Christina Crawford on life after Mommie Dearest: ‘My mother should have been in jail’

Joan Crawford [italic]should[/italic] have been jailed. That's not even in question - -

"‘My mother should have been in jail’"

Did that little bitch even see 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?'?

Did this women ever do anything in her life except bitch about Joan Crawford?

I don’t know what to make of this women. It seems she’s devoted her whole life to going on about her childhood. What a waste.

R3, Of course she had a full life. Christina was married to a film producer and helped to raise his son. She has a BA from UCLA and a Masters' Degree from USC and worked her whole life in corporate communications.

How LONG is she gonna be carrying this shit around? I mean, REALLY?

R4, No, her #1 goal in life was to reach out to other survivors of extreme child abuse at a time when it still wasn't publicly discussed. Only in the 1960's was the idea that your parents don't own you and can put you in jail for any minor disobedience changed. Parents used to threaten to send their children to Juvenile Hall for the slightest reasons including being gay.

Are you aware that parents used to have children solely to put them to work to support them at the youngest ages? Do you think that all of the jobs were legal/moral?

[quote]I don’t know what to make of this women. It seems she’s devoted her whole life to going on about her childhood. What a waste.

Not really. That's just all that you've heard about her.

She's extremely intelligent, with a very good analytical mind. It was her intelligence that saved her and helped dig her out of her hole.

'Did this women ever do anything in her life except bitch about Joan Crawford?"

You can make a living from it.

For what, my dear? Providing you a good home? Giving you enough stories to tell after I passed? I have always known that you could never sell the great taste of Pepsi Cola as I could, so naturally, my name was the only thing you can sell for food! Disgraceful. Should have done what that nice lady from Boulder did to her little brat, but of course, I am too much of an angel to do it.

What fat?

Christina, it's time to say "Uncle".

What mother would tie her very young son to the bed so that he couldn't get up at night to go the bathroom?

Know it was once the norm for little kids to have their hands tied to the sides of the bed at night so that they couldn't mistakenly touch themselves or masturbate.

Wrong thread!

NO WIRE HANGERS CHRISTINA YOU CUNT!

I will cut you out of every photograph you piece of shit!

I never laid a hand on that fucking bitch.

If she put up with even half of what the film showed in real life AND was cut out of the will (for reasons known to her) then really Joan had it coming.

There's two ways of looking at Joan Crawford's behaviour. Either you say she was horribly abused as a child -- which she certainly was -- and so it's hardly surprising that she treated her own adopted kids as she did. Or you say she was horribly abused as a child, and so it's doubly dreadful that she treated her adopted children the way she did. Either way, no matter how great a screen talent she was and no matter how much sympathy one has for what she went through in her life, there's no excuse whatsoever for what she did. Those children should have been removed from her care for their own safety.

OY VEY, this one again? Was mummy's driver mean to her as well?

Joan wasn't that talented really. I wouldn't put her in the same class as Davis, Hepburn, Stanwyck etc

None of Joan's behaviour surprises me one bit.

Anyone who can look like Joan did in her "Humoresque" closeups is entitled to slap her kid a few times.

R21-She was good in Mildred Pierce.

She was good in "Mildred Pierce. Funny thing: I remember Pauline Kael reviewing "Mommie Dearest" and noting that in a scene where Faye Dunaway as Joan was rehearsing her lines for "Mildred Pierce" you saw a real actress playing the role.

Christine was certainly a homely child, wasn’t she? But she aged very well so there’s that.

She battens on Joan's cadaver.

I'm glad my parenting concerns were, shall we say, resolved......prior to my little princess learning her cursive letters.

Mrs. P -- always the voice of reason!

F*****g bitch shouldn't have used wire hangers. She was warned repeatedly.

CC has done much more in her life than write the memoir of living with her mother. I say more power to her. She has come to terms with it all, and clearly has had a life outside of her childhood. But for anyone who has been abused by a parent. It never leaves you- you manage it- you accept it and perhaps understand it. But it never goes entirely away.

I had an abusive mother- she loved me in her way, but she was abusive. I did not know at the time so I accepted the unacceptable and compensated. I was not abused as badly as CC was- nevertheless it more or less ran my life for a long time without my knowing. I got help, I still seek help to make certain it does not run my life and more important, that I break the pattern (my mother's mother was abusive.) I have to be aware of it, and work through it all the time- constantly forgiving my mother who did the best she could, and did do something well. I've had a good life and my mother's problems were compensated for to a great degree by my father later in life and by a housekeeper who raised us as much as my parents did. I think I learned about love from that housekeeper, not my parents- who I know loved me. That is the paradox.

And yes, abuse is not always spread evenly among children. JC's twins might have had very different experiences.

Some kids just aren't lovable.

Is it possible none of this was true? Or at least greatly exaggerated?

For r33:

[quote] Joan's friends Helen Hayes, James MacArthur, June Allyson, Rex Reed, and Betty Hutton have verified some of the stories in Christina's book and claimed they also witnessed some of the abuse in person. Hutton had previously lived near Crawford's Brentwood home and has stated that she saw the children during or after various moments of abuse. Hutton stated she would often encourage her own children to play with Christina and Christopher to give them respite from the abuse at home. Joan's Mildred Pierce co-star, actress Eve Arden, sided with Christina about Joan's parenting abilities and said that she suffered from bipolar disorder and was a good woman in many ways but, as an alcoholic with a violent temper, she was simply unfit to be a mother.

