40 Scandalous Tidbits That Show Joan Crawford’s Shadowy Side

You’ve no doubt heard of Joan Crawford, because her life and career have been endlessly dissected. And even the star’s own daughter wrote an unflattering book about her! For years, people have tried to pin down the real Joan, but it’s hard, because her true personality was buried under multiple scandals and feuds. So, from spats with co-stars and her own children to illegal adoptions and alleged lesbian liaisons, here’s everything you didn’t know about the real woman.

40. 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.

39. 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.

38. 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.

37. 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.”