Crowninshield Family - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Although less common today, references to the Crowninshield family in popular culture were prevalent in earlier American society. Some examples include:

• Across to Singapore, a film loosely based on seafaring adventures of the Crowninshields, featured Joan Crawford as the fictional Priscilla Crowninshield
• The Running of the Tide, a novel by Esther Forbes, was based on the family
• A nightclub at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, replicates features of the original Cleopatra's Barge
• Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, a 1994 film, included a depiction of Frank Crowninshield played by Peter Benchley
• "The Thing on the Doorstep," a short story by H. P. Lovecraft set in a town based on Salem, mentions the Crowninshield-Bentley House
• In one of E.E. 'Doc' Smith's novels in the Lensman series, an enemy base is disguised as an office building belonging to the wealthy Crowninshield family.
• In The Devil and Tom Walker, a short story by Washington Irving, one of the damned souls is named Absalom Crowninshield, who is reputed to have been a buccaneer.