Source for the quotation at r34:

[quote]Joan's Mildred Pierce co-star, actress Eve Arden, sided with Christina about Joan's parenting abilities and said that she suffered from bipolar disorder and was a good woman in many ways but, as an alcoholic with a violent temper, she was simply unfit to be a mother.

Helen Hayes said the same thing. Dinah Shore, a friend of Helen's and Joan's, also witnessed some of the abuse and asked Helen if she could intervene.

Thanks r34

[quote] Is it possible none of this was true? Or at least greatly exaggerated?

If anything, I think Christina may have underplayed the scope of it.

John Waters pointed out that some of what Joan did was consid4red pretty much par for the course by strict parents in the 40-50s: it was common for them to try to force children top eat food they didn't want to eat, or to smack them if they were giving them back talk. But Joan did far more than that--she really beat the elder kids, gave Christopher bladder problems by strapping him into bed each night so he wouldn't sleepwalk, gave them presents and then withdrew them (supposedly to teach them to be unselfish). And many Hollywood celebrities saw her do things like this.

Joan was a control freak and an enormously strong will she liked to exert on people, and Christina challenged her on that--she thought the best way to deal with her mother was to fight back when she was a child. Christopher mostly gave in, but he hated her more than Christina did. Joan apparently wised up a bit when she adopted "the twins" Cindy and Cathy (who were not really twins but lookalike sisters), and was still incredibly strict with them but not abusive.

r32 = the late Mrs. Patsy Ramsey, formerly of Boulder, CO

That hateful little bitch!

[quote]Joan apparently wised up a bit when she adopted "the twins" Cindy and Cathy (who were not really twins but lookalike sisters)

Cathy and Cindy really were fraternal twins after all (Cindy died in 2007). While she was doing a press tour for the 20th-anniversary edition of [italic]Mommie Dearest[/italic] in 1998, Christina repeated her claim from the book that Joan passed them off as twins as a publicity stunt (she sort of implied that they weren't even related). Cathy successfully sued her for defamation, producing her and Cindy's birth certificates during the proceedings.

What keeps the movie "Mommie Dearest" from being taken a bit more seriously is the fact that Miss Dunaway was never as elegantly beautiful as the real Joan. Her flat faced looks and wonky eyes never approximate the quite lovely Joan Crawford.

Oh for God's sake.

Christina, darling?

You wrote a nasty book about your adoptive mother, made a lot of money, had the book made into a film, you made a lot more money, you paid your adoptive brother off with a measly $10,000.00 and then managed to blow all the money you made off of your dead adoptive mother about whom you wrote your damned book about because, in her will, she didn't leave you any money.

We are all seeing a pattern here.

You publicly admitted to the author of 'Bette & Joan' that the box-office-poison-rose-garden-bring-me-the-axe thing never happened and that the wire hanger thing never happened (you were also spotted at some event AUTOGRAPHING wire hangers).

The whole I-want-you-to-leave-MGM Joan vs Mayer scene never happened. As a matter a fact that movie was pretty much fiction from the first frame to the last.

From what I understand you were one of those the parent says "day" you just have to say "night", mom says "we're going to go right" and you make it a special point to turn left willful, annoying little brats.

Now get over your short, homely, sad-eyed 80 year-old self, dear.

R41 Crawford looks like she is pushing 60 in that shot.

Didn't it occur to anyone that it should take longer than 6 weeks to film a "biopic" and no one noticed how bad Dunaway's wigs looked?

According to the actress who played Carol Ann, Dunaway didn't think she would win an Oscar for this but she was 100% certain she would get the nomination (ouch!!!).

Christina darling: your mother is a god damn American hero! She is celebrated daily in my community (gay men) and is practically worshipped. You deserved whatever punishment she gave you and should be happy she adopted you, you little ungrateful bitch. How much money have you earned in book sales and speaking engagements? Thought so, cunt.

R39 Yes, John Waters did help to fill in a lot of blanks. But Joan Crawford was generally known to be a rotten person.

R39 - a “rotten person?” She had to be tough! She was a single woman fighting and clawing her way to survive the only way she knew how. If anything, she deserves out respect and admiration for accomplishing so much from such meager beginnings.

When a bitch won’t eat her steak, a bitch gets beat.

R49 Crawford did rise up from some very, very tough circumstances. She really did, and she made it. She probably did have a lot of emotional/psychological scars that she never really dealt with. I'll give J-Craw that much credit.

R51 - thanks.....she’s a hero of mine!

R52 This tribute to her was well-done, a great video, but it also made me sad.

There is a part where Crawford talks about not having had a formal education and she is suddenly very awkward and her voice becomes halting. This was obviously a deeply shameful thing for her and I'm just like, "Hon', you overcame, you proved yourself, what's the big hang-up?"

I never would have guessed that Joan was "undeducated". Maybe this is why appearances were so important to her.

Joan didn't beat that little bitch hard enough.

R54 Bette Davis, of all people, did publicly slam Christina not-so-darling and her tell-all. Davis called the book a "disgrace".

Christina is a liar.

I love how Christina plays all innocent. I’d have loved to hear from Joan what a bratty little bitch she was. Christina is lucky she didn’t “accidentally” drown in the swimming pool.

I feel mixed about Christina. I could tell about all the effed up things my father did to me. But, I understand why he did them. He made terrible, terrible mistakes that I've paid dearly for. But I forgive him.

Though, if he cuts me out of his will, I would forever hate the bastard, so I get it.

[quote]Of course she had a full life. Christina was married to a film producer and helped to raise his son. She has a BA from UCLA and a Masters' Degree from USC

and she had dresses! Beautiful, $300 dresses that she treated like dishrags!

