• The New York Public Library recently opened the Joan Crawford Papers to scholars and researchers. In addition to this massive archive, Donald Spoto also has a vast collection of Crawford letters available to him. No other book on Crawford has been able to utilize this information.

Joan Crawford was one of the greatest film stars of all time, and also one of the most misunderstood. In this painstakingly researched, deeply thoughtful biography, Spoto goes beyond popular caricature—the abusive, unstable mother of her adopted daughter’s memoir, Mommie Dearest—to create a fully drawn portrait of the woman, her dazzling career, and her extraordinarily dramatic life and times.

Based on new archival information and exclusive interviews, and written with the inquisitiveness, eye for detail, and narrative drive that characterized Spoto’s best-selling biographies of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Alfred Hitchcock, James Dean, and Laurence Olivier, Possessed offers a complex and fascinating portrait of Crawford that reveals a courageous, highly sexed, ambitious woman with good business sense whose strength and drive made her a forerunner in the film business. Spoto traces her rise from a hardscrabble childhood to her early days as a dancer in post-World War I Detroit and New York to her discovery by MGM, her rise to stardom and her status as a legend.

Possessed also offers an entertaining and compelling look at the most exciting time in Hollywood history. Spoto goes behind the myths to examine the rise and fall of the studio system; Crawford’s four marriages; her 30-year, on-and-off-again affair with Clark Gable; her rivalries with other stars; and her final years battling cancer. He explores her professional achievements as an actress, including her work with Hollywood’s greatest directors and performers—and he details her later role as a clever, effective business executive on the Board of Directors of Pepsi-Cola.

Illuminating and entertaining, Possessed is sure to be the definitive biography of this remarkable legend and is certain to spark new interest in her acclaimed films.