Joan Crawford and Judy Garland were two of Hollywood’s most enduring icons, but their personal lives were often shaped by secrets that the industry worked hard to keep hidden. Crawford was married four officially recognized times, while Garland said “I do” five times. Two of Garland’s husbands were reportedly gay, and some historians believe those unions were practical arrangements as much as romantic ones. In an era when one wrong headline could end a career, these marriages were often described as survival strategies.
Crawford’s rise to fame began far from the glamour she would later embody. Born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, her father abandoned the family when she was just 10 months old. Her mother remarried, and for a time the family was exposed to the arts, but the home environment turned dark when her stepfather began mistreating her around age 11. Determined to escape, she left home in 1922 to pursue dancing, eventually landing small parts in Hollywood films.
The studio deemed her name unsuitable, and a nationwide contest led to her famous stage name, though MGM settled on Joan Crawford after the winning choice was already taken by another actress. Crawford’s ambition became legendary. Early in her career, she was used as a body double for Norma Shearer, a star married to studio executive Irving Thalberg, which Crawford reportedly resented. She fought for attention, entered dance contests, and made sure photographers saw her.
A screenwriter later said she became a star because she decided she would become one. Her breakthrough came in 1928 with “Our Dancing Daughters,” which made her Hollywood’s newest sensation. Her personal life, though, was turbulent. In 1929, she married Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
, whose famous parents were reportedly cold toward her. The marriage deteriorated amid mutual affairs, including Crawford’s highly visible romance with Clark Gable. The relationship scandalized Hollywood when a journalist reportedly discovered them together at a party, and Crawford responded the next day by sending flowers with a playful note. By 1933, the marriage ended in divorce.
Her second marriage, to actor Franchot Tone in 1935, was even more troubled. Crawford pushed him toward movie stardom, but he preferred theater. She suffered two miscarriages, and Tone reportedly sank into depression and alcoholism, becoming physically abusive. She divorced him in 1939.
Around the same time, her career took a hit when a 1938 article labeled her “box office poison,” questioning whether her salary matched her ability to draw audiences. The 1940s brought both motherhood and professional redemption. After adopting a daughter, Christina, she married actor Phillip Terry in 1942. The couple adopted two boys, but the first was reclaimed by his biological mother.
She renamed the second boy Christopher, apparently replacing the child she had lost. The marriage ended in 1946. The same year, Crawford won the Oscar for Best Actress for “Mildred Pierce,” despite clashing with director Michael Curtiz, who disliked her trademark shoulder pads so much that he reportedly inspected her costumes. She was so convinced she would lose that she stayed home from the ceremony, then arranged press photos after learning she had won.
Her rivalry with Bette Davis became one of Hollywood’s most famous feuds. The two clashed while filming “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” in 1962, and the hostility exploded publicly afterward. Davis mocked Crawford’s romantic history, while Crawford mocked Davis’s acting style. The feud had a deeper root: both women had loved Franchot Tone, and Davis believed Crawford had deliberately taken him.
Their war reached a peak at the 1963 Academy Awards, when Crawford, who had no nomination, accepted the Oscar on behalf of Anne Bancroft while Davis watched from the audience. Later in life, Crawford also feuded publicly with co-star Mercedes McCambridge, with the two trading insults after Crawford reportedly threw McCambridge’s clothing onto a highway. Crawford married her fourth and final husband, Pepsi executive Alfred Steele, in 1955. After his death four years later, the company tried to push her out, but she threatened to expose what she knew and secured a seat on the board.
She was eventually removed in 1973, and this time she did not fight back. Her later years were marked by heavy drinking, which she gave up in 1974 after a bad fall, and an extreme obsession with cleanliness that led her to cover her belongings in plastic. Some biographers have suggested Crawford may have had relationships with women, including Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Marilyn Monroe, though much of that remained rumor. There is also evidence she may have secretly married saxophonist James Welton in 1924, before her recognized marriages.
Joan Crawford died on May 10, 1977, from a heart attack at age 73, four days after giving away her beloved dog because she could no longer care for it. Judy Garland’s story offers a different kind of insight into Hollywood’s hidden world. Two of her five husbands — director Vincente Minnelli and Mark Herron — were widely reported to have had relationships with men. Herron’s relationship with actor Henry Brandon reportedly continued both before and after his short marriage to Garland.
Historians have described such unions as “lavender marriages,” practical arrangements that allowed celebrities to protect their careers in an era when being openly gay could destroy them. Garland’s deep connection to gay culture has been explained in two very different ways. Academic José Muñoz described “disidentification,” the idea that LGBTQ+ people can take stories never created for them and reshape them through figures like Garland, whose struggles with rejection and outsider status mirrored their own. Queer historian David Halperin offered another view, arguing that some gay men may reject polished mainstream representations and instead embrace figures who feel more complicated and subversive.
By that logic, Garland became a gay icon not because she belonged to the community, but because her life and vulnerability gave generations of gay men something deeply relatable. Her marriages and her role in queer culture remain a significant part of Hollywood’s historical legacy.
