JOAN CRAWFORD ON TV
The comedy / variety roles of the 1960s by Billy Ingram
Her film career in a shambles Joan Crawford made a few random television appearances in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.
Her fifties work was primarily on variety shows like The Colgate Variety Hour, The Bob Hope Buick Show and Caesar's Hour and drama anthology shows including three episodes of General Electric Theater. That's in addition to the talk and awards show appearances. Let's look at some of her comedy / variety roles on television in the sixties.
In the sixties she made four trips to The Hollywood Palace in 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1970. Here she is hosting one of those Hollywood Palace extravaganzas in 1966.
She entertained on The Joey Bishop Show in 1968 and made two guest shots on the short-lived Tim Conway Show in 1970, on the first and third episodes. Here are Tim and Joan in their skits from The Tim Conway Show.
She made a troubled guest appearance on The Lucy Show that aired in February of 1968 playing herself. She and Lucille Ball did not get along during the rehearsal week, in fact Ball fired the actress for drinking and Joan had to beg for her role back. However, when it came time to tape Crawford's performance, it was spot on, even Lucy was impressed.
Her most bizarre work on TV was her week substituting for daughter Christina on the CBS soap opera The Secret Storm in October of 1968. Sadly only the audio exists for her first day on the job. At this time in her life pills and booze fueled the actress and she delivered erratic performances that took a great deal of editing, something they rarely did on daytime dramas.
Here's the show in two parts but Joan doesn't appear until part two, clearly sloshed.