Faye Dunaway was born on January 14, 1941. “Mommie Dearest” came out in 1981. So, she was late-30s to 40 during filming. She does look kind of terrible at R41. I don’t think the real Joan Crawford was significantly better-looking.

Joan Crawford should not have cut Christina out of the will. Agree with the poster above that children in the same household can have completely different experiences growing up.

Faye was too old for the pageboy at r41. She wasn't that much older than Joan was, however, when the latter stopped wearing one (the last time I remember her having one is in A Woman's Face, when Joan was about 36).

Joan supposedly excised Christina out of the will because she had heard from friends Christina was writing a book about her upbringing. Although Joan also cut out Christopher who was not writing a book, so it may just have been they had grown so cold to her that she wanted nothing to do with them. I don't think Joan left the twins all that much by today's standards, but it would have been a lot back then.

The past is another country. I live in the present. Christina should give it a try.

R53. That was a beautiful short film. Thanks.

Whenever I think of the in-front-of-a-reporter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! slapping and choking scene I am reminded of the time Joan Crawford publicly admitted to beating her son.

Yes, Joan did this IN FRONT OF A REPORTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Hello, son,” Joan smiled sweetly. She patted the sofa beside her, and Christopher came over to sit down.

'Hello, mummy,' came the response. All charm.

But Joan, who herself has won an acting honor or two, refused to be so easily disarmed. Joan began smoothly.

'Do you realize what you’ve done? How many people you’ve upset and hurt? And over what? Chocolate syrup, indeed! You’re lucky to have the ice cream!'

Tears brimmed in Christopher’s eyes as the lecture continued.

Just go upstairs, son', Joan directed. 'I’ll be up shortly,' she added, 'with the hairbrush. I’m going to tan your hide and you’ll take it like a guy.'

So—like a guy—Christopher turned to go up the stairs."

June Allyson was on the Dick Cavett show and told a tale about Joan and her abuse of Christina. She'd been at Joan's house for lunch (she said she never went back) and Christina was there too. All through the lunch Christina was totally silent. Joan explained that Christina's "silent treatment (I guess she was forbidden to talk)" was because she had been a naughty girl recently. Allyson said her transgression didn't seem very important to her. Then Joan commanded Christina to go upstairs and get the birthday present she was to take to a birthday party for a friend. She brings the beautifully wrapped package downstairs and Joan told her she was going to sit there, with the beautiful package on her lap, all afternoon, thus missing the birthday party. "Isn't that sad?", Allyson said. The audience was dead silent. Even Cavett seemed at a loss for words. Then he said if Joan Crawford were still alive he would have liked to "paste her one." He also called her a "psychopathic sadist." He was right.

Yes. Joan would have been put in jail. No doubt at all about that.

R 53 Thank You

Katharine Hepburn said she never regretted not having children because she knew she was too self-involved and career-focused and she would've been a terrible mother. Too bad Joan and some other of their contemporaries in Hollywood didn't have that same kind of self-awareness.

Nearly all of the old-timey Hollywood stars were awful parents.

R65 After hearing that story I guess it's okay to take pleasure in the fact that, in her final months, Joan Crawford knew Christina was writing a book about her.

In the 'Feud' threads, a poster wondered aloud that JC was ever considered beautiful. If you don't know JC, you don't know that she began in silent films with Lon Chaney, but eventually became the 'IT Girl' before tackling greater roles. She was the quintessential movie star. She was also a child of abuse: I don't have a personal understanding of that, which is why I avoid discussing that. I can talk about glamour and acting. I (respectfully) bow out when we're discussing child abuse: I feel very badly for those of you with personal experience.

She’s a goddess 😍😍😍 I honestly don’t care what she did to those sniveling brats, she was the picture of grace and elegance.

R63 & R67

You are welcome.

Watching it again I can understand how deep Joan Crawford's insecurities really went. The part where she is writing on the chalkboard shows her almost having trouble writing her own name. Maybe she was more under-educated than I thought.

And I'm not trying to belittle her, I think it's sad. This, and her horrible childhood, explains so much about her and her need to always have the upper-hand and about her dedication to perfection.

While it does not excuse her treatment of her children it does give us a glimpse into the reasons for Joan Crawford's anger at what she perceived as her two oldest kids' inability to appreciate what she offered them; the best clothes, a beautiful house and a good education.

Beauty that is hard to encompass.

R71 Friends said that toward the end of her life Crawford acknowledged that trying to be a mother was not a good idea, that her career mattered more to her. At least she could be honest with herself.

And conversely you had Bette Davis, who spoiled her daughter BD rotten and financially supported her nearly into middle-age, yet BD turned around and also wrote a nasty book. I guess you just can't win.

Of FFS, at some point you got to give this shit up and just move on. Joan should have left her ass in whatever orphanage she found her.

Her beauty went too far. It was frightening. I (a gay man) just wanted to imagine briefly touching her perfect chin, and her smiling at me in return. I think she really wanted to be a mother, loved and cared for. But nothing gave her the skills to do that. I know that other children of chaos have been terrible parents. Sometimes, their children survive with minimal damage, but other times, the damage seems permanent. JC was deeply damaged, too, which is why I refrain from digging in.

R68 Hepburn was a dyke.

who wasnt

Not me, good Sir!

Does anyone know if Joan licked any pussy or had hers licked? Wouldn’t surprise me....

Good question R81....

Wonder how women groomed their bikini lines back then.

[quote]Did this women ever do anything in her life except bitch about Joan Crawford?

What more does one need for a well-lived life?

