Joan Crawford - My Way of Life

E ACH SEPTEMBER, in school, the teacher would say, Write an essay on how you spent the summer.

Well, Ive spent this summer writing this book, and doing a number of other things too. My home and my office are combined on a high floor of a Manhattan apartment house that has a cheerful California feeling about it, even in the winter. I get the first rays of the morning sun rising over the East River and, smog permitting, the last lovely colors of the sunset somewhere behind the Hudson. There are two small terraces where I try to keep some shrubbery going, and which my toy poodles adore, and I keep the rooms filled with plants and flowers. Even my dresses swarm with flowers.

I can see such big chunks of the sky that I know before the weather forecasters do whether my plane will be able to take off, if its one of the many days of the year Im leaving on another business trip. I have a birds view of the world here, and a birds sense of freedom. I have the same sense of excitement about the next adventure that I had when I was sixteen. And Im sure Ill never lose it. All my nostalgia is for tomorrownot for any yesterdays.

People are always asking me if theres anything I regret, or would change. The answer is no! Not a thing. If I hadnt had the pain I wouldnt be me. And I like being me. Everyone should. I have a friend who says, Treasure yourself. I follow that advice by doing a certain amount of self-pampering. I surround myself with happy colorsyellow, coral, hot pink, and Mediterranean blues and greens. Ive persuaded myself that I hate things that are bad for mefattening food, late nights, and loud and aggressive people head the list. Im friends with myself, so I do things that are good for me, otherwise I couldnt be good for others. I spend my time with people Im fond of, and that includes my working time, too. Whether Im at a hoard meeting or on a movie set Im with good friends, so theres no drudgery about any of my jobs.

Not that I dont work hard. The demands I make on myself are fantastic. I expect perfection. I get it, at rare momentsbut theyre too rare.

Probably time is my only hangup. I organize myself right down to the second because Im greedy. Greedy to fill every minute of my days with all the things I want to accomplish. And for the future I only want a small thing: a hundred years more to act, another hundred to learn to paint, a hundred to become a writer, and still another century to get a formal education.

Women are lucky, I think, because they can get so much more variety into their lives than most men can. With a little organization a woman can excel as wife, homemaker, mother, career woman, and gracious hostess, be lovely to look at and to be withand still have time left over to be a good friend to a lot of people. And a happy friend. Of course, we all have our problems. But I dont inflict mine on my friends. At least I try not to.

How many people call you saying, Oh, I woke up so tired this morning... I had such a terrible weekend... the days awful outside. Being cheerful on the phone is part of giving. Sure, we all have our problems, but why inflict them on our friends? I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the people who call up with a cheery, happy voiceand keep it that way. People with problems seem to find that telephone irresistible. When theyre happy they just dont think about sharing it with other people.

Squeezing the most out of life takes a little executive planning. I used to say to the children when they were growing up, If you have twelve things to do, and twelve hours to do them in, dont spend the first ten hours doing just one thing or youll find yourself in an awful mess at the end of the day. Plan. And everything will get done.

George Bernard Shaw had another way of expressing it. If you put off your work for thirty years, he said, then youll have to do thirty years work in one dayand that will be a very bloody business indeed! And Id like to add that youll miss thirty years of good living!

I am always on the set early. When they ask me why I say, Im afraid youll start without me. Or replace me! It used to be a Hollywood joke. But I never got over the idea that being on time was important. Not because I was so insecure, I think, but because I respect time, my own and other peoples.

Today, after more than eighty-five pictures and dozens of television plays, I still rehearse everyone to death. I spend Saturdays and Sundays alone on the set, if necessary, going over and over my scenes. So that when we shoot, its Take One. Print!

If Ive driven myself its been out of pure selfishness. I like to get up early in the morning because I cant wait for the day to begin. Before I go to bed at night, last thing, I make a little schedule for the next day. My secretaries, Florence Walsh in New York and Betty Barker in California, keep a schedule for about three months aheadthey have to keep retyping it as more and more things get packed into it. But getting each days jobs done is my responsibility.

I get up, get through my shower and beauty routines, have a simple breakfast, and fly to my desk. It doesnt take much time to commute from my kitchen to the room where I work, so I get a head start on a pile of mail. A package of it might have come in the night before from Betty Barker.

Betty started working for me on weekends way back in 1938, while she was working for Howard Hughes. Ive been able to have her full time since 1955 and shes one of my dearest and most faithful friends. She holds down the fort in Hollywood, coping with all sorts of things, often without having to consult me. I dictate letters to her over the phone, or put them on a record for her to transcribe.

But whatever the source, yesterdays mail gets dealt with before I turn to todays. I dont like old business hanging over my head. When Florence arrives, promptly at nine, Im ready to dictate replies and get started on my phone calls. Between the two of us we answer calls that come in on three lines. It can get pretty frantic.

A meetings called at Pepsi-Colauntil recently only a seven-minute drive away. Now headquarters are sprawled out on a beautiful estate in Westchester. Public relations calls about six more bottling plants to be opened. We pencil in six more cities for the coming weeks. Some of them may be as far away as South America or the Middle East.

Theres a film offer. Ill read the script tonight and if I like it Ill plan on two months in London in the fall. A good television show comes along. Yes, I can get out to the Coast the third week in September for the shooting. There are panel shows and talk shows that need a yes or no. Im on the boards of a number of charitiesperhaps fifteen. I try to attend their meetings, and every week I tape public-service announcements for some of them.