An album page signed by Joan Crawford. Size: 5x4 inches. rowing increasingly frustrated over the size and quality of the parts she was given, Crawford embarked on a campaign of self-promotion. As MGM screenwriter Frederica Sagor Maas recalled, No one decided to make Joan Crawford a star. Joan Crawford became a star because Joan Crawford decided to become a star. She began attending dances in the afternoons and evenings at hotels around Hollywood, where she often won dance competitions with her performances of the Charleston and the Black Bottom.