Mommie Dearest Revisited
Insomnia and access to the Los Angeles Times archives can be a dangerous combination. I spent several pre-dawn hours this morning reading 80-year-old articles about one Lucille Fay Le Sueur aka Billie Cassin aka Joan Crawford. I guess such pursuits don’t do a lot for my macho image (stop laughing), but there you have it. My sudden interest in the early career of Ms. Crawford stems from an AFI screening Kendall and I attended the other night at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood marking the 25th anniversary of the film “Mommie Dearest.”
We’d both seen the movie when it first came out and a few times on TV since but it’s been many years and we were eager to see the film’s depiction of old Hollywood again as well as how Christina Crawford’s allegations of child abuse were handled. Oy, what a freak show. While Faye Dunaway’s depiction of Crawford over the course of almost 40 years is dead on, it sometimes seems as if she’s using Carol Burnett parodies of Joan Crawford as her source material as much as footage of the actress herself. The way Dunaway is transformed through makeup, hair, costumes, and her finely tuned acting chops is one degree short of channeling, but her performance is so over-the-top that you have to wonder what the filmmakers were going for. What could have been a truly incisive look at the mental illness of a well known figure is instead an exercise in High Camp even though I don’t think that was anyone’s intention at the time, least of all Faye Dunaway’s (who refuses to discuss this film today). I’m not sure director Frank Perry was the right man for the job, and yet he did direct two films that I thought were outstanding and riveting depictions of mental disorders: “David and Lisa” in 1962 and the classic “Diary of a Mad Housewife” in 1970.
When Christina Crawford’s tell-all book came out a year after her adoptive mother’s death, Old Hollywood divided into two camps: those who thought the book represented the slanderous ravings of a spoiled brat bent on revenge for being written out of her mother’s will; and those who said they had witnessed Crawford’s unstable behavior with her children and were convinced that the book’s shocking claims were true. At the top of the list of Joan’s defenders was her old friend Myrna Loy who had known Crawford since she first arrived in Hollywood in the 1920s and had appeared with daughter Christina in a stage production of “Barefoot in the Park.” Loy thought Christina was an obnoxious child and that she had behaved horribly during the run of their play. She said that while she never saw Joan hit her daughter, if anyone needed a good slap it was Christina. Oy.
Helen Hayes, whom Joan had befriended in the 1930s, did not exactly elect Joan Mother of the Year in her autobiography:
Joan was not quite rational in her raising of children. You might say she was strict or stern. But cruel is probably the right word.
When my young son Jim came to stay with me, we would go out to lunch with Joan and her son Christopher. Joan would snap, “Christopher!” whenever he tried to speak. He would bow his little head, completely cowed, and then he’d say, “Mommie dearest, may I speak?” Joan’s children had to say [that] before she allowed them to utter another word. It would have been futile for me or anyone else to protest. Joan would only get angry and probably vent her rage on the kids.
On one of my Hollywood trips about this time, I ran into Dinah Shore in the hairdressing department of MGM. She beckoned me to come over, and then began talking in a whisper. “Helen, everybody knows that you’re Joan Crawford’s close friend. Can you do something about her treatment of those children? We’re all worried to death.”
I said, “Look, you people out here see her all the time. Why can’t you say something?” and Dinah said, “That’s the problem, we’re around her all the time, and I don’t think we could get away with it, but you come and go, Helen, so you could talk to her and then leave.”
Well, I was frightened to do it. We were all afraid of Joan – which is the biggest problem in this kind of situation, as we’ve seen with fatal results. No one would speak up. I have read that people who are abused as children often become abusive parents. Maybe it was Joan’s tough childhood that made her exert her power like that over her own children. But understanding the reason did not make their suffering any easier to watch.
