The Best of N
National
Film Registry
•
Jean
Negulesco
• Roy
Newquist •
William
Nigh
•
Night
Gallery •
Kathleen
Nolan • No
More Ladies
• Norconian
Club
• Ramon
Novarro
National Film Registry. As of 2023, the following five Joan films have been selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant":
1996: Mildred Pierce
2007: Grand Hotel and The Women
2008: Johnny Guitar
2021: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Complete National Film Registry Listing.
Newquist, Roy. Interviewer of Joan for Conversations with Joan Crawford (1980, Citadel Press). Between 1962 and 1977, they spoke by phone 33 times and met 21 times. The book grew out of what was a proposed series of articles for McCall's magazine that she was to have edited before publication. (One article appeared there in August '77 after her death.)
Night
Gallery. Supernatural TV series hosted by Rod Serling. Joan appeared in
the pilot episode (11/8/69), in a segment called "Eyes."
She was directed by Steven
Spielberg,
in his first industry job. (See also the Joan
TV
page for more info.)
No
More Ladies. MGM, 1935. Directed by Edward Griffith and George Cukor, 79
minutes. Joan stars as society girl "Marcia Townshend Warren" in her 4th film with husband Franchot
Tone, who plays a good-hearted
suitor. Robert
Montgomery co-stars as
her philandering husband. Says Joan in CWJC: ...another
one of my personal mistakes--I interpreted the part wrong and I didn't let Cukor
help me. (I could be a headstrong bitch.)
Norconian Club. Joan, husband Doug Fairbanks Jr., and Leslie Howard and wife vacationed here together in July 1930. Located near the town of Norco (north of Corona, California, and just east of Riverside), this 700-acre luxury resort was built by Rex Clark in 1928 and in its early days was a frequent vacation spot for Hollywood stars. The resort included a casino, golf course, 55-acre lake, spa, and 5-story hotel. Clark sold the resort to the Navy in 1941. (Thanks to Dario for info on the club and the link!)
Novarro,
Ramon. (2/6/1899 - 10/30/1968) Novarro was born Jose Ramon Gil Samaniegos
in Mexico and came with his parents to Los Angeles after the 1913 Mexican Revolution. He began his
movie career as
a film extra in 1917 and first starred in 1922's The Prisoner of Zenda. He
subsequently co-starred with the most prominent MGM leading ladies: with Shearer
in The Student Prince (1927); Joan in Across to Singapore (1928);
Garbo in Mata Hari (1932). His biggest film, perhaps, was 1926's Ben
Hur. He left MGM in 1935, after which his film career dropped off considerably.
His last role was in 1960's Heller in Pink Tights.
In the book Beyond Paradise (by Andre Soares, St. Martin's Press), Novarro lover and columnist Herbert Howe is quoted as saying that Novarro found Joan "very endearing, sincere, and bouyant" and that when Novarro's career was at a low point and he had been charged a number of times for driving while intoxicated, Novarro blurted out to the press that he wished he were dead; Joan subsequently wrote to him and asked him to call her if he needed someone to talk to.
Novarro was murdered in 1968 by two young male prostitute brothers that he'd contacted through an escort agency. The brothers were released from prison, thanks to California's liberal criminal laws, in the mid-'70s.