Casey LaLonde, a grandson of Joan Crawford who helped protect her legacy as a Hollywood legend via public screenings of her movies and residential motion pictures, has died. He was 54.
LaLonde died all of a sudden Monday at his dwelling in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, his household announced.
Simply final month, LaLonde was readily available on the TCM Classic Film Festival to assist introduce a 4K restoration screening of the Crawford-starring Letty Lynton (1932), a giant hit again within the day. Due to authorized points, the Warner Bros. movie had been pulled from theaters in 1936 and was not seen publicly within the ensuing 90 years.
“It would be an understatement to say this was one of my best days, ever,” he wrote of the TCM occasion in a publish on a Joan Crawford Instagram account that he managed.
He was scheduled to attend one other screening of the movie in July on the American Legion’s Hollywood Publish 43 theater.
LaLonde additionally made appearances in help of his Oscar-winning grandmother on the TCM Basic Cruise, the UCLA Movie & Tv Archive, the Hollywood Heritage Museum — he hosted a night of newsreel footage and Crawford’s dwelling motion pictures there in October — the Museum of Fashionable Artwork and the Fox Theatre in Toronto, amongst different venues.
LaLonde’s mom, Cathy Crawford LaLonde, and her twin sister, Cindy, had been adopted by the Mildred Pierce star and her fourth husband, Pepsi-Cola CEO Alfred Steele, in 1947, quickly after their organic mom’s demise.
The actress’ first two children additionally had been adopted, daughter Christina in 1939 (when Joan was divorced from her second husband, actor Franchot Tone) and son Christopher in 1943 (a 12 months after Joan had married actor Phillip Terry.)
Christina alleged that Joan bodily and emotionally abused her and Christopher in her best-selling 1978 memoir, Mommie Dearest, which was tailored for the 1981 movie that starred Faye Dunaway. Cathy and Cindy, then again, had optimistic issues to say about their mother.
LaLonde’s household famous that “Casey was an amazing advocate for his grandmother’s legacy by taking control of the narrative that has been presented about Joan and focusing on her career and what she meant to him and his mother. … He loved meeting her fans and had built amazing friendships throughout this community.”
LaLonde was born on March 16, 1972, in Alexandria Bay, New York. He attended Northern Lehigh Excessive Faculty and Penn State College, then earned his grasp’s diploma from Virginia Commonwealth College in 1999.
He spent years working for native authorities, together with a stint as township supervisor in West Goshen, Pennsylvania, and was a advisor and administration strategist on the civil engineering agency Herbert, Rowland & Grubic Inc., his household famous.
Survivors embody his spouse of greater than 30 years, Heather; his sister, Carla; and nieces and nephews Olivia, Oscar, Ivan, Vivien, Theodore and Veronica. His mom died in 2020 at age 72, his grandmother in 1977 at age 73.
Donations in his reminiscence could be made to the Downingtown Library and Tri State Bird Rescue and Research.
