Born With a Different Name
Joan Crawford was raised as a Southern belle in San Antonio, Texas. However, her life wasn’t as glamourous as it would become in Hollywood. Born Lucille Fay LeSueur, she was far more modest, and her parents struggled to make ends meet. It was hard to put food on the table, but Crawford didn’t know anything else.
Photo by John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Getty Images
Crawford’s father was a construction worker, and he abandoned the family when she was just ten months old. Her mother remarried, and the family relocated to Oklahoma. Her stepfather, Henry J. Cassin, ran the Ramsey Opera House, and he managed to book many noteworthy performers. Because Crawford was so young when her mother remarried, she thought Cassin was her biological father.