R81 where have you been?

R65 I think Christina would have included that story in her book if that actually happened. I think anyone who ever hated Joan Crawford joined in with their shots at her, whether what they were saying was true or not.

Here is the actual Christmas broadcast that the discipline-mixed-with-love scene was based on. This is just a little bit different than what was portrayed.

Interesting how Christina kept her famous last name. Even though she got the name from an abuser who was evil incarnate, according to her.

[quote] Interesting how Christina kept her famous last name. Even though she got the name from an abuser who was evil incarnate, according to her.

"Crawford" was the name that was bestowed / foisted upon her as a child. She was adopted. Not sure if she even knew what her biological mother's and father's last names were. CC has a right to the name Crawford, IMO.

There was this guy on Antiques Roadshow who's mother (or grandmother) had been a nurse/nanny for Joan. He had a small archive that included a beautiful signed photo and.....

Joan was such a control freak with major alcohol and emotional problems. She never should've been allowed to adopt children.

R90 Was there a time Christopher was called Phillip (I assume for Phillip Terry)?

I believe so, r92.

Those instructions are insane.

You don't leave a child who's barely a toddler to sit on a potty chair unattended while you make beds and mop!

2:45 - Christina will return from school. Be sure to give her a hell of a wallop across the face for me as I will still be at the studio.

You all are burying the lede — there’s gonna be a Mommie Dearest musical!!! Who's writing the songs? Lin Manuel? Who will they cast? Lin Manuel in a dress?

Christina Crawford doesn't "move on" because her mother's abuse damaged her forever.

Her publicizing it may not be my sort of thing but I don't question the psychological effect that kind of treatment has on a child. It can and often does last a lifetime.

In the book, r81, Christina writes about her mother's sapphic tendencies, especially when drinking.

I have a question that I hope I can phrase correctly. When the film "Mommie Dearest" was released in 1981 was it instantly recognized as bizarre and campy? Was it taken seriously in the way the book was? I read the book and its tone is not present in the film at all. The wire hanger scene is so over the top that you cannot help laughing at something than in the book was treated soberly and earnestly. Was it Faye that made Joan such a caricature? And who can forget Diana Scarwid as Christina with her overly mannered and robotic delivery? The movie just makes so many crazy choices that you cannot help feeling the director knew what he was doing.

It was seen as camp and so-bad-it's-good right away.

Exactly R100.

The film was meant to be taken seriously R99, Dunaway thought she was going to get an Oscar nomination, but audiences laughed so hard at this movie that their PR team went along with the film's "camp" appeal.

Her memoir was a bombshell , there is still a great deal of interest in her life story .

R99 I remember when the movie came out and it was promoted as a serious drama, with a lot of buzz around Faye Dunaway being nominated for an Oscar for her role. When it came out and flopped, the gays rushed in and recreated it as camp and it began to be screened as a midnight movie. When the camp factor caught on, the studio re-released the movie, but this time marketed it as a camp fest.

Thanks, r100, r101, r102, and r103. I am very interested in how the film became something so drastically different from the book. In fact, the film made child abuse something funny and I bet those midnight screenings were filled with people acting out the abuse for comic effect. The movie's place in gay popular culture must have been an unexpected development for Christina.

R104 Very, very bad job on the part of the film's director.

The film had an accuracy problem. The director left a lot of Crawford's backstory out of the film and there were so many terrible shots of Dunaway, particularly during the wire hanger scene. What was he thinking?

Crawford's appearance when she won the Oscar versus the get-up Dunaway wore in the film - why couldn't they even get that right? (They also left out little endearing things like the fact that Crawford literally slept with her Oscar statue after she received it). Dunaway's stained teeth compared to Crawford's actual teeth? Another little thing they could have fixed.

The acting was atrocious, Dunaway did not "become" Joan Crawford, she merely impersonated her and Dunaway seemed to "channeling" her own personality rather than Crawford's.

The wigs, the makeup - this "big" film was guilty of a multitude of sins. Too many for me to cover.

Don't forget that Miss Bancroft was first attached to the role (however briefly).

I remember reading that R106. I think Bancroft thought she would be doing a biography about Joan Crawford. She must've seen the script and said, "No, thanks."

At work, one day, a friend and I were delivering Faye's best lines from 'Mommie Dearest', and bringing each other to tears of laughter. I had to go back to my desk to answer my phone, and when I returned, my friend was in tears (not of laughter). One of our co-workers had overheard us, and had waited until I left to confront Roslyn about her terrible insensitivity, since Ms Buttinsky claimed to be the victim of child abuse. The movie garners a VERY mixed reaction. I just pointed out to Roslyn that our asshole co-worker had waited until I was away to try to shame her, since it was clear that I wasn't having any of her shaming. The movie itself is either a Greek tragedy, or a farce. For me, it's a little bit of both. I may laugh, but I still feel sympathy for all the parties involved.

It always read as camp.

I remember my best friend and I sitting in my basement, taking over the big TV the first time CBS ran the movie on TV, and we wore wire hangers on our heads for the whole movie.

What Christina needed was LOVE!

R110, That trailer actually makes me cry,

"My mother should have been in jail." - Christina Crawford, still writing the third book in her "trilogy" about her living hell

"This bitch should have been locked up in a nuthouse years ago." - Sane people on Christina Crawford's lifelong, non-stop self-pity parade, as well as her two sisters

A lifelong effort to educate the public of child abuse

Most people under 80 wouldn't remember Joan Crawford if not for her book and the movie. Now she's as famous as she felt she deserved to be and for something evil which she also clearly deserved.

