What She Loved Most Was Cleaning: Keeping House with Joan Crawford

There is a great possibility that when I coin the terms "Joan Crawford" and "cleanliness", you will immediately envision a raging Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford (in Mommie Dearest, 1981) shouting "No wire hangers!". This is not the only reference in the film to Crawford's very peculiar way of taking care of her possessions. Another scene shows Dunaway on all fours, scrubbing the floor whilst claiming that she isn't mad at her maid, but she's mad at the dirt. She seems somewhat in control over herself in that scene, but the scene that follows the "No wire hangers"-scene shows her scouring the bathroom floor in hysterics.

image via Discussionist

image via Nessa in the Sky with Diamonds

The film was based on the book of the same title that daughter Christina wrote after Joan's death and after discovering that her mother left her (and brother Christopher) nothing "for reasons which are well known to them". Please do remember that this book is only one person's story, and there are more sides to every story.

However, during her life, Joan Crawford did nothing to deny that she was compulsive when it came to cleanliness, and that she was indeed a rather strict mother. Multiple articles have discussed Crawford's housekeeping. She would give tips on housekeeping to anyone who would listen, especially later in life, and would more than once refer to herself as Harriet Craig.

On January 16, 1970 a covered-in-pink-sequins Joan Crawford was guest on The David Frost Show. Only one minute into the interview she admits that she is a compulsive housekeeper. "I played Harriet Craig once and I was ready for the role." When after that confession Mr. Frost wants to ask her what her favorite role is, she already cuts him off at "What is your favorite..." when she promptly answers with "pork chops". She thought he was about to ask her for her favorite recipe.

Vincent Sherman, director of Harriet Craig, recalls that Crawford had the same obsessive attitude toward her home as the film's protagonist, stating that she was very old-fashioned in how she believed a man should treat a lady. In return, she would be the perfect lady of the house and a meticulous housekeeper, at times even doing the actual work herself.

Apparently even Joan Crawford herself used to laugh about her plastic slipcovers (more on that later on in the post) and say, "I'm Harriet Craig—but I can't help it!"

Left: photographer unknown, 1940s. Center & right: photos by Eve Arnold, 1959.

In an article called Hollywood's Rules for Love: Joan Crawford and Gary Cooper on a Great Subject, published in 1931 in Silver Screen, Crawford tells about what qualities she loves in men. In a part devoted to cleanliness, she writes: "When we were in school we learned that cleanliness is next to godliness. Perhaps as a child I doubted it, but now I know that it is true." However, she does stress that a woman who isn't careful about her appearance, cannot expect it from a man.

An extensive article in Screen Guide (published in 1950, the year Harriet Craig was released) teases their readers by writing: "Her name is familiar to everyone—but you might not know about the Joan we bring you in this story". "The Joan" they are bringing is a Joan Crawford that is just like any other person; She opens the door in a cotton housedress, does her own laundry and she goes down on her hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor. It even tells a nice story of how one time she couldn't sleep because she didn't hang her gown properly:

"A stickler for neatness, Joan has a daily ritual which never goes undone. She empties her purse, stacks her shoes neatly in the closet, and hangs up her gown. One night, however, when a friend berated her for super­ fastidiousness, she vowed to toss her apparel over chairs and let them fall where they might. 'I did that,' Joan says, 'and I couldn't sleep all night. I finally had to get up at three in the morning and put everything away. Only then could I fall asleep!'"

A Modern Screen article published in 1947 quickly mentions Joan's Brentwood home. Although fully staffed, "Joan checks on every department pretty thoroughly, but nobody seems to mind." One year later Joan graced the cover of the February edition of Motion Picture, and in the article explaining why Crawford is their covergirl they also mention her cleanliness. Next to saying that "although she's all that's lush and plush about Hollywood, she's not afraid of getting dishpan hands. She can, and has done, her own housework—sweeping, dusting, stacking firewood, cooking and mopping." they also mention her personal cleanliness. According to the article she showers at least four times a day, unless she has got nothing to do—then she takes another shower.

