stories

Once, after one of Joan’s many retirements from the screen, she was leaving Chasen’s after dinner, in Beverly Hills, when a little girl ran over to her, holding out her autograph book, and looking up at her, eyes misty with excitement and admiration, said: “Miss Crawford, you’re my favorite star of all! Would you please sign my autograph book?” Joan looked down at her young fan, fixing those extraordinary big eyes of hers on the girl, and smiled. “Go away, little girl,” she said. “I don’t need you anymore.”