What's this bs about Joan being uneducated? She attended several schools on work scholarships and attended Stephens College for a few months before dropping out.

r90 here. I added the appraisal on the archive.

Sad as some of the circumstances may have been at LEAST we live in a world where Miss Dunaway's performance in "Mommie Dearest" will ALWAYS be there to give us something to come together and laugh our gay asses off about!

Imagine how grim it might all be without it!

Plus, I never get tired of Marlon Brando's sister Jocelyn Brando (looking exactly like her brother in a wig!) playing Redbook reporter "Barbara Bennett"! I mean, can you imagine a lousy two-day movie role bringing such permanent fame? Well, CAN YOU?

I never knew that was Brando's sister, r118! Now I need to just watch this film all over again!

R117 control issues

Barbara please.....

So then, you see the difference between Joan and I. Joan was just a raging, alcoholic, impossible bitch with a capital B. She became a Mother for all the wrong reasons - good, calculated publicity among them. She used those children as weak, stationary punching bags to vent her rage and frustration. Control Freak in the extreme. I, on the other hand, was purely result driven. Sure, I was stern. Sure, I was strict and demanding - some might say that I, too, was "impossible." But what I did, I did out of love. I loved my children, and I'd move heaven and earth to keep them on the right track to the place I knew they belonged. I knew when to discipline my children, being highly disciplined myself. Criticize me all you like, but I did what I had to do to ensure the success of my children. I'd slap a bitch down without thinking twice. Reflexive. Mama don't take no mess.

Sure, Jan.

R103 is partially right. The movie didn't do well in it's first week of release. The critics pretty much hated it, though many of them acknowledged that Faye Dunaway was quite good, and lamented that no one seemed to have reigned her in. Some, like Liz Smith, suggest that Dunaway should get a Oscar nomination and maybe even a win for it. So the script and direction were seen as terrible, but her Fayeness was seen as having given a good to great performance against all odds.

Because of the reviews, and because of audiences in some cities finding the whole thing to be a riot, Paramount relaunched their advertising campaign for Mommie Dearest. The new campaign played up some of the more campy and outrageous aspects of the movie. The tagline of the new print ad, which was full page in the New York Times, was "The Biggest MOTHER of Them All!"

Someone threw a fit over that print ad. I can't remember if it was Faye or Christina, or both. They said it was unbelievably offensive, and if it wasn't pulled, they would go to the press. Sort of like what Joan did the Pepsi in the movie, come to think of it. That new campaign didn't do much good anyway, and the movie was pulled from theaters shortly thereafter.

To answer more specifically, no one really talked about anyone else's performance in the movie but Faye's. It was sort of written off as a bad movie, and very few people saw it on it's original run.

Now, as an 11 year old gayling, I couldn't WAIT to see this movie! I had my chance when it premiered on HBO the following year. I was very interested in old Hollywood, and was reading biographies of people like Jack Benny and Ethel Merman at the time (MARY!) so I was excited. And I LOVED it. At that age, I really couldn't tell bad acting from good, or bad directing. I thought it was fascinating. I think it actually found an audience on HBO, given how often HBO ran it after its initial month. They ran it constantly, and I believe I watched it whenever I saw that it was on.

About seven years later, in college, I started talking about Mommie Dearest with my friend Deanna. I think it was THEN that I realized how very terrible Diana Scarwid was in the movie. And how fucking bizarre the housekeeper "Carole Ann" was. Or how truly terrible the dialouge was "Don't FUCK with me, FELLAS! This ain't my first time at the RO-de-O!... the sword... CUTS both ways."

We later got some friends together and watched it drunk and I've never laughed so hard in my life. I think in a movie FULL of horrible things, Scarwid takes the cake. How on God's green EARTH do you explain her first 30 seconds in that movie? (linked below) WHAT is she doing there? What's in her head? Are they insulting Christina and saying she was the single worst actress ever to appear on a stage? What is the costume? And what accent is she doing? I know she seems to go in and out of it though the whole movie, but what is it supposed to mean?

(continued)

And though all this, aside from the camp value, I don't think the movie is worthless. There are some really good things in it. Faye IS wonderful in much of it. She should not disavow it- she did some good work there. I think the scene where Joan goes on The Secret Storm is really good- it makes you feel terrible for both Joan AND Christina. I think some of the tussle between mother and daughter in the first third of the movie is well done and interesting. The little girl even wins some very early rounds against Joan, but, obviously, she didn't know what she was up against.

And, I think even Miss Scarwid is great in the later scene in the movie where Joan confesses to Christina that she's broke and won't be able to help her out anymore. That scene makes me tear up. And the following scene where Christina finds Joan with tons of expensive packages, falling down drunk is great too.

I leave you with my favorite bit of dialogue from the movie, Joan with Mrs. Chadwick (played by Amy Irving's mother Priscilla Pointer who also plays Amy's mother in Carrie.

Joan: "LAST TIME" this happened?? Just what are you running here? A school or a teenage brothel??!!

Mrs. Chadwick: I think you're overreacting, Miss Crawford!

Joan: AND I think you're UNDERreacting, MRS. CHADWICK! Christina! Get to the car!

Diana Scarwid is talented, but she's terrible in this movie. Partly because she was wildly miscast (chosen mainly for her fair blond looks and resemblance to the real Christina) and partly because she's in a toooootally different movie than Faye is, in Faye's mind.

The Suddenly Southern Christina accent is quite humorous.

[quote]I never knew that was Brando's sister, [R118]! Now I need to just watch this film all over again!

