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‘Feud’ – Joan Crawford Steals the Show in All Sliver Get-Up, What Inspired It?

By Cody Schultz

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Photo Credit: Feud: Bette and Joan/FX Acquired from FX Networks Press Room.

Joan Crawford was a vision of silver at the 1963 Oscars, a stylistic choice made in hopes of stealing the show – and successfully so!

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When the Academy Award voters chose to overlook her work in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Joan Crawford fell into an emotional tailspin. Feeling slighted by the industry and envious of her co-star Bette Davis’ ability to secure a nomination in the Best Actress race, Hedda Hopper concocted a plan to steal the Oscar away from Bette and Joan quickly jumped on board.

Together the duo hatched the perfect plan to ensure Bette would not pick up her record-breaking third Oscar. As the bad cop, Hedda used her connections to bash Bette using everything she had. Meanwhile, as the good cop, Joan called up her fellow colleagues to talk up Bette’s competition and throw her support their way.

After the calls were made, Hedda set her sights on helping Joan regain her self-confidence and drive the knife further into Bette’s back by devising a plan to guarantee that Joan be the one to walk off the Oscar stage with the Best Actress Oscar in her hand.

In the time that followed, Joan personally reached out to Bette’s fellow Best Actress nominees and found a way to convince each into allowing her to accept the Oscar on their behalf should their name be read as the winner of the award – to which they all agreed.

With the wheels set in motion, there was only one final task left for Joan to achieve: devising a look so unique and stunning not even the Oscar would stand out in comparison.

L-R: Actors Gregory Peck (1916 – 2003), Sophia Loren, Joan Crawford (1904 – 1977) and Maximilian Schell stand backstage at the Academy Awards, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Los Angeles, California, April 8, 1963. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

"“I honestly do not know the true origin of the look, but our intention was to recreate Joan’s dress as closely as we could, bearing in mind our tv budget and timeline. We studied all the research, and since we couldn’t get it hand beaded, we searched for fabric that could pass, and hand dipped it to look silver. Our genius tailor and seamstress did add hand beading to the bodice to look more like the original. The necklace was also sourced and made to look as close to the original as we could. “Ryan [Murphy] was obsessed with getting the silver hair right, so the amazing hair department conquered the effect, along with the make-up team’s perfect silver nails and make up. I did read that it was Edith Head’s advice to make the hair silver, and that Edith designed the dress, but I did not fact check that!  We relied on the archival images for visual aides,” Feud Costume Designer Lou Eyrich recollected of recreating the iconic look in a statement to Hidden Remote."

Next: Oscars Flashback: Who Walked Away with an Oscar in 1963?

Thanks to a little help from legendary fashion designer Edith Head, Joan lavished herself in silver complete with an intricate silver-beaded dress, sparkling jewels, make-up and a one-of-a-kind silver laced hairdo. The goal: to upstage the Oscar trophy itself by covering herself in all-silver in order to give off the appearance of a silver Oscar.

Luckily for Joan, her and Hedda’s plan went off without a hitch allowing her to steal the Best Actress Oscar right from under Bette’s nose in order to walk away with the trophy on Oscar night and steal the spotlight in the process.

Considering we’re still talking about the look more than 50 years after Joan Crawford first set her plan to update Bette Davis and the Oscars, I’d say Joan was more than successful in stealing the show in her all-silver getup.

Don’t miss new episodes of Feud: Bette and Joan Sundays at 10/9c on FX! 

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