Billie Cassin Part 1

You know her as Lucille LeSueur, or more likely, Joan Crawford. I was fortunate enough to acquire a one-shot magazine from 1931 or 1932 entitled The True Story of Joan Crawford. It is 50 pages of text and pictures, with virtually no advertising except for the back and inside covers. For only 10 cents you could learn everything about her youth and eventual break into pictures.

On page five we learn, "Billie Cassin loved crackers and mustard and little satin ribbons for her hair and lavender dresses. To this day it is not an unusual site in her household to see Joan Crawford help herself to a tin of crackers and a bottle of mustard from the kitchen of her home."

And, " One night Henry Cassin took Billie to his theatre. There were dancers featured that week; gay, whirling, red-and-gold dancers who spun madly to the even madder music. Billie never went back to dancing school after that. She stood in the wings watching them like a child hypnotized. Her wide eyes never left their whirling, twisting bodies. When the woman dancer twisted her body from the stage, Billie Cassin went up to her and threw her small arms about her. "Teach me how, she cried. Teach me.""

Yikes - that is some in depth journalism. But this blog is all about the images, so here are some pictures (along with captions) from the first 25 pages. With no advertising and a 10 cent cover price, this was was printed on paper that is two steps up from newsprint. Sadly, it hasn't worn that well and the pictures suffer accordingly. On the upside, I at least have not seen many of these images before.

Click on the images for a larger view.

This one-shot magazine was published by Dell, who at the time also published Modern Screen and Modern Romances. If fact, those are what are advertised on the inside covers. The publication has no date, but the last film mentioned is Dance, Fools, Dance from 1931. No credit is given for the cover artist.

Page 1.

Billie, Lucille, Joan at age six.

With mom at age eight.

Billie with her brother. While she looks younger than in the two previous pictures, this shot appears four pages later.

Charleston, Charleston, Made in Carolina. Some dance, Some prance, I'll say.

Helping out while appearing in her first picture, 1925's Pretty Ladies.

Dancing was her first love.

Two early publicity shots.

Hoofer trophies.

The captions tell the story.

Publicity stills.

China Bound is from 1929 and as far as I can tell, neither actually appeared in the picture. However, they did star together in 1928's Across to Singapore. Me thinks our flowery reporter may have gotten his locations crossed.

Here is Joan wearing a sweatshirt created by Doug. The picture was quite small so I apologize particularly for this image's quality. However, it is here as a shout out to Raquelle over at Out of the Past - A Classic Film Blog. She posed a question about the fad of hand drawing on sweatshirts during 30's and 40's. I don't know what started the fad, but we see that Hollywood was not immune.

Next post - Images from pages 26 - 50.

Courtesy of Operator99.