They wanted to sell it to me,' wrote Crawford. 'Two men said they had in their possession a stag reel in which I danced. The union of Tone and Davis did prove fruitful on he big screen however, and the film they starred in that year, Dangerous, scored Davis he first Oscar. Tone was the actress' second husband, and a former paramour of Davis' whose decision to marry Crawford is said to have begun the infamous feud between the two actresses. She wrote in her book that she received a call in 1935 on the first night of her honeymoon with actor Franchot Tone.
Hal did however pass away in 1963 of a ruptured appendix as seen in the show, and was indeed a hotel desk manager.Ĭrawford scoffed at the notion that she had ever appeared a pornographic film but did admit of threats to release such a movie in her 1962 memoir 'A Portrait of Joan.' This meeting did not happen of course and the timeline is off, but elements of it are based in fact.īret wrote in his biography that the threats to leak the tapes came decade prior, first in the 1920s and then again in 1935. Strained relationship: After a fight erupts between the two in the hospital (above), Hal dies of a ruptured appendix That is when they began to blackmail her and threaten to sell stories for money, which forced her at times to make payoffs. She grew weary of the two soon after, who she viewed as a financial drain and whose behaviors and morals were not in line with her own she would claim in her latter years. Sibling drama: Twice in her life an individual was paid off to stop them from leaking these porn movies to members of the press, with her brother Hal (above with Joan in the 1930s) believed to be the informantĪmong the films Crawford is believed to have been featured in are 'Velvet Lips,' 'The Plumber' and 'She Knows Best.'ĭavid Bret wrote in his biography ' Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr' that the aforementioned 'Casting Couch' not only existed but 'its these might almost be said to mirror what would soon become Billie's own way for achieving recognition - that of the starlet who is so desperate to break into movies that she administers a blow job to the surprised producer before ripping off her clothes and hopping onto the couch in his office.'īret also claimed that Hal and Crawford's mother Anna had known about the tapes before she moved out to Los Angeles, and that the actress' furious mother was set to kick her out of the house.ĭays later, Crawford was informed she had a contract offer at MGM.ĭespite all this, Crawford would end up supporting her mother and brother financially in 1929 after her Hal showed up unannounced at her home and she later sent for her mother. Crawford denied ever appearing in an indecent film in her 1962 memoir, but her first husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr.In 'The Casting Couch,' Crawford is reportedly seen performing a sex act on a producer before jumping on his couch nude and engaging in another sex act.The threats however came in the late 1920s and again in 1935, with MGM once paying $100,000 to stop the release of the picture.
Joan Crawford's porn films: How star was TWICE blackmailed by brother who threatened to leak her early stag movies as 'Feud' recounts Hollywood scandal around the first celebrity sex tape