Pretty damning stuff, and yet there’s also evidence that Christina Crawford exaggerated some of the childhood episodes for dramatic purposes. With the passing of time, certain scenes that appalled me in the 80s didn’t seem so bad today. At Christmas time and on birthdays, Joan’s fans would send Christina tons of presents. Crawford would let her keep one or two and have her give the rest to needy children. This is presented in the film as monstrous but it seems quite reasonable to me today. Still, it’s clear that there were times when Crawford’s highly disciplined and controlling nature devolved into episodes of severe mental and physical abuse. The last thing I would ever do is accuse Christina Crawford of lying about her childhood. I would think that the only thing worse than experiencing such abuse is finally telling people about it and not being believed. Only she knows what happened between her and her mother and it certainly seems like Joan had plenty of undiagnosed disorders that made her a nightmare to live with. On the other hand, the filmmakers should have avoided the temptation to create completely fictional scenes of terror like the one in which Joan almost kills Christina in front of the magazine reporter. No matter how you pitch these bio films, most people are going to believe that real-life events happened exactly as depicted.
As far as Joan’s friends defending her, isn’t it true that you never really know what goes on behind someone else’s closed doors? Statistics would say that we all know or have come in contact with abusers even if we’ve never seen that side of them. I saw on the news yesterday the shocked reaction of the former neighbors of the guy who confessed this week to killing JonBenet Ramsay. “But he seemed so nice, I just don’t believe it!”
Still, Christina Crawford hasn’t helped her “case,” in my opinion, by encouraging the camp-fest that has developed around the book and movie of “Mommie Dearest.” She appears at screenings with drag queens playing her mother and at which the crowd interacts with the film à la Rocky Horror using props. Our audience the other night was more tame (for the most part—a few people brought wire hangers to the screening) but the uproarious laughter that greeted so much of the film made me very uncomfortable. If the story is “true,” we are laughing at horrific child abuse. If it is an exaggerated tale of a troubled childhood, we are participating in a major defamation of character of a woman who is not here to defend herself and whose public image (the one thing everyone who knew Joan Crawford agrees she cared about more than anything) has been utterly trashed. For the record, Crawford’s adopted twin daughters, several years younger than Christina and Christopher, swear that the book and film are grossly inaccurate depictions of their mother but again, that doesn’t mean these things didn’t happen to Christina and her brother. Look at the different treatment of the children in Bing Crosby’s two families.
I guess I can’t really blame the audience for laughing nor can I claim that I took the high road and didn’t join in from time to time. How can you not laugh at lines that are so out there they have become indelible parts of our pop culture such as “I can handle the socks!” or “Christina, bring me the ax!” and, of course, the iconic “NO WIRE HANGERS…EVER!!” My personal favorite is a scene that I think shows Joan in a positive light even though she’s clearly being a Class A bitch. After her fourth husband, Pepsi-Cola honcho Al Steele dies, the top brass at Pepsi try to kiss her off. Never one to meekly slither away, Joan Crawford lays into the Board and threatens to use her fame to turn her fans against Pepsi if they continue their campaign to get rid of her. After years of dealing with the sleazeballs of Hollywood, Joan was not about to let this group give her the heave-ho. “Don’t fuck with me, fellas!” she spews with an evil smile on her face. “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.” I hope she really said that, it’s such a great line. Did you know that Anne Bancroft originally signed to play Joan Crawford but backed out when she read the script? Joan had accepted Anne Bancroft’s Oscar for her when she won for “The Miracle Worker” but also said once that if a movie were ever made of her life, she’d like Faye Dunaway to play her. Good news, except I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the movie Crawford was hoping for.
Oh hell, I wasn’t even going to write about that damn film which gave me the heebie-jeebies, much less get into a “did she or didn’t she?” debate. Since I’ve been spending a lot of time lately researching early Hollywood, I was more interested in taking a look at how the young Joan Crawford was treated by the press at the very beginning of her career, before this town helped turn her into the caricature she became. And so began my early-morning foray into the thousands of Los Angeles Times articles written about her.
