The daughter of former slaves, she began her career in entertainment touring the East Coast with various theatrical companies and moved to California to become a member of the fledgling film community.

When she was older she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, joined a theatrical company called Three Black Cloaks, and began billing herself as "Creole Nell".

After moving to California, Crawford began her film career in uncredited roles in director D. W. Griffith's controversial 1915 drama Birth of a Nation.

When Crawford began using the stage name "Madame Sul-Te-Wan" is unknown; its first appearance on a cast list is in 1931, as the character of Voodoo Sue in Heaven on Earth.

[8] The origin of the name is also unknown; historian Donald Bogle observed that it suggests a mixed race ancestry, which allowed her to play East Asian, American Indian, Spanish, African and Negro character roles.

Sul-Te-Wan transitioned into the talkie era with relative ease and continued to appear uncredited in high-profile films alongside such prominent film actors as Conrad Nagel, Barbara Stanwyck, Fay Wray, Richard Barthelmess, Jane Wyman, Luise Rainer, Melvyn Douglas, Lucille Ball, Veronica Lake and Claudette Colbert.

[13] On September 12, 1953, a banquet was held at the Hollywood Playground Auditorium by motion picture actors and film personalities to honor Sul-Te-Wan.

On February 1, 1959, Madame Sul-Te-Wan died after suffering a stroke at the age of 85 at the Motion Picture Actors' Home in Woodland Hills, California.

[16] She was interred at the Pierce Brothers' Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, Los Angeles County, California.