So how did Mommie Dearest affect Diana Scarwid's career?

wasn't she in extremities with farrah fawcett? i think so...

yes r1

She had a supporting role in Silkwood as Cher's lady friend, a couple of years after MD, so it probably didn't hurt it too much. She wasn't a leading lady, always a supporting type, so I doubt it affected her too much, though that she's remembered at all now is due soleley to MD.

I remember at the time being shocked she was considered a decent actress based on seeing MOMMY DEAREST. I was in high school and only subsequently saw her in other things.

She married a doctor (Eric Scheinbart) in the late 70's. They settled in her home town of Savannah, Ga.. She grew up on Tybee Island and still lives there. They divorced in the mid 90's. I don't get the feeling she ever had aspirations of being a major actress.

This is her son Jeremy

The only time I thought she was any good as an actress was when she played Bess Truman to Gary Sinese's Truman on a made-for-tv movie or mini-series.

Why hello, Diana's son with furry chest.......

She's hilarious as the mother on the late and lamented (probably only by me) TV show "Wonderfalls"

Also featuring should-be gay favorites Caroline Dhavernas, Katie Finneran, Traci Thoms and some guy named Lee Pace who seems to get attention on here.

Fox stupidly only aired three episodes, but all completed episodes can be found on DVD.

Diana was also fabulous in Wonderfalls.

She was Lucille Bluth before there ever was a Lucille Bluth.

OOH I see R8 just typed the same!

She did a couple of SVU episodes, one as a medical examiner who faked reports, and the other as a drunk soccer mom of Kim Zimmer's son Jake Weary.

She and Rutanya Alda became lifelong friends.

I haven't seen MD in decades, but I remember being very impressed by her performance--I mean, holding her own with Faye Dunaway in full eruption? Could YOU do that? I couldn't....I thought she was remarkable. What do other people think?

Since she never really had a career before or after MD, we’ll never be able to answer this question.

i've never seen her in other projects but she's ATROCIOUS in Mommy Dearest. One of the worst performances i've ever seen in a mainstream movie.

She underplayed in MD to the nth degree, which might have been true the the real life Christina, but wound up undermining Dunaway's performance. I think both performances are very good and probably very true to the real life women they were playing, but two such opposing energies don't work when trying to create dramatic tension and instead wind up make everything look absurd.

I think per performance in MD was on par with a high school one act play performance. She seemed quite amateurish.

Nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar for "Inside Moves" opposite John Savage and David Morse.

The early 80s were not kind to Scarwid. She was awful as the teacher in that didactic TV movie where Helen Hunt jumps out of the second floor window stoned. (And after catching the students smoking pot, delivers the terrible line, "10 years ago, it was straight cigarettes." Really? in 1972, high school kids were smoking "straight cigarettes?")

Scarwid also seems half asleep in "Psycho 3" but then she steals the show in "What Lies Beneath."

What about poor Mara Hobel? She must be one of the youngest Razzie nominees ever.

I think you're overreacting, Miss r19!

The thing about Scarwid in MD is that Faye is giving this completely uninhibited, fabulously scenery-chewing performance, and Scarwid acts like she's heavily sedated or under hypnosis. Even as a kid I knew there was something very strange about it.

Were any other actresses up for the part of adult Christina? I could see Julia Duffy in the role.

R20:

In 1972 I was smoking gay cigarettes, r18.

In MD she always seemed like she was reading her lines from a cue card someone was holding off screen.

r8 and r9, Wondefalls is criminally underrated!

I was a baby at the height of her career, but it has been interesting re-watching her movies years later. She was somewhat odd in MD - I agree. I liked her however and over the years as I see the film again for the 5th, 10th, etc. time It is hard for me to imagine another actress playing Christina. The fact that her worst line of the movie (the God-awful "understand" recitation) was her first - did her little favors. She gets exponentially better as the film plays out. Silkwood became a very notable film for various reasons and both Pretty Baby and Extremities are cult favorites. I would say that her career was quite notable in retrospect. She was always a supporting player, but there is nothing wrong with that.

I thought she was excellent in MD.

Some of you queens are so hard to please.

She should have taken over Denise Crosby's Tasha Yar instead of TNG just killing off the character.

Well then we never would have had Sela so nevermind.

Can you believe Pauline Kael LIKED her performance in Mommie Dearest?