Ohmygawd, once you know it's Marlon Brando's sister that's all you can see, as they have a very strong family resemblance. If it really were Marlon in a wig, I can't say the scene would be any worse, but really how could it be better?

R126 yes, thank you. I should've pointed out that Diana Scarwid is a good actress, and actually has some good scenes in MD. I think it just shows how rudderless the production was. Frank Perry was either a terrible director (which I don't think is true) or for whatever reason his talent was just MIA for the shoot of Mommie Dearest.

r128, but it must have been an important and even prestigious project for the studio. I just am fascinated how this film got made the way it did!

R124 The NYT print ad:

In "Mommie Dearest," Diana Scarwid's hair / wigs looked very unnatural.

Notice how in the movie Christina wears little girl clothing and bows in her hair even when she's a teenager. That was true. Joan, despite being wealthy, frequently deprived Christina of basic things she needed, like clothing and shoes and underwear. At one time Christina had only two plaid dresses to wear, day in and day out.

Speaking of dresses, those frilly matching "mother and daughter" dresses that Joan and Christina wore (you can find many photos of them wearing these outfits, preening for all they're worth) were absolutely ridiculous. What mother would do something so designed to bring attention to how wonderful a mother she was? But no doubt being photographed in those "fairy tale" dresses brought Joan a lot of prime publicity. Shirley MacLaine did the same thing with her daughter Sachie; in that case, photos were taken of her and her little mini-me playing dress up and making identical funny faces. It's obvious that MacLaine was just performing, like Joan was, in order to get publicity and make everyone see what a wonderful mother she was. It was all total horseshit.

Surely you don't mean Shirley, r132!

Faye was very good in some scenes, particularly as the older Joan. She was quite touching in the scene where she visits the adult Christina in Christina's apartment and talks about how she misses Al Steele.

Crawford did not adopt those kids. She bought them on the black market!

She was turned down by legitimate adoption agencies because at that time single women were not allowed to adopt.

I was kind of devestated to hear those things about Shirley MacLaine. I guess in my head she was Aroura Greenway, who was grounded, intelligent, and tried to protect Emma like a lioness.

She was the COMPLETE opposite. Flighty, undependable, gullible, and just not very bright. How the hell was she able to play Aroura so well? How was she able to understand how to play her? I guess one thing I've always known about her is that she's a talented actress.

R130 it's coming back to me. It was Christina who was angry at the "no wire hangers" print ad. After all, she'd been beaten with one.

Director Frank Perry was angry at the "biggest mother of them all" tagline. Perry or producer Frank Yablans.

R138 A few years ago, I attended a "Mommie Dearest" screening that featured Christina in person and being interviewed before the movie was shown. It was around Christmas, and at the end of the interview, Christina pulled out a wire hanger adorned with mistletoe.

So I'm guessing she's over the wire hanger thing.

I saw it when it came out in 81 when I was 14. The audience, needless to say, was in hysterics at all the moments you would expect. Plus I think it has to be one of the most repeated movies ever on cable. As a lot of posters have said it’s a mixed bag. Some scenes are unexpectedly touching, some of course are so over the top you can’t believe what you are watching. The director Frank Perry left his mark. He made mostly a campy comedy about child abuse. I don’t think another director could claim this. And to think he was an Oscar nominated director in 1962. But he will always be remembered for this most of all.

There are about 40 minutes of deleted scenes that have never seen the light of day. I don't know why Paramount has never released a DVD will all the deleted scenes included, because it would make them a ton of money.

In Joan’s defense, I would also be super pissed if my kid ran away over chocolate syrup. If you know you’re going to get beat, make it worth it FFS.

BOBRA PLEEZE

I know Christina has suffered several strokes according to google so perhaps she is taking this opportunity to put emphasis on making this point now " whilst she still can" kind of thing. I do not understand why she gets such a big backlash.

A girl's gotta eat, so I'm sure CC is making coin wherever she can.

And yes, they should release the uncut version. So to speak.

Christina the child had a face like an emoji. 😐

Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn were smart to never have children, they would've been shit mothers just like all of their female contemporaries so they spared getting nasty tell-all books written about them.

Perhaps because she's been wringing money and attention out of her childhood for the past 42 years, R144.

The book made child abuse a hot button issue that had never really been addressed before as serious.

The film made child abuse hilarious!

I'm sure there are some people who are able to navigate the very tricky balance of career and children, but actors (of either sex) are not among them.

That awful daughter should have been jailed for elder abuse. She got in the way of her house cleaning and clothes organization, never giving a thought to what dear Joan gave up for the ungrateful, whiny bitch.

Hideous. There should be a refund policy on these orphans.

R151 Mrs. Patsy Ramsey, is that you?

R116 apparently Joan’s scholarships didn’t amount to much in the way of her education. She was made to be a maid and laundress from the time she was 13 or 14. She admitted that with the work she had to do, she was never able to keep up with her classes and the other girls never befriended her. It sounds like a miserable situation.

Here's Crawford with daughter Christina on Jerry Lewis' telethon in 1968. Tension. Crawford is drunk as usual.

Just gimme a drink and raise the god-damned cue cards!

r148 That feels like an unfair caricature.

R155 I love the way Joan says "my DO-TAH" when they bring Christina onstage.

I've seen this before.

This was an ah ha moment for me.

The way she grabs CC by the hand (kinda violently) and drags her off is pretty telling.

Love Joan, but she was one mean drunk.

This thread has upset me a great deal.