The first article ever published about Joan Crawford was about the name change itself. I was fascinated by the title of this September 5, 1925 piece: “Cognomen of Actress Discarded.” When was the last time you heard the word “cognomen” being used? Why do some of these great words disappear from common usage? “The metamorphosis of Lucille Le Sueur, motion-picture actress, into Joan Crawford, motion-picture actress, was announced yesterday by Harry Rapf at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Miss Le Sueur’s new screen name was selected by a conference of studio officials. The old name, it was said, was considered too difficult. Very few knew how to spell it and even fewer how to pronounce it, and it was felt it was an obstacle to her success.” For once I agreed with “studio officials.” As Louis B. Mayer said, who wants a name that sounds like “sewer?”
From that day on, Joan was all over the paper, even though she was barely 19 years old. She was always being carted out to one charity event or another, even making a splash at a huge benefit at the Shrine Auditorium for the Hebrew Sheltering Home for the Aged in Los Angeles, at which the Notre Dame football squad, headed by Coach Knute Rockne, were guests of honor. Joan was constantly being lauded as a star-of-the-future. She was the subject of endless puff pieces including one on November 20, 1925 about her dog Pedro, said to be the smallest Chihuahua dog in the world. Joan carried him around in a small makeup case. “A tiny window enables this minute canine to view the sights.”
Joan’s first bit of bad press occurred in 1926 when she was dating 19-year-old Michael Cudahy, the handsome heir to a huge meat-packing fortune. Cudahy’s mother was horrified that her son was dating the motion picture actress. In some circles back then, actresses were still seen as nothing more than glorified whores. I couldn’t resist doing more research on this guy. Although his brothers and uncles lived very productive and successful lives (included in these ranks were the former ambassador to Poland and Belgium and the inventor of the electrocardiagram), young Michael was a spoiled rich kid who never did an honest day’s work. Shortly after his dalliance with Joan, he married another actress, probably to spite his mother who actually had him arrested and jailed because of it. “He’s only a child, just 19,” Mrs. Cudahy explained. “Cudahy was claimed last fall by Lucille Le Sueur, now known as Joan Crawford, for a fiancée, and it was reported widely that they were married. Mrs. Cudahy objected emphatically to that affair, also, and warned that if a marriage resulted she would have it annulled.” He ended up marrying three actresses but his alcoholism and wild ways led all his wives to divorce him on the grounds of severe mental cruelty and abuse. He died at the age of 38 from liver failure due to his constant drinking. Joan was wise to steer clear of him.
Another mini-scandal Joan was involved in that year focused on the sanity hearing of Yale football star Robert Savage who was in love with actress Clara Bow. Apparently the two got as far as the marriage license bureau when Bow turned him down, saying it was all a big joke. Distraught, Savage slashed his wrists. Joan, who had once dated Savage, was called as a witness to the Psychopathic Ward of General Hospital. His hearing, which later found him to be sane, was conducted by the Los Angeles Lunacy Commission. Don’t you wish such a commission still existed? Can I be president?
An interesting article from 1927 revealed for the first time Joan’s dark side that would get worse as her fame increased. Titled “Joan Crawford Isn’t Happy But Always the Gayest of Gay,” the article calls her a “restless flame of a girl, flaring high one moment and dying down to a flicker the next.” Her latest film, “The Taxi Driver,” had just opened at the State Theatre in downtown L.A. and poor Joan had to appear there nightly to do her wild “jazz dance” for the assembled crowd. (I just drove by that theatre yesterday afternoon and cringed at its dilapidated condition.) Back in 1927, 21-year-old Joan was considered “one of the interesting enigmas in pictures. A girl who is expected to be gay and hilarious, coveted for parties because she can be depended upon to add to the occasion with a whirlwind dance or smart line, and yet who sometimes breaks under the strain of trying to be ‘the life of the party.’” Poor Joan, already trying to be everything to everyone. “People think her happy-go-lucky, yet she is so sensitive that a blunt opinion often sends her into a dark, moody spell which she has to fight for hours.” Although constantly linked to men, she admitted at this young age that “she never intends to marry—too many moods. She can’t picture any man she knows being happy with a wife whose thoughts sometimes drive her out in the car alone to ride furiously all night, turning up in the morning a little uncertain of where she has been.”