I always thought she came off like a stage actress who didn’t know how to adjust her technique for the movies. I have no idea if she actually started in live theater but that’s always been my impression. Her weird accent only adds to the awkwardness of her performances.

Love her

I think the little girl was a much better actress than Scarwid. Sure, she's annoying but you also feel sorry for her. Scarwid is just annoying and miscast. Her southern accent takes you out of the character.

She was useless in that tv movie where Jaclyn Smith blows off her husbands head, too.

I loved Diana in MD and anyone who doesn't is a fat, sad cunt.

I enjoyed Scarwid in MD as well.

The "BECAUSE I AM NOT ONE OF YOUR FANS" scene is fantastic, and I enjoyed Christina going from a very sedate and subservient to finally telling that bitch what time it was!

(Although in REAL LIFE I think Christina was probably a spoiled and sullen bitch!)

UNDERSTAYUND.

I found her hair, eye and skin coloring weird. Almost like she was albino. Creeped me out.

[quote] UNDERSTAYUND.

Oh, but not nayoooow.

It didn't affect her career, it Ended it!

I like her in that Invaders from Mars remake. Or was it the other alien invasion movie? I can't remember.

Strange Invaders, r41.

Poor Mara Hobel got super fat.

I'm going to tell. Oh I'm going to tell!

I thought she was marvelous in MD. She should have been nominated for an Oscar for her performance.

I always got Lesbian vibes from Diana Scarwid. She was in some crappy tv movie with that other lesbian Kirstie Alley who goes undercover to work at the Playboy Club in NYC in 1964. Kirstie was playing Gloria Steinem.

Mara hobel was on Roseanne during the 1992-93 season as Charlotte the chubby neighbor with the slutty sister and absentee father.

Alda, hobel and scarwid have all embraced MD as the camp and cult favorite it became and have done panel discussions on the film.

I actually thought he was very well cast in MD. I thought the underplaying of the lines made sense, as the character was so beaten down mentally. A more spirited actress might not have been as believable. The viewer would think "why doesn't she just abandon her mother and never speak to her again? ". Her affect was similar to what you see in alot of emotional abuse victims.

In Alda's book on the film she writes that Scarwid was very thrown off by Faye. She felt paranoid that Faye didn't like her. Faye was apparently acting aloof towards her to create a tense relationship so it would come across that way on film. Alda says she encouraged Scarwid to use the hostility in her performance buy Scarwid was young and wanted Faye to like her.

Mara Hobel had one of the most disastrous careers ever. After Mommie Dearest she did Moose Murders which is considered the worst play to ever open on Broadway.

Marry me, R44!!! LOL!!!

R12, I thought she was excellent in MD. She had a funny quaver in her voice that worked well for the hysterical tone of the movie, which I love.

There are parts of MD I will always defend...

1. The scene where Joan comes to visit Christina at her apartment, for good or bad, seems like it comes from another movie. Dunaway and Scarwid play it low-key (well, at least in comparison to every other scene.) When Joan gives Christina the necklace and then tells her not to hock it is the only one in the movie that humanizes them and maybe shows they did love and respect each other in some way.

2. Not soon after, Christina watches her mother play her character on the soap opera. Dunaway is hilariously arch (which I think belies her claim she was never going for mere "camp") and Scarwid is, again, low-key good showing the horror on her face at her mother's performance.

Both of those scenes, and a few other moments, show what might have been if there was a better script and a better director in charge.

R53, those scenes are actually what I think give the movie its suspense. Without those scenes, the movie would just be one rampage after another and you would't even find them suspenseful. The scenes you described give the movie a more unpredictable feel. When you see Joan and Christina in her apartment like that, it's not something you expect and throws you off.

She made this hairstyle the ABSOLUTE rage!

She's flawless.

Even if one of the YouTube comments said "Maybe it would be more effective if teen Christina wasn't played by a 30year-old who looks like Kiefer Sutherland in drag."

[quote] I always got Lesbian vibes from Diana Scarwid. She was in some crappy tv movie with that other lesbian Kirstie Alley who goes undercover to work at the Playboy Club in NYC in 1964. Kirstie was playing Gloria Steinem.

She was also Cher's GF in Silkwood, if I remember right.

Mara Hobel was so sweet on "Roseanne." She played a very nice fat neighbor girl who had an awful attractive slutty sister who treated her bad.

You could tell she was going to get fat as an adult even back in "Mommie Dearest."

That hairstyle and fight with Dunaway reminds me of the Girl Scout in Airplane!

