Glamorous and hugely popular Joan Crawford raised herself from brutal poverty to Academy Award-winning stardom by guts, determination and hard work. During her 50-year career, she made over 80 films. But her obsessive perfectionism led to the later caricature of coat-hanger-wielding harridan that even the adoration of fans could not counter. Still, she has endured as one of the most popular icons of the movies, an early role model to a million young women who aspired to her image of stylish magnetic power and unquestioned independence.

The private Joan Crawford fought as hard to create a normal family life as she did to establish her career. She forged her own path and to that end became a single parent, eventually adopting and raising four children. Like many parents, she picked up a 16mm camera and began filming both the special and the ordinary events of her family’s life. These home movies (ca. 1940–42) present that which one rarely gets to see: a larger-than-life personality at home, unadorned, just being herself—and often in color, at a time when her feature films were black and white. Crawford filmed most of the home movies herself; when she is on camera, it is unclear who is behind it.

Joan Crawford is a Hollywood legend. She star of bright and somber melodramas. She reigned on the screens for several decades, but every kingdom has her sunset. At that twilight moment, and as if trying to escape that crossroads, Joan decides to call the notable American artist, the greatest exponent of Pop Art: Andy Warhol. Her intention is to replace her muse, Elizabeth Taylor, in the serigraphs that the artist will present at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. This intrusion will give rise to a telephone conversation where the queen of melodrama will confirm that the world has changed and that her cinematographic life in black and white is already part of an implacable past.