Post by Admin on Oct 21, 2020 19:13:02 GMT -6
From "Conversations with Joan Crawford" re parties post her 1932 divorce from Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.:
It was expensive, and [the parties] were so goddam "arranged" that nobody relaxed until late in the evening, when they could crawl into their own cliques and let their hair down. There were photographers, and reporters (they usually cleared out early) and you made sure that the seating arrangements were very, very proper. While I was married to Doug we gave and went to the biggest and best parties in town. After our divorce he was still invited, but Joan wasn't...Even while I was married to Franchot, who was one of the most sophisticated and cultivated and charming men you could meet, I never really made it back to that so-called A-list. For a while it hurt, but then I began inviting people I really wanted to invite when I threw a bash and went to the parties where I was really wanted.
It was all absurd. I remember looking at the ruins after a really big dinner party Doug and I had given...and I counted 45 uneaten filet mignon and at least 30 uneaten shrimp cocktails, and enough fruit compote to supply the MGM commissary for a week, and I almost cried at the waste. A director had thrown up in one of the downstairs bathrooms, and a starlet had passed out in one of the bedrooms, and another starlet had obviously entertained several gentlemen in another bedroom, and when I discovered all this I really did cry, because as far as I know nobody had a good time...
A few months after we were married Franchot and I gave an elegant dinner party for 40, and I remember...discovering that 24 of the 40 were people the studio or our agents had recommended, people we wouldn't have invited to a dogfight. Worse memory: Just after the Commie business hit the industry...I had to un-invite, at studio command, two actresses, and actor, and two writers, who'd been invited to a party I couldn't cancel...
It was expensive, and [the parties] were so goddam "arranged" that nobody relaxed until late in the evening, when they could crawl into their own cliques and let their hair down. There were photographers, and reporters (they usually cleared out early) and you made sure that the seating arrangements were very, very proper. While I was married to Doug we gave and went to the biggest and best parties in town. After our divorce he was still invited, but Joan wasn't...Even while I was married to Franchot, who was one of the most sophisticated and cultivated and charming men you could meet, I never really made it back to that so-called A-list. For a while it hurt, but then I began inviting people I really wanted to invite when I threw a bash and went to the parties where I was really wanted.
It was all absurd. I remember looking at the ruins after a really big dinner party Doug and I had given...and I counted 45 uneaten filet mignon and at least 30 uneaten shrimp cocktails, and enough fruit compote to supply the MGM commissary for a week, and I almost cried at the waste. A director had thrown up in one of the downstairs bathrooms, and a starlet had passed out in one of the bedrooms, and another starlet had obviously entertained several gentlemen in another bedroom, and when I discovered all this I really did cry, because as far as I know nobody had a good time...
A few months after we were married Franchot and I gave an elegant dinner party for 40, and I remember...discovering that 24 of the 40 were people the studio or our agents had recommended, people we wouldn't have invited to a dogfight. Worse memory: Just after the Commie business hit the industry...I had to un-invite, at studio command, two actresses, and actor, and two writers, who'd been invited to a party I couldn't cancel...