New Book on MGM Classic ‘The Women’ Reveals Extent of Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer’s Feud (Exclusive Excerpt)

Illeana Douglas’ 'Jungle Red! The Making of MGM’s The Women' delves into the 1939 classic, including tensions between two queens of the lot who were cast in the film, "Box Office Poison" Crawford and "No Tits Shearer." Illeana Douglas' new book 'Jungle Red! The Making of MGM’s The Women' reveals the depth of the feud between Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. Illeana Douglas’ new book Jungle Red! The Making of MGM’s The Women, published on Sept. 15 by Lyons Press, delves into the titular 1939 classic which boasted an all-star cast of actresses — among them Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard and Joan Fontaine — and provided a template for modern female-driven projects like Sex and the City and The Real Housewives.

In the following exclusive excerpt from the book, Douglas makes the case that the greatest Hollywood “feud” of all time did not involve Crawford and Bette Davis or sisters Olivia de Havilland and Fontaine, but rather Crawford and Shearer. If MGM had been primed to sell The Women as “the Catfight of the Century,” they didn’t need to invent antics or drum up stories of feuds. Everyone knew that Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford really didn’t like each other. In March of 1939, before Crawford had even set foot on set, Howard Strickling had approved