Left: Silver Screen, Feb. 1931 - Center: Modern Screen, Aug. 1947 - Right: Modern Screen, May 1948 (click for larger image)

Also in 1948, Modern Screen featured a close-up on Joan written by Norbert Lusk, who had been her friend for thirteen years by then. He also addresses the "obsessive" housekeeping of Joan, calling her a perfectionist, and even a "maniac housekeeper".

Several people who knew Joan Crawford personally remember her plastic slipcovers. Her good friend and interior designer William Haines has been quoted as saying that sofas were discarded after soiling them once, until Joan discovered that she could cover them with plastic slipcovers. Carleton Varney, her other interior decorator, said that "there were more objects wrapped in plastic in Joan's apartment than in an A&P meat counter." Sy Kasoff also mentions the slipcovers as one of the things he remembers best about Joan Crawford in his book Odyssey: Early Days on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Fashion designer Arnold Scaasi also talked about visiting Joan in her Fifth Ave. apartment for a photoshoot. After being welcomed by Joan, Scaasi and the photographer dutifully removed their shoes as not to soil the white carpet. The white couches (it was an all-white apartment, after all) were protected against intruding dirt by the plastic slipcovers.

Joan Crawford photographed in her all-white Fifth Ave. apartment for Holiday Magazine in 1961. Clothes designed by Arnold Scaasi.

When asked about the slipcovers by Roy Newquist in Conversations with Joan Crawford, she has this to say:

"Look, they keep the upholstery clean, and I so seldom have guests these days, that I might as well be as orderly as possible. With all this crap in the air--nothing stays clean that isn't covered. We do not live in a hygienic age. 

"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. It's just part of being civilized, that's all. And I'm not about to apologize for it. 

"I had one hell of a time with [second husband] Franchot. He found it amusing and irritating, both, and there were times I could have strangled him when he'd answer the phone and say, 'Sorry, she can't speak to you right now; she's cleaning the toilets.' 

"That's one thing I could never understand, out on the Coast. I'd go to a party at someone's house, more like a mansion, really, and I'd go to the bathroom and have to wipe the seat with wet toilet paper before I dared sit down, or I'd sit on a couch, wearing a white gown, and come away with a film of dust. Once I went into the kitchen for a glass of water, and when I turned on the light the cockroaches scattered like mad. I don't understand this sort of sloppiness, and I don't think I ever will."

Joan Crawford and husband Alfred Steele photographed in their Fifth Ave. apartment, 1958, lounging on couches covered with plastic slipcovers.

The title of this blogpost refers to an article written by Doris Lilly for People Weekly (May 30, 1977), where she recalls the last months of Joan Crawford. Although most of the article focuses on the unhappiness of Joan during her last months, there are three paragraphs dedicated to "what she loved most": cleaning. Lilly recalls how Crawford had once told her that "there's a little bit of Harriet Craig in all of us." The parquet floors in her apartment were waxed every other day, draperies were cleaned once a month and plastic liners were installed on the window sill. On top of that, each and every piece of furniture (and walls) had been treated with a special vinylizing process that could not be penetrated by dirt. These "household 'idiosyncrasies'" were also mentioned in another 1977 article that remembers Mrs. Crawford (Rona Barrett's Hollywood, Oct. 1977). Only in this article it is stated that the floors were cleaned and waxed daily, instead of every other day. According to both articles she also swapped out all living plants and flowers for artificial ones, that could be cleaned with soap and water, and she evidently still wasn't afraid to get on her knees, as she had strained her back while scrubbing the kitchen floor three weeks before her death.

She truly reveals herself as a Martha Stewart avant la lettre in her 1972 book My Way of Life, in which she covers all aspects in life that are of importance and how she deals with them. I tried incorporating the book in this post, but it truly deserves a blogpost dedicated to nothing but the book. I will end with a quote from the book, coming directly from Mrs. Crawford's lips:

"Be ruthless about possessions, or they will possess you."

