Joan Crawford, the ultimate star

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SINCE this is the first major, disinterested book about Crawford to come out since the revelations of Mommie Dearest, you might expect it either to pile on still further scandal or to counter the whole thing with sweetness and light. In the event it does neither: Alexander Walker does cast a few pinches of salt in Christina Crawford's direction, but in the main accepts the truth of her picture and, in effect, seems to say "So what?" Quite rightly, because what he gives us here is a professional biography of someone who. whatever she may otherwise have been, was undoubtedly not only the ultimate star, but the ultimate pro. Recent revelations about her private life do not as some seem naivety to suppose, invalidate her work on screen, but only make us marvel at it. JRT