My theory after researching Joan Crawford and others is that many troubled people tend to fully recognize their limitations when they are young but choose to ignore them anyway and do what they know they shouldn’t. Following her divorce from first husband Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joan told the Los Angeles Times, “An actress should not marry, I am convinced of that. It is better to say no, and cause a small hurt now, than to say yes, and cause a great hurt later on.” Joan insisted that she would never marry actor Franchot Tone, despite all the rumors that the two were engaged. She wished her former husband well. “I think that Douglas will marry Gertrude Lawrence,” she said. “I am hoping for his happiness. I am not mourning the past. I tried to make that marriage a success, tried perhaps too hard. It doesn’t pay to force romance. That I have really been in love, I doubt. That I can ever be here in Hollywood, I question. Hollywood itself stands in the way of any great-true love. If two people are in the profession they both should leave it if they want to marry, and then they could, perhaps, be happy. I am no diplomatist about my feelings. I cannot conceal my moods. That’s too difficult in married life. I don’t want to go through life causing unhappiness. Hence a refusal of marriage now is better than consent followed by heartbreak and divorce. It doesn’t pay to take the risk.”
A year later, Crawford did marry Franchot Tone, against her own better advice. She married two times after that, each of her marriages lasting no more than four years. Her children started arriving in 1939. Because no one at that time would allow a divorced woman to adopt, she bought her kids on the black market. When she mentioned in a magazine when and where she adopted her first son Christopher, his birth mother appeared and demanded the child back. Joan complied but the woman harassed her for another year before selling her son to another couple for $250.
Joan adopted another boy two years later when she was married to actor Phillip Terry. She named her son after her husband but when that marriage ended she changed his name to Christopher Crawford. Christopher says his upbringing was as traumatic as his older sister’s even though in “Mommie Dearest” the worst thing we see happening to him is that he is strapped into his bed each night, a bizarre practice Joan continued with all of her children. Some actor friends of Kendall’s mom were once dining at Joan Crawford’s house in the 1950s and were asked if they wanted to help put the twin girls to bed. To their shock, they were expected to tie the girls into their nightly restraints.
Unlike Christina, all of the articles about Christopher in the L.A. Times are bad news. The boy was constantly running away from home. At the age of 9, he supposedly fled because he was not allowed any chocolate syrup on his ice cream. After he is brought back home, his mother’s return from the studio is detailed by the 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.
Less than six months later, the boy ran away again, this time to Santa Monica Pier where he tried to con people out of money and was picked up at midnight by police. “The last time Christopher ran away, his mother promised a hairbrush. The spanking apparently was not hard enough, police commented.”
At 12 he ran away for a third time, during his mother’s honeymoon to the Pepsi-Cola chief. He was located when he tried to change a $100 bill in a Palos Verdes liquor store. Can you say “cry for help?” Joan promptly put Christopher into a residential military academy in the valley. One of his classmates was NPR commentator Daniel Pinkwater, who reminisced about the school on “All Things Considered.” Christopher ran away several more times, and later got arrested when he and some other boys went on an air rifle shooting spree, breaking windows and street lights, and injuring a 14-year-old girl.
Christopher got married at 18 and had several kids he later lost touch with. In 1962 his first wife attempted to slash her wrists after a violent quarrel with her husband. In 1978 he talked to the press for the first time about his troubled childhood. At 35, he was already a grandfather and was making $200 a week as a lineman with Long Island Electric.
“I want to tell this once, so people will get off my back and leave my family alone,” says the 6-foot-4 man whose hard life shows in his face. He needs dental work. There are small scars on his face and larger ones on his back from a mortar explosion in Vietnam.
Crawford recalled his mother’s “sleep safe,” the harnesslike device used to keep infants securely in their beds. Chris was strapped into bed until the age of 12. Once caught playing with matches, his mother made him hold his hand in the fireplace. “I had blisters all over my hand. That day I ran away for the first time. I was 7.”
