Joan Crawford at the 1963 Oscars: What Was She Thinking?

FEUD: Bette and Joan — “And the Winner is…(The Oscars of 1963)” — Installment 1, Episode 5 (Airs Sunday, April 2, 10:00 p.m. e/p) — Pictured: Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford. CR: Suzanne Tenner/FX.

The scandalous stunt pulled by Joan Crawford at the 1963 Oscars was the talk of tinsel town. But, honestly, what was the Hollywood star even thinking? We break it down.

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For five episodes, Feud: Bette and Joan has been slowly working up to this moment. After weeks of plotting, Joan Crawford ended up exactly where she wanted to be. She was in the spotlight, sticking it to her bitter rival, soaking up attention from the entire world.

Silver hair shining, and tassels swinging, Joan Crawford sashayed up to the stage at the 1963 Academy Awards and accepted an award that wasn’t hers. Her catty manipulation of the moment was a shocking, yet somewhat disturbing, display of power that made waves in Hollywood. In Feud: Bette and Joan, the moment took center stage this week and, quite frankly, it took us a bit of time to process the cuckoo bananas event.

So, with the help of my co-editor Cody Schultz, we tried to climb into Joan’s silver-dusted noggin and break down her potential motivations beat by beat. Is Joan the villain in this story? Or is it another person altogether? We discuss.

Erin: Now, I’m a huge fan of the Academy Awards, but for some reason I didn’t know about the incident with Joan Crawford at the 1963 Oscars until Feud enlightened me. I almost can’t believe this actually happened! The whole thing is just so socially horrifying. Sure, Jack Warner and Robert Aldrich lit the fires of the feud between Joan and Bette, but here’s where Joan took all her pettiness and pent up rage and ran with it. I honestly don’t see any circumstance in which her actions would be considered acceptable or even sympathetic.

Cody: Me either! As I was watching Episode 5, I was absolutely shocked by everything that went down both leading up to and at the Oscars but I think I was even more surprised by the fact that I was completely unaware of what went down until Feud. It was interesting to say the least, but am I an absolutely horrible person for actually sympathizing and, dare I say, rooting for Joan throughout the whole ordeal?

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. Both Peck and Crawford hold Oscar statuettes. Peck won Best Actor for director Robert Mulligan’s film ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Crawford accepted the Best Actress award for Anne Bancroft for director Arthur Penn’s film ‘The Miracle Worker.’ Loren and Schell were winners of the Best Actress and Actor awards the year before. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Joan Crawford was a fighter. She managed to take the terrible hand that life dealt her and use it to fuel herself – which unfortunately led her to make more than a few questionable decisions along the way. When Hollywood wasn’t bringing her work, she went out, searched for the perfect title to fuel a comeback and was the driving force in bringing What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? to the big screen. Without her the film likely never would have been made which is why, I imagine, the sting of being overlooked by the studio and their blatant lack of support during Oscar season left Joan hurt, feeling betrayed and ready for revenge – revenge that unfortunately cost Bette the win.

Erin: Ooo interesting. Seeing as she was the driving force behind the production of Baby Jane, I guess I can see why Joan would be frustrated in terms of being excluded. However, she was the one who personally requested that Bette – historically a far more talented actress than Joan – be cast alongside her in the film in the first place! Also, actors aren’t generally handed Oscar nominations for getting a movie together, they’re nominated based on merit. By all accounts, Bette’s performance was certainly superior to Joan’s and, until Hedda Hopper and Joan started their meddling, was considered to be the best female performance that year.

Ultimately, I feel like Joan’s form of revenge against Bette was incredibly sad. It tells us a lot about her poor people skills and inability to control her own actions. Joan’s struggles in early childhood are certainly tragic, but they don’t excuse patterns of reprehensible and manipulative behavior.

Cody: There is no denying that the moment was incredibly sad and proved just how broken Joan was – a sentiment that is beautifully touched on by Sarah Paulson’s Geraldine Page in the episode when she confesses that Hollywood should be forced to look at what they’ve done to her. After suffering sexual and emotional abuse as a child and young adult, Joan entered the world of Hollywood looking to make something of herself and, unfortunately, in doing so she entered yet another abusive relationship.