Faye was terrific in Mommie Dearest but the movie itself...it just looks like a dull tv movie. Flat, pedestrian direction and photography. I've said it before on one of these MD threads that the films intro is great and promises much more than the movie actually delivers.

I believe Christina though. Joan was way too selfish and angry to be a parent.

R161 I think actually it would be great to revisit the book as a series, but between the movie and Feud that ground may have already been covered.

CC had cause to be angry, but no business purchasing children. I love the scene in MD where Joan is prostituted for Louis B Mayer's dinner guests. Faye is excellent in a flawed film. I think MD is dismissed as camp because the subject unnerves people. The tales of abuse contradicts JCs image of glamorous movie star perfection. Child abuse and neglect was not widely discussed until Mommie Dearest was published.

"I am not One of your fans!', doesn't make me laugh, it disturbs me.

Joan tried to kill her daughter and would have if they had not intervened.

Christina baited her.

The rose garden scene, the MGM firing and the choking scene were all pure fiction.

They never happened.

Say more about the scene where Joan is prostituted, r163. I do not remember that at all.

"The rose garden scene, the MGM firing and the choking scene were all pure fiction."

The rose garden scene did happen. She went nuts and tore up her lovely rose garden and enlisted her small children Christina and Christopher to help.

She did try to choke Christina. If not for the intervention of someone else she might have killed her.

In the movie she is unceremoniously fired by Louis B. Mayer, but in reality her contract with MGM was terminated by mutual consent

R167 JC was forced to entertain Louis B Mayer's dinner guests instead of enjoying a romantic date nite with hubby. Joan complies at Mayer's insistence but is furious. At home she takes it out on hubby yelling she may as well have the studio 's name tattooed on her ass.

Was in in Cinescope, R169?

[quote]In the movie she is unceremoniously fired by Louis B. Mayer, but in reality her contract with MGM was terminated by mutual consent

Well, sort of, as Joan owed MGM one more movie under her contract, and fearing one more "lousy picture" would finish her off for good in Hollywood, she bought off her contract for a large fee.

What most people don't know is that MGM would have gladly re-signed Joan for another three years or so, just at a lower salary which was what they were hoping to do. Joan did the smart thing.

Well, child bearing wasn't really an issue for Garbo or Hepburn since they were both dykes.

Joan Crawfords' rose garden was removed by her gardener and replaced with a victory garden a full year before her split with MGM.

Joan Crawford and MGM parted terms when Crawford had to buy out her contract with them at great expense. There was nothing amicable about it.

As for the choking scene, which reporter was in the home to witness this? When did this actually happen and who exactly intervened?

Don't believe everything you read.

The reporter who witnessed the vicious and violent choking and near strangulation was Ms. Barbara Please Barbara.

"Don't believe everything you read."

Who are YOU? And why should anybody believe anything YOU say?

tail in a knot sissy?

your input has been invaluable. my facts are correct, what are yours?

Roger Ebert said that the movie has no narrative and he's right. Triumph follows abuse and vice versa with no reason.

The cinematography is terrific. It seems as if you're watching a movie from the 1950's. There's nothing "modern day" about it. It has a very technicolor, soap opera feel to it.

Scarwid's a terrific actress, but is made up to look like a thirty year old playing a young Shirley Temple.

That Redbook fight scene is ridiculous. Dunaway practically beating her chest and yelling like Tarzan.

Kael loved it but Kael hated Crawford as an actress. Thought she was phony and unconvincing.

Kael said that about Crawford as if it were a bad thing.

"your input has been invaluable. my facts are correct, what are yours?"

Again it must be said: why should anybody believe anything YOU say, you blithering poofter?

still waiting for your rebuttal to the facts dear.

and name calling is a sure sign of a lost argument.

poofter? how clever.

Pauline Kael had a lot of strange opinions.

"and name calling is a sure sign of a lost argument."

I guess that's why you called me "sissy". You're not very bright, are you?

Can you cunts just piss on each other already and let us get back to the topic at hand?

Your grateful public thanks you.

[quote]That Redbook fight scene is ridiculous. Dunaway practically beating her chest and yelling like Tarzan.

I like how her feet curl back with those heels as strangles and then the dismount is hilarious with Faye flipping to the side.

The most ridiculous part of the fight scene is the 5 seconds where Faye sort of play acts choking Christina before her hands actually do touch her neck. As if Christina couldn't have easily ducked and run out of the way of that.

Not a cent, Tina.

Barbara Please-BARBARA!

R141 YES, TOTALLY! I also think they did a lot of editing that makes things too choppy, and not flow in many parts.

This ungrateful cunt would be working as scullery maid right now if it wasn’t for Lucille!

The 20th anniversary edition of the book removes at least 50 pages from the previous edition and adds 100 new pages of material.

Hopefully we'll get a complete edition before Christina dies.

FFS, Joan even treated Trog better than Christina

R192 Trog was prettier.

"Not a cent, Tina."

Christina got her revenge. She made money from her story, and made the world aware of Joan's abuse.

Who's sorry now?

I never laid a hand on that fucking kid!

I still want this t-shirt

In the original version of the book, there's definitely some homophobia going on. Christina portrays Joan's friendships with gay men in a negative light. As if it were part of the long laundry list of things "wrong" with Joan Crawford. I assume that line must have been taken out for the 1998 edition.

I don't really blame her for it. It was just the way people thought back then.

Joan should have left her the foundling home.

Hmm maybe it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Here is the line from the 20th anniversary edition:

“Now there weren’t too many men around, except for the assortment of homosexuals she’d known for years who served as “dates” when she had to make public appearances, or wanted to go somewhere and couldn’t go alone because it wouldn’t fit in with the image of the glamorous movie star.”