Mara Hobel's sister on Rosanne was a piece of ass -as my very straight brother would say- but I wasn't the least bit attracted to her. Boy am I GAY!

[quote]After Mommie Dearest she did Moose Murders which is considered the worst play to ever open on Broadway.

I'm shocked that a play with such a gripping title failed to do well.

She is in Pretty Baby as a whore with a thick Bavarian accent. I can't find a clip, but i swear it’s true!

See photo for La Scarwid far right.

Scarwid is the poor man's Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Without a doubt I think she is one of the worst actresses ever to be an actress. Pauline Kael must have been watching some other movie. I always wondered how in the hell she ever became an actress and who would hire her. Does she know Harvey?

DL, I get soooooo tired of your jokes.

I think you're exaggerating, r64. One of the worst? You need to watch a Pia Zadora or Bo Derek movie, and you'll see what truly awful is. She was a young theater-trained actress, and you can see that background in her performance. I think she was very effective in many of her scenes, underplaying it nicely in several scenes against a relentlessly scenery-devouring Faye.

Desperate Lives is like an afterschool special stretched to TV movie length with loads of luridity and teenagers meeting increasingly violents ends.

It is magic, everything the trailer promises and more.

Scarwid’s final furious speech in the school gymnasium is an epic of misguided performance.

Clip from said film, featuring Helen Hunt defenestration, dour Scarwid, and very cute boys.

Trifecta of joy.

R66 I'm not exaggerating. I believe this. Pia and Bo can be one of the worst too but DS was not underplaying it. She can't act. She never changed her tone of voice through the entire movie. Her flat affect made me think she was drugged. A few other things I've seen her in did not improve my impression. She was the only bad thing about Silkwood. She must have had tremendous connections in Hollywood. IMO she's laughably bad.

R56 My favorite thing about that scene, other than Faye devouring the scenery, is that the costumer obviously thought Joan made her own clothes from Butterick patterns.

Can you imagine being a young, green film actress, and having to go up against someone like Faye Dunaway? Must've been incredibly intimidating for Diana, and I'm sure Faye too some fiendish glee in that fact. Behind the scenes action must've been delicious.

Especially a really bad young green film actress.

I get Diana Scarwid and Chloe Webb mixed up.

I think Diana seemed bad because the actress who played the really young Christina was so great. They should have just used her throughout -- with fake boobs.

Faye and Rutanya take a break from filming.

Well, as mentioned upthread she was fucking fabulous in Wonderfalls. Someone should cast her in that kind of role again.

Wasn't she in Lost, too?

she's had just the right amount of work done

R75 That Ernestine Tomlin hair! Jesus, the 40s was an ugly decade for style.

She was in Heroes as a mentally imbalanced auntie to Milo V.

Maybe two episodes, well after the series had jumped the shark.

Faye and Rutanya look like jack-o-lanterns in R75 s post. Diana Scarwid has sort of a Joanne Woodward vibe. Not being able to totally drop the southern accent in any of their roles. A sort of zonked out quality to their line readings. The bland, blonde, sort of asexual quality. I think they're very similar. Oh, but also a little high toned and superior, though common. Very similar.

It is odd how she got that Oscar nomination for "Inside Moves" which was a pretty low profile film. She beat out people from big films like Beverly D'Angelo in Coal Miner's Daughter, Debra Winger, Urban Cowboy and Blythe Danner, The Great Santini.

So weird that she played a twentysomething in Inside Moves and then they tried to pass her off as a teenager in MD.

Ah've been studying for exayums! I'll-get-the-CARDS...out on time, okay?

As someone above mentioned she was excellent in HBO's movie "Truman" as the no-nonsense Bess Truman.

r83 ...One B.

Rutanya Alda (Carol Ann) said that Dunaway was a total bitch to Scarwid on the set.

R84, that was me. I couldn't believe how good she was in that.

R85, lol!

R68, how the fuck did Helen Hunt’s character survive that fall and then run around like it was nothing???

She was fun in Brenda Starr, which really is not as bad a film as is claimed. It's campy as hell and everyone seems to be having a good time with it.

I just watched Desperate Measures the anti-drug TV movie she did. She has some odd line readings as always but she is pretty powerful in the final scene where she burns drugs at the school assembly.

She and Faye should reunite for something. Oops I meant Miss Dunaway.

Who?

r91 does not belong on Datalounge