Though Chris attended his mother’s funeral, his last encounter with J.C. was five years ago. His youngest child was born in Brooklyn, on welfare. “When Bonnie was born, she had a lot of trouble. She was just a tiny little mass of bones with some skin stretched over them. So I called J.C. and said, ‘I need your help. Your granddaughter needs blood and she needs it now. She might die.’ J.C. said, ‘She’s not my granddaughter. You were adopted.’ I lost my temper and slammed down the phone so hard I broke the receiver. That was it between J.C. and me.”
Yikes, that’s worse than anything in “Mommie Dearest” and I’m sure it’s true. And yet isn’t it interesting that Joan’s twin girls, born in 1947, had an entirely different experience? They’ve said that yes, she was strict, but also very loving and they miss her dearly. Poor Joan. Poor kids. I just wish another filmmaker (how about Ang Lee?) would take a fresh look at Joan Crawford and make a film that doesn’t treat her amazing and often tragic life as a big joke.
JC was damaged goods
Posted by: leni | August 19, 2006 at 04:54 PM
Wow. Thoroughly interesting exploration of a mentally ill Crawford. Sounds like she was self diagnosing manic depression way back at the beginning. Are there any happy stories from old time Hollywood?
Posted by: Elaine Soloway | August 20, 2006 at 12:18 PM
You forgot the other great line when JC was asleep during the day and the children were out playing in the yard. The noise annoyed her and she flung open the windows saying, "Christoper, Christina, DAMNIT!!!"
Posted by: nappy40 | August 20, 2006 at 06:46 PM
That was a great moment but there were so many. Remember when young Christina snears "Mommie dearest" and Joan says, "When I asked you to call me that, I wanted you to MEAN it!" And to the head of Christina's exclusive private school, "Is this an institution of learning or a teenage brothel?" And the sad, "Why can't you give me the respect that I'm entitled to? Why can't you treat me like I would be treated by any stranger on the street?" at which point Christina completely loses it and screams, "Because I am NOT one of your fans!"
Elaine, I think there are happy stories in Hollywood, they just don't get very much press. From what I've heard, Shirley Temple had a pretty healthy childhood and adulthood even though it included a bad early marriage. But if anyone was a candidate for an adolescent nosedive it was Shirley and yet she survived her spectacular child fame quite nicely. That has to be partly due to good parenting and also a very well balanced personality.
Joan Crawford, on the other hand, had everything it takes to be a perfect movie star but her skills seemed to stop there--she didn't seem able to make a smooth transition to real life.
Posted by: Danny | August 21, 2006 at 12:23 PM
What an interesting post, Danny. I've never seen 'Mommy, Dearest.' Nor have I read the book.
Of course, I've seen a number of Crawford's films and remember going to see one of them with Betty Davis at the old Southern Hotel theater in Columbus in the late-60s. I have seen several presentations of her life story and the problem in getting a true sense of her is that as she aged, she became such a caricature. That includes the mask her face became, not unlike that of the Joker in the Batman comic books.
But we are all more complicated than most films or even biographies can convey.
The difficulty with making a film about Crawford now is that so few people who go to the movies will have ever heard of her, much less care to know about her.
As always, terrific writing, my friend.
Mark
Posted by: Mark Daniels | August 21, 2006 at 10:20 PM
Danny...I still remember the day I first saw this film at Grauman's Chinese...I went with dear Betty G. one afternoon. It was NOT a cult film at that time and none of the jokes about the lines were in use at that point and both Betty and I thought it was a truly fantastic performance by Faye Dunaway...and we did not think it was over-the-top, at all! I have never seen it in a theatre since so I have not experienced the craziness of an audience watching this film---I'm happy to say! I have seen the film a number of times on television and I still think Dunaways performance is a completely underated one---treated to my way of thinking in a very peculiar way. Granted it is broad, but, I never thought it was out of keeping with who Joan Crawford was in tems of her children and her career...she was one of the most ambitious actresses of that period in films.