When Christina reads this line in the audio book, I guess it sounds worse than it reads. It struck me when I heard it as being homophobic, but maybe it isn't.

Oooh I found the original passage in the original edition. I was right.

"I knew why she didn't want me at home anymore. She knew at age twelve I was old enough to understand, to see what was going on in the madhouse. I was witness to the beatings she gave my brother, the revolving boy friends who came and went at all hours of the night, her increasingly serious problem with alcoholism, the homosexuals she surrounded herself with, and her inability to control that violent temper she unleashed periodically."

This passage was taken out of the 20th anniversary edition, and the above passage was added to it.

Not very enlightened, Tina darling.

[quote]Wonder how women groomed their bikini lines back then.

Tweezers.

Love at first bite.

The cunt doesn't fall far from the cunt. One's dead, and the other is a bitter old twat. They both probably got what they deserved from life.

R197 If her mother of all people was OK with gays back in the 1940’s, Christina’s generation should have been much more accepting of it considering she was in her 20’s in the 1960’s when things were less uptight. So her “the homosexuals she surrounded herself with” comment sounds like it came from a homophobic cunt, especially considering she wrote the book in the late 1970’s.

[quote]I don’t think the real Joan Crawford was significantly better-looking.

The real Joan Crawford was significantly better looking, even gorgeous by any standard. Dunaway is coarse and odd looking. Joan had an exquisite profile as well.

R200 I don’t know how any self respecting gay could be team Crustina over Team Joan!! If that cunt was your adopted daughter you would beat her ass also!

Christina's shrinks should all lose their license for ineptitude.

[quote]Joan should have left her at the foundling home.

Considering Christina's behavior, I always assumed she came from a home for changelings.

Adoption isn't that great. Weaker bonding. No parent likes ugly child.

VF piece on JC's last days.....

Helen Hayes and Dinah Shore whispers.....

Lesbians might not make good mother's? Cher seemed good though. The child does try to match their parents social accomplishments. Some children tortured by simple fact that parents overshadowed them.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Nowadays they all purchase their kids from the same village in Africa where Madonna purchases her loved ones from.

Actually as discussed in thread about Andersen Cooper, well off or even moderate income whites at least go for surrogacy over adoption for most part. This goes for straight and gay couples or singles.

There is no follow-up with families after they take surrogate born children or child home, nor is it required.

From the 1940s on she looked hard and bullish. Could not act for shit.

Gosh, I sure hope Christina never stops talking about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Joan Crawford!

r162 Should Barbara Stanwyck be on that list too?

[quote]So then, you see the difference between Joan and I.

Fraud!

The real Janet Auchincloss knew the difference between "I" and "me", which you don't!

Most of us have a sibling who is nuts and makes up stuff about parents. Life is is not a bed of roses.

The only reason the twins never reported any abuse was most likely because Joan favored them and they were super obedient.

I hope someday we get a straight remake of Mommie Dearest that is faithful to the book that includes the twins as well as actors who can actually act and resemble the characters they're playing.

Diana Scarwid is a decent actress. The problem was with the ridiculous wardrobe and hairstyle. She looked like one of the Girl Scout Twins who brawl in Airplane!

[quote]Someone threw a fit over that print ad. I can't remember if it was Faye

Faye was mortified that the serious drama she had signed on for was being marketed as some camp comedy by the studio. She washed her hands of the whole picture right then and there.

Maybe she didn't spank the twins because they knew how to behave themselves. Or maybe they weren't little drama queens seeking publicity. Joan did Secret Storm for that woman. If that's not a mother's love, I don't know what is.

[quote]Most of us have a sibling who is nuts and makes up stuff about parents. Life is is not a bed of roses.

I have a cousin who claimed that my great uncle and great aunt physically and emotionally abused her. Her five siblings have disputed that. She also claimed that her first husband was a physical abuser which her kids disputed. Three of her four kids cut off complete contact with her as adults. The one kid that remained in contact with her up until she died believes she was mentally ill and had some constant victim complex. She described her mom has always accusing people of mistreating her.

R223 No it's like a Child Called It. Joan had some children be the good ones and some be the bad ones.

Or maybe they were genuinely bad, R225.

I was too young to see "Mommie Dearest" when it was released in the theaters. The first time I ever watched it, I had just gotten out of college. I watched it with sadness, thinking to myself, "Gee, this isn't so bad. My Mother was worse than Crawford." It kills me that this was my reaction to the film......

Bette Davis's (cunt) daughter BD Hyman tried to cash in too, with her own tell-all book. But Davis wasn't an abusive mother, just overbearing and she drank too much. And unlike Joan with Christina, Bette spoiled BD rotten and financially supported her and her useless husband until BD was nearly middle-aged. BD just came off like a whining ingrate.

[quote] How LONG is she gonna be carrying this shit around? I mean, REALLY?

Abuse is something you carry around your entire life.

I don't think the fact that Joan's children see things differently is unusual.

My oldest sister and I are almost 15 years apart. She remembers a lot of nice times as the oldest. I remember my parents being relaxed and not super disciplined with me - I was the youngest and they just sort of gave up. (Not that it was a benefit to me, but anyway, I have some pleasant memories.)

I had two siblings in the middle that have bad memories and my brother believes he was physically abused by my mom. I don't see it at all - but my parents were in a terrible state for a while when he was born (dad cheated on her and fathered another kid) so I can totally see him picking up on anger, resentment and not having great memories.

Tina is a wretched woman!