Mrs. Crawford was an impeccable housekeeper. She was peculiar and extreme, but nothing negative can be said about how clean everything was. Partly due to the media coverage concerning Joan's cleanliness, she has been immortalized as Mrs. Clean (this, apparently is the nickname Merv Griffin had for Crawford). Next week will bring us Elizabeth Lane (Christmas in Connecticut, 1945), "America's most resourceful home-maker". At least, that is what's printed in the magazines. And yes, I do know that the post is one month overdue.

Sources:

1. “Actress Joan Crawford Believed An Organized Mind Can Accomplish Anything.” OrganizingLA Blog. Accessed January 14, 2016. http://www.organizingla.com/organizingla_blog/2013/04/actress-joan-crawford-organized-home-clutter-free-clean-orderly.html.
2. Barrett, Rona. “The Way They Were ­— Joan Crawford.” Rona Barrett’s Hollywood, October 1977.
3. Bischop, Eric. “Strange Woman.” Modern Screen, August 1947.
4. Busby, Marquis. “Hollywood’s Rules for Love: Joan Crawford and Gary Cooper on a Great Subject.” Silver Screen, February 1931. https://archive.org/details/silverscreen01unse.
5. Chandler, Charlotte. Not the Girl Next Door, n.d.
6. Considine, Shaun. Bette And Joan: The Divine Feud. Hachette UK, 2015.
7. Crawford, Joan. Joan Crawford Reads “My Way of Life.” 9 vols., n.d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRkY5HAjv2w.
8. Doonan, Simon. “A Condom For Your Couch? Carleton Varney On Mrs. Clean.” Observer. Accessed January 14, 2016. http://observer.com/2002/02/a-condom-for-your-couch-carleton-varney-on-mrs-clean/.
9. Inc, Time. LIFE. Time Inc, 1964.
10. “Joan Crawford: Hollywood’s Most Glamorous Star.” Screen Guide, October 1950.
11. “Joan Crawford on The David Frost Show.” The David Frost Show, January 16, 1970. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVHjugKSslA.
12. Jones, Stephanie. “New York City: Imperial House (22-H) 150 East 69th Street.” The Best of Everything, n.d. http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/geoimperialh.htm.
13. Kasoff, Sy. Odyssey: Early Days on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. AuthorHouse, 2008.
14. Lilly, Doris. “Joan Crawford a Suicide?” People Weekly, May 30, 1977.
15. Lusk, Norbert. “Close-up (Joan Crawford).” Modern Screen, May 1948. https://archive.org/details/modernscreen3637unse.
16. “Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Other Old Hollywood Stars’ Homes.” Architectural Digest. Accessed January 14, 2016. http://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/old-hollywood-at-home-marilyn-monroe-frank-sinatra-joan-crawford-slideshow.
17. “Mommie Dearest: Was Joan Crawford Really a Whacko?” The Straight Dope, May 14, 2002. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=115182&highlight=Christina+Crawford.
18. Newquist, Roy, and Joan Crawford. Conversations with Joan Crawford. Citadel Press, 1980.
19. Perry, Frank. Mommie Dearest. Biography, Drama, 1981.
20. Quirk, Lawrence J., and William Schoell. Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography. University Press of Kentucky, 2013.
21. Scaasi, Arnold. Women I Have Dressed (and Undressed!). Simon and Schuster, 2004.
22. Skolsky, Sidney. “Joan Crawford, Our Cover Girl—and Why.” Motion Picture, February 1948.
23. “Uh, Joan Crawford’s 1971 Book ‘My Way Of Life’ Is Kind Of Super-Bonkers.” xoJane. Accessed January 14, 2016. http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/joan-crawford-advice-book.

