McCambridge) of a murder victim becomes a powerful enemy leading the town against Vienna. Both women dominate the town and the men in it. Thus, Joan Crawford’s Western reverses gender roles. “She’s more of a man than a woman,” one of the saloon gamesmen observes of her. Evidently Crawford’s jealous rivalry with McCambridge carried over beyond the script and, according to Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest, Crawford treated McCambridge cruelly throughout the filming.