"The Sixth Sense" (1972)
Character: Joan FairchildEpisode: "Dear Joan, We're Going To Scare You To Death!"Duration: 60 minutesPremiered: September 30, 1972 (ABC)
Episode synopsis:
After crashing her car into a ditch to avoid a dog on the road, Joan Fairchild (Joan Crawford) seeks refuge at a nearby house which is inhabited by a group of people exploring ESP (Scott Hylands, David Ladd, Martine Bartlett, Lenore Kasdorf), with the group headed by Jason (Hylands).
When Joan accidentally stumbles upon this, she is alarmed and begins to wonder the true intentions of the group. After having a vision of her deceased daughter, "Diana" (Anne Lockhart), Joan decides to leave, however, finds herself held prisoner, locked in her room by the group. Joan's attention turns to helping a deaf girl named "Lori" (Kelly Jean Peters), who is also in the house. Joan feels Lori is also in danger by the group, having seen her drowning in an ESP vision.
The group decides to use their ESP talents to attempt to scare Joan to death by making her see visions of her dead daughter. After Joan manages to escape her room, she discovers Lori has attempted to obtain help from neighbors by rowing a boat across a lake behind the house, however, the row boat is slowly sinking into the lake due to a hole punched into the boat by Jason. Joan uses ESP to help Lori find a life jacket hidden on the boat, thus saving Lori. The group begins to argue when Paul (David Ladd) refuses to be part of the plan to kill Joan. He and Jason engage in a physical fight, which Paul wins by throwing Jason over a second story banister. The police are summoned, and the group is arrested, with the exception of Paul, who saved Joan and Lori from the group's ill intentions.
Cast & Crew:
Director: John Newland
Written By: Anthony Lawrence, Jonathan Stone
Producer: Universal
Joan Crawford - "Joan Fairchild"
Scott Hylands - "Jason"
David Ladd - "Paul"
Kelly jean Peters - "Lori"
Martine Bartlett - "Carrie"
Anne Lockhart - "Diana Fairchild"
Production:
Filming took place on the Universal Lot in Los Angeles, California during July 1972. While on the lot, Joan was visited by Alfred Hitchcock and Rock Hudson.
This was Joan's final acting performance.
There are two versions of this episode available. One being the full-length complete episode for "The Sixth Sense" series, and the other being a shorter, approximately 30-minutes version, edited for syndication version as part of the "Night Gallery" series.
In the final moments of the episode, Joan sits down with the show's main character, Gary Collins (who didn't appear in the episode) to talk about ESP, and shares a story about her own premonition of her dog falling prior to the dog falling from the second story banister in her New York apartment.
The episode closes with Joan wishing Gary a goodnight, and he simply says "Goodnight, Joan" before the screen fades to black, thus ending
Joan Crawford's 47 years of acting.