There's No Place For Them Here: Home, Order and Independency in Harriet Craig (1950)

In last week's post I mentioned how Rebecca's bedroom (in Hitchcock's Rebecca, 1940) had become a shrine, with a place for everything and everything in its place. This surely counts for the Craig's household as well. Harriet Craig (played by Joan Crawford) is the perfect mistress of the house, with a talent for running a household.

At the beginning of the film we see a beautiful house with the servants running up and down the stairs. We hear the mistress of the house being irritated because the tissue paper she asked for is taking so long. Then we find out what all of the commotion is about: Mrs. Craig's mother has been moved to a sanitarium and she wants to catch the next train to visit her mother. The shouting for tissue paper is forgiven, because we all know the stress of catching a train, and especially to visit a parent in a sanitarium, although the majority of us probably doesn't stuff every shoe and dress with tissue paper. This is just a lady that takes really good care of her possessions: she's immaculately groomed, her wardrobe looks perfect, she packs her luggage with care and she is leery about her interior. For when everything looks nice, it is nice and it will be loved.

We soon learn that Harriet values her home to extremes. She knows the place by heart; every painting, every coffee cup and every lamp has been put in its place by her, and in its place it should remain. When entering a room, Harriet scans the interior for changes—in other words: traces—to map out the movements that were made during her absence.

One of Harriet's most prized possessions is an Early Ming Dynasty vase. She notices when the vase is just the tiniest bit too close to the edge of the mantle or when it's not perfectly centered. She proudly tells a party about the old custom of filling the vase with rice from your wedding feast to protect the home. One of the ladies replies that "it takes more than rice these days."

On the train back home from visiting her mother in the sanitarium, Harriet confesses to her cousin: "I don't like trains. I don't like the feeling of being rushed along in the darkness, having no control, putting my life completely in someone else's hands." This confession comes rather out of the blue and is followed by her rational approach to marriage. "The average woman," she says, "does completely put her life into someone else's hands; her husband's." But not Harriet, independent as she is, for marriage is merely a "practical matter" to achieve security; she becomes a wife to get a house.

Upon arriving back home, the first trace that is out of place is spotted before even entering the house: the newspaper is still outside. She leaves it there and enters the house, eager to find out what has happened. She stands still and takes in the view, carefully registering every object that is out of its place. Quickly she maps out a scenario of what has happened the night before.

The house looks like a rather wild party has taken place: The furniture is out of place, there's beer bottles on the floor and on the piano, the lampshade is tilted, the blinds aren't closed (they should be closed by 11 a.m. to prevent the sun from fading the colors in the room) and a full ashtray indicates that people have been smoking heavily indoors. A closer look at the ashtray reveals a cigarette butt with lipstick and then there's a vase full of Mrs. Frazier's roses. Hadn't Harriet clearly told Mrs. Harold, one of the servants, that there was no place for them here?

Mrs. Frazier is the "scheming widow" who lives next door together with her little boy. She can always be found tending her roses. Innocent as she may seem, she's a threat to Harriet's controlled household: she's friendly, her house is being lived in (with traces to prove it) and she's got a son, which is one of Walter Craig's biggest wishes. Naturally Harriet wants to keep Mrs. Frazier from invading their private lives by keeping her roses out of her home and out of her husband's sight.

As a contrast to Mrs. Frazier's cozy home, the Craig's house takes aesthetics over comfort. From the first glance it is clear that a lot of thought has been put into decorating the house. Symmetry can be found everywhere and all of the rooms have the same oriental influences. Throughout the house figurines are displayed, either in glass showcases or as lamp bases. When it comes to the furniture: aesthetics over comfort, once again. This becomes painstakingly clear when we see Walter trying to become comfortable on the sofa, without success, not even when rearranging the throw pillows. Harriet, however, seems perfectly at home on the sofa the way it is. She is comfortable with keeping up appearances.

