The Crawford Mouth

How did screen legend Joan Crawford’s mouth ever go from looking like this

to this?

A bad dental procedure and infected gums:

After altering the shape of her face by having her back teeth removed to give her cheekbones, she had her front teeth, which were spaced and filled with dental cement during her early days of filming, filed down to allow temporary caps to fit over them. The painful procedure, however, infected her gums, which stretched her mouth. When the swelling subsided, it left her with a larger upper lip. Pleased with the extension, she decided to paint in her lower lip, giving the world ‘the Crawford mouth,’ which in years to come, not unlike Bette Davis, she would extend and exaggerate as her whim dictated.

Source: Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud by Shaun Considine

Images via A Joan Crawford Photo Gallery