How Joan Crawford became a shameless Oscars legend in bed 75 years ago
Mildred Pierce,” photographers popping bulbs to capture the charismatic screen queen’s triumphant comeback moment.“Whether the Academy voters were giving the Oscar to me, sentimentally, for ‘Mildred’ or for 200 years of effort, the hell with it — I deserved it,” she told reporters 75 years ago from the plush confines of her Brentwood boudoir.The former flapper, thought to be 42 and already two decades deep into her career, huddled at home on the night of the 18th annual Academy Awards rather than join fellow nominees at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for the first post-war ceremony — a posh affair marking the lifting of wartime restrictions.