Joan Crawford did not show up to collect her Academy Award in person.
By 1945, Crawford had been in the industry for 20 years. She'd been a critical and box office darling since 1928's Our Dancing Daughters, was one of the "all-stars" in the 1931-32 Best Picture winner Grand Hotel, and was even dubbed Queen of the Movies by Life in 1937. But, as happens, her star waned, especially when she was listed among other notables as being "box office poison" in a Hollywood Reporter ad taken out by an independent exhibitor. Oh, she worked, yes, but to increasingly dismal results, and she parted ways with longtime home studio MGM.
At Warner Bros., she begged Michael Curtiz for the lead role in Mildred Pierce, about a working woman who sweats and slaves to provide her children with perhaps more than they can afford, and who is rewarded with a booming business...and an ungrateful daughter and a scheming new husband. He wanted Barbara Stanwyck, and forced Crawford to audition. Which she did. And won the part. And the movie was a hit. And now, for the first time ever, she was nominated for an Academy Award.
But she did not show up. Blame those first-time jitters, perhaps, but Crawford begged off from appearing, claiming illness. Still, she had the show playing on the radio, and when she heard she won, she jumped into action. By the time the morning papers came out, there she was: in her sickbed, full face of makeup, clutching her Academy Award for the suddenly summoned photographers.
She had to face off against another first-timer and three previous winners. The nominees being:
Ingrid Bergman, The Bells of St. Mary's
Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce
Greer Garson, The Valley of Decision
Jennifer Jones, Love Letters
Gene Tierney, Leave Her to Heaven
Ingrid Bergman had just won last year, and here she was playing the leading lady in the sequel to last year's Best Picture winner, Going My Way: she plays a nun who occasionally butts heads with Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley. Greer Garson was nominated last year, too, and here she was for the fifth time in a row, having won once for 1942's Mrs. Miniver: she plays the daughter of an embittered former worker who works for, and falls in love with the son of, the man her father worked for and hates. Jennifer Jones was nominated for Supporting Actress last year, but this was her third nomination in a row, having won for 1943's The Song of Bernadette (she came back the next year, too): she plays an amnesiac who may have murdered her husband. Gene Tierney is the only nominee who got a one-and-done, but it's worth noting that her role in Leave Her to Heaven came about due to the success of last year's Laura, in which she played Laura: here she plays a woman so obsessed with her husband, she tries to isolate him by any means necessary.
My ranking, from fifth to first.
