Joan Crawford was a person.
Joan Crawford ( born Lucille Fay LeSueur ; March 23 , c. 1904 -- May 10 , 1977 ) was an American film and television actress who began her career as a dancer and stage showgirl . 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 . 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 '' .