Episode Details

Joan Crawford reinvented herself more often than any star in Hollywood history, surviving the transition from silent films to talkies, from ingenue to dramatic actress, from has-been to Oscar winner. Then her adopted daughter published Mommie Dearest, and the reinventions stopped mattering to most people.

This episode traces Crawford from her impoverished childhood through her decades-long career, her feud with Bette Davis, her Oscar for Mildred Pierce, and the complicated legacy that Mommie Dearest both created and obscured.

• She successfully transitioned from silent films to talkies when most of her contemporaries did not
• She won the Academy Award for Mildred Pierce after being considered washed up by the industry
• Her feud with Bette Davis during the filming of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? became legendary
• Mommie Dearest, published after her death, transformed her public image permanently