Douglas Fairbanks Jr & Joan Crawford

On an October night in the fall of 1927, Joan Crawford laid eyes on the young and dashingly handsome Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles. Fairbanks was starring in a play called Young Woodley, hoping it would lead to better job offers in the film industry. Crawford was still a relatively new star on the scene. She was signed by MGM in 1925 and spent much of her first year playing small roles where she received no billing.

Through her own self-promotion and better screen roles, Crawford turned herself into a star.Her role in Our Dancing Daughters in 1928 would solidify her as one of MGM’s greatest stars. But on the opening night of Young Woodley in 1927, she was sitting just on the brink of her super stardom.

On that evening, it is unlikely that Crawford realized just how famous she was to become in the near future as she sat in the dark theatre watching Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. What she certainly did realize was that the young man on the stage had captured her interest. Margaret Reid, a writer for Picture-Play Magazine, explained, “The night I saw him on the stage, Joan Crawford, swathed in white fox, sat alone in an upper box, following his performance spellbound, sending optic messages down to him.” After the performance, Crawford hand-delivered a hand-written message to the young Fairbanks. She congratulated him on his performance and asked for a signed photo and a telephone call, if he should be so inclined.

Needless to say, Fairbanks did not hesitate to call upon the budding star. On their first meeting, Fairbanks asked Crawford for an autographed photo in return. Crawford inscribed the photo, “‘To Douglas, May this be the start of a beautiful friendship. Joan.'”The two love birds quickly found themselves falling head over heels for one another as they began to see each other more and more. Fairbanks described their love by insisting, “It was sort of love at first sight.On the 3rd of June in 1929, Fairbanks and Crawford were married in a small ceremony at the Saint Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church. Fairbanks was only nineteen years old at the time and four years younger than Crawford.

Despite their deep love for one another, Fairbanks’ family wasn’t too keen on the idea of him marrying Crawford. Especially at so young of an age. Fairbanks, Sr. referred to the romance as an, “‘overexploited affair'” and his mother called Crawford, “‘my son’s current chorus-girl fling.'”But Fairbanks said to Hell with his family’s protests and married her anyway. At the time there was, and still is, a lot of speculation on whether Joan Crawford used Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as an instrument to advance her own career. After all, he was the crown Prince of Hollywood and an invitation to Pickfair (the home of Fairbanks, Sr., and Mary Pickford) could only be beneficial to a rising star.

On April 29, 1933, Crawford filed for divorce and a year later it became finalized, ending the romance early 1930s.The two met again for the first time in many years after Fairbanks returned home from the war in Europe. Fairbanks had just been formally demobilized and ordered to return to wearing civilian clothes. He attended a large dance with his new wife, Mary Lee, when he locked eyes with the glamorous Joan Crawford. With arms wide open and a beaming smile, she came floating across the room toward Fairbanks. He expected a welcome home and a warm embrace from his former wife but was instead met with the same self-serving Joan Crawford that he knew years ago. Fairbanks remembered, “She embraced me warmly and then as she pulled back she repeated gleefully, ‘Darling! I suppose you haven’t heard – you don’t know – I’m no longer with MGM. I’m with Warner Brothers now!'”.

Some movies they made together: Our Modern Maidens (1929) , The Stolen Jools (1931)