JOAN CRAWFORD she was horrified.

Joan's public and private lives began to constrict in 1973. One of her last public appearances was in April of that year at New York City's Town Hall, in a "Legendary Ladies" event hosted by John Springer, where she answered questions from Springer and the audience. That same month, the new head of Pepsi-Cola, with whom she'd had an antagonistic relationship since Al Steele's death, forcibly retired her from the company's board of directors after her 18 years of service for Pepsi. In September of '73, financial considerations forced Joan to take a smaller apartment in the Imperial House, where she'd lived since the mid-60s.
September 23, 1974, was Joan's final public appearance, in an event at NYC's Rainbow Room to honor Rosalind Russell. After seeing unflattering press photos of herself published the next day, she was horrified, saying "If that's how I look, they won't see me again." And the public didn't.

Joan reportedly gave up drinking in December of 1974 and rarely left her apartment after that year, though she wasn't a complete recluse; until the end of 1976 she would regularly visit with neighbors, and friends like editor Carl Johnes (who later published a warmly honest book about their relationship), publicist Michael Sean O'Shea, and makeup artist Monty Westmore, as well as her Christian Science practitioner Mrs. Markham, her longtime secretary, and her daughter Cathy and family. She also continued to speak to interviewers like Roy Newquist (who later published Conversations with Joan Crawford) and magazines such as Architectural Digest, which did a feature on her apartment in the fall of 1975.

By early 1977, though, even these contacts had mostly tapered off, as did her once-numerous phone calls to friends.

A sign that Joan herself recognized that her life was almost over came on May 8, when she gave away her beloved pet Shih Tzu. Two days later, on the morning of May 10, Joan Crawford died. Only her housekeeper and a longtime female fan were present. The coroner listed the cause of death as "acute coronary occlusion," but Joan had been noticeably wasting away for months and several sources list the actual cause of death as liver cancer. Suicide was also suspected because of the symbolic importance of the date---her and Al Steele's wedding anniversary. She was cremated and her remains interred at New York's Ferncliff Mausoleum, alongside those of Steele.