The way in which actresses were treated during the early days of Hollywood was absolutely horrific. From being bullied into changing the way they looked to forcing them – Joan included – to have secret abortions, the list is endless and each note is just as horrendous as the one before. As she continued to age, the abuse got even worse as studio heads like Jack Warner and directors such as Robert Aldrich purposely manipulating her in order to get what they wanted before tossing her to the wayside after she served her latest purpose, but they weren’t the only ones pulling Joan’s strings.

I’m of course referring to old Hedda who was actually the mastermind behind the plan to cost Bette the Oscar. There’s a good reason that individuals in Hollywood feared her wrath and that was because she clearly knew the power she possessed through her column and had no problem ruining careers through public and private smear campaigns such as the one which cost Bette her well deserved third Oscar.

FEUD: Bette and Joan — “And the Winner is…(The Oscars of 1963)” — Installment 1, Episode 5 (Airs Sunday, April 2, 10:00 p.m. e/p) –Pictured: (l-r) Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis, Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford. CR: Suzanne Tenner/FX. Acquired from FX Networks Press Room.

Erin: We definitely see some sympathy for Joan in the episode, markedly in the scene that you referenced with Geraldine Page. Sarah Paulson is one of Ryan Murphy’s staple actresses, and while she’s not given a ton to do here, she’s given a very important role – to elicit pity and understanding for Joan’s situation. There’s no doubt that Joan’s was caught up in the abusive Hollywood machine, but all these other actresses, Bette Davis included, were as well, so that’s no excuse. Honestly, the women who really had something to be upset about in old Hollywood were the actresses – notably Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland – who the studios kept hopped up on uppers and downers, causing a lifetime of addiction, but you didn’t see them trying to steal away something that wasn’t theirs. Nope. Only Joan.

As for Hedda Hopper, whew, that woman is a force to be reckoned with! I’m so loving Judy Davis’ go for broke performance as Hedda, especially the way she owns those kooky hats. I am inclined to agree with you that the series does make it seem as if Hedda was a catalyst, egging a suggestible Joan on to steal the Oscar away from Bette, so perhaps she was the real villain of this story all along?

Cody: That’s such an interesting observation – one that I had never even considered before, but now that you mention it I can’t help but to agree. Not only did Hedda devise the plan to rip the Oscar away from Bette as a way to stick it to her for the way she has chosen to live her life and inability to pay her dues to the town that made her a household name, but during the production period of Baby Jane she was adamant on only wanting gossipy type soundbites from Bette, Joan, and Robert. No matter how hard she had to pry, Hedda always seemed to find a way to manipulate them into giving up the juicy tidbit she desired.

FEUD: BETTE & JOAN — Pictured: Judy Davis as Hedda Hopper. CR: Suzanne Tenner/FX. Acquired from FX Networks Press Room.

There’s a reason she was known as such a master manipulator and it was clear she had a God complex – just look at how she promised Joan five more years in the industry and touted her ability to save Joan’s career through her words for proof. As Daily Mail best put it, “She could bury careers with a swipe of her pen, and did, sometimes simply because she could.”

Erin: It’s curious because Hedda was a woman who originally wanted to be an actress, and when her success waned on screen, she turned her eye to writing – specifically gossip. Once she left acting, she found massive power and success, but only by fueling vicious takedowns and nasty rumors that made Hollywood such a toxic environment for women.

However, Hedda needed willing participants as grist for the mill, and of course Joan was more than happy to frequently partake in the cycle of gossip because she consistently wanted to be the center of attention. While I’d love to say that the Oscar situation has a cut and dry antagonist, I’m ultimately not sure that any one person was responsible. All I do know is that it certainly has a place in Hollywood history as an incident that’s indicative of the unhealthy patterns of social and emotional abuse that women so often put one another through in a misguided attempt to boost their own self esteem.

Cody: I couldn’t agree more! It’s just such a shame that Joan and Bette chose to tear one another down throughout their lives rather than building the other up as champions for their fellow actresses. But then again, I suppose if they had, we wouldn’t be here discussing things today.

‘Feud’ airs Sunday nights at 10/9c on FX.

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Joan Crawford at the 1963 Oscars: What the What Was She Thinking?

By Erin Qualey | Apr 2, 2017

The scandalous stunt pulled by Joan Crawford at the 1963 Oscars was the talk of tinsel town. But, honestly, what was the Hollywood star even thinking? We break it down.