In reviews of Harriet Craig, Harriet is often written about as the bitch of all bitches, with not a good cell in her body. Indeed, Harriet isn't a warm person and she does some heartless things like feigning infertility, or preventing her cousin from being loved. It's inexcusable, but it doesn't make Harriet heartless.

Early on in her childhood Harriet was hurt by her father when she caught him with "a vulgar blonde". The father left Harriet and her mother alone to make ends meet. From this moment on Harriet decided that no man can be trusted. The only person a woman can rely on is herself. Every part of her life is carefully planned and thought about as if it were a game, and she is playing it by the rules.

Harriet doesn't have to build walls around her to protect herself from getting bruised again for the house provides them for her. Decorated with hand painted oriental wall hangings, it becomes a lovely facade. The house is her safe haven, her territory, so when somebody disrupts her household, it disrupts her. A vase too close to the edge isn't just any object put in a different position, it is someone endangering the security of her home.

When Mr. Craig finally rebels against Harriet, he takes it out on the house, for that is the only way to hurt her. He smokes inside, throws the stub on the carpet and finally finds a way to be comfortable in the sofa; by rearranging the pillows and reclining with his shoes still on. He is taking back control. This is where the importance of the Ming vase and all it stands for comes back. Walter carelessly takes the vase from its pedestal and pours out the rice that was supposed to protect their home. He then smashes it.

H: "What was that?!"
W: "Nothing very much."
H: "What do you mean 'nothing very much'? It sounded as though the whole house fell down."
W: "Maybe it did."
[...]
H: "Why would you deliberately destroy a beautiful thing like this?"
W: "I didn't like it."

He has smashed Harriet's safe haven and broken down the facade. Their marriage is over, but "you can keep the house." And so Harriet remains alone in the house. The films end with Harriet drying her tears and straightening her back, trying to repair the facade with all her might. The last shot is of her ascending the stairs, before fading to black.

By the end of the film it is safe to say the house is the center of the film, the main protagonist even, for Harriet is her house: beautiful, but deserted.

In an article in People Weekly (May 30, 1977) Doris Lilly recalls Joan Crawford once telling her that
"there's a little bit of Harriet Craig in all of us." Crawford was known to be a fastidious housekeeper and she didn't shy away from branding herself as one. Next week's post will be about how Joan became known as the Queen of clean.

Question to you:

What I can't seem to figure out is why the interior is so oriental. As far as I know orientalist decor went out of style in the 1930's, so why would Harriet go for something outdated?

Credits:

Produced by William Dozier; Directed by Vincent Sherman; Based on play by George Kelly; Screenplay by Anne Froelich & James Gunn; Cinematography by Joseph Walker; Art direction by Walter Holscher; Starring Joan Crawford and Wendell Corey

Sources:

1. “A ★★★★ Review of Harriet Craig (1950).” Accessed January 3, 2016. http://letterboxd.com/overbreakfast/film/harriet-craig/.
2. Basinger, Jeanine. A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930-1960. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013.
3. Bruno, Giuliana. Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. Verso, 2002.
4. “Harriet Craig (Sony Choice Collection).” DVD Talk. Accessed January 3, 2016. http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/61509/harriet-craig/.
5. “I’m Not Patty: Are Harriet Craig and Beth Jarrett Just Ordinary People?” Accessed January 3, 2016. http://imnotpatty.blogspot.be/2010/03/are-harriet-craig-and-beth-jarrett-just.html.
6. Matt. “Films Feminism Forgot: HARRIET CRAIG (1950).” Ruthless Reviews. Accessed January 3, 2016. http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/20730/films-feminism-forgot-harriet-craig-1950/.
7. Matthews, Glenna. “Just a Housewife”: The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America. USA: Oxford University Press, 1987.
8. “Self-Styled Siren: Harriet Craig (1950).” Accessed January 10, 2016. http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.be/2011/08/harriet-craig-1950.html.
9. Sherman, Vincent. Harriet Craig. Drama. Columbia Pictures, 1950.