1925
[This year Joan begins to date meat-Mike was the answer to that mother-love yearning within me. I was determined to do for Mike what Ray Sterling had done for me. I wouldn't let him drink when he was with me. I wanted Mike to be perfect, to be the one man I had always envisioned in all my dreams. When we were out dancing we were like two happy children. But when we took long drives, sat in the moonlight just talking and talking, I was always trying to instill Mike with the same faith in life and in work that Ray had instilled in me. I used to think of the moonlight drives in Kansas City and how I had sat and listened. Now I made Mike sit and listen. packing heir Mike Cudahy.]
Eventually Cudahy's mother (a tall, pale recluse living with her son and two daughters in her Italian chateau above Hollywood Boulevard) invited Joan for tea, then told her that she didn't approve of the relationship. Joan was shocked since she felt Mrs. Cudahy encouraged her son's passivity while Joan pushed him to accomplish something. Cudahy kept drinking, and the relationship ended in 1927. (JCB)