Claim: Joan Crawford began her career as a performer.

Joan Crawford -LRB- born Lucille Fay LeSueur ; March 23 , c. 1904 -- May 10 , 1977 -RRB- was an American film and television actress who began her career as a dancer and stage showgirl . In 1999 , the American Film Institute ranked Crawford tenth on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema .   Beginning her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies , before debuting as a chorus girl on Broadway , Crawford signed a motion picture contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925 . In the 1930s , Crawford 's fame rivaled , and later outlasted , MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo . Crawford often played hard-working young women who find romance and success . These stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women . Crawford became one of Hollywood 's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest-paid women in the United States , but her films began losing money and , by the end of the 1930s , she was labelled `` box office poison '' . But her career gradually improved in the early 1940s , and she made a major comeback in 1945 by starring in Mildred Pierce , for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress . She would go on to receive Best Actress nominations for Possessed -LRB- 1947 -RRB- and Sudden Fear -LRB- 1952 -RRB- .   In 1955 , Crawford became involved with the Pepsi-Cola Company through her marriage to company Chairman Alfred Steele . After his death in 1959 , Crawford was elected to fill his vacancy on the board of directors but she was forcibly retired in 1973 . She continued acting in film and television regularly through the 1960s , when her performances became fewer ; after the release of the British horror film Trog in 1970 , Crawford retired from the screen . Following a public appearance in 1974 , after which unflattering photographs were published , Crawford withdrew from public life and became increasingly reclusive until her death in 1977 .   Crawford married four times . Her first three marriages ended in divorce ; the last ended with the death of husband Alfred Steele . She adopted five children , one of whom was reclaimed by his birth mother . Crawford 's relationships with her two older children , Christina and Christopher , were acrimonious . Crawford disinherited the two , and , after Crawford 's death , Christina wrote a well-known `` tell-all '' memoir titled Mommie Dearest -LRB- 1978 -RRB- .