As far as Christina Crawfords book. Well, there again, I thought it was an incredibly brave thing for her to do at that point in time and quite honestly, her book put a "light" on child abuse by a parent or parents, that no one had done before she wrote this book. Her book did more good to help other abuse survivors than anything else had, ever! And I never heard that claim that what she wrote was exagerated...and frankly, I thought she probably hadn't told the-half of-it. Have you ever actually read her book? It's quite different than the film in many many ways.
Has anyone ever written the definitive book on Joan Crawford? It may never happewn anymore because so very many of the people who actually knew her well, are all dead. And much that has been written in Newspapers and Magazines is not terribly accurate...remember, so much of what got printed back in the day was what the Studio wanted printed. The "official" story, according to the MGM Publicity Department as Directed by Louis B. Mayer!
It is a fascinating post Danny and certainly brought back memories for me. As a matter of fact, my father had just died a few months before I saw this film and when it came to the end of the film when Cristina and her brother are in the lawyers office being told they were cut out of the will....Betty got quite worried about me! Too close to home, she thought. She wasn't far off the matk. It was painful to watch that scene and the look on Christina Crawfords face, which went into a freeze frame slow disolve to black---as played by that really wonderful actress who's name I cannot think of at this moment---DRAT!.
Anyway, I'm fascinated to know why you are doing research on old Hollywood. A book in the works?
BTW: I have not been feeling well at all and that is why you and Kendall have not heard from me. Is there any chance we will ever have a phone conversation? (lol)
Posted by: OldOldOldLady Of The Hills | August 23, 2006 at 12:58 AM
I just watched "Mommie Dearest" for the first time tonight. I decided to do some internet research on the film and surfed to your site. Thanks for your article. Not being a Jew myself, I won’t comment about the Jewish angle to all this—well except to say—like most of the world’s oppressed, you have a knack for turning suffering into art, but unlike most, your victimization seems to be perpetually profitable. As most critics and fans of “Mommie Dearest” acknowledge, the film portrays such a pitiful story of abuse, with such an over-dramatic (but entirely true-to-life) performance by Faye Dunaway, it was both comedic and depressing. I'm 30 and didn't know much about Joan Crawford outside of the endless chatter about the film being "classic camp." I agree with you there probably wouldn't be much serious interest in a portrait of Joan Crawford, since most people of my generation wouldn’t know, or care, who she is or was, outside of the 'symbol' she now represents as evil “mommie dearest.” Crawford was probably bi-polar or had some other unexplained mental disorder. From your article, I can see she was quite aware that some of the insanity she lived with was caused by movie industry she was dedicated to. She knew the industry poisoned any good thing she endeavored to do, whether it was having a successful marriage, a happy family, or even giving to charity. Her life was a running commercial directed by Hollywood, not unlike the tabloid-driven, image-obsessed Hollywood we have today. Despite the often-times hilarious image of her and her sibling’s victimization on film, Christina's abuse and disappointment with her mother was real and painful at some point in her life. Christina Crawford was completely justified turning her mother’s image on its head with her book and movie. Yes, the movie is outrageous but it is also empowering. After all, what can the powerless do about their pitiful past except laugh.. Mocking the unexplained, unjustified pain you experienced in the past, renders it powerless to harm your future. This is the legacy of “Mommie Dearest” whatever Joan Crawford was.
Posted by: IbouDiop | October 14, 2006 at 01:19 AM
I watched "Mommie Dearest" yesterday. I was appauled. I guess I didn't realize or really think that child abuse happened back in the "good 'ole days". I would be interested in knowing where Christina and Christopher are today. I hope they were able to put the past in the past and are able to lead happy lives today. However, with the abuse they endured, it, I find that highly unlikely.
Posted by: Dher49 | January 19, 2007 at 11:29 AM
I can't believe how damn ignorant the world seems about child abuse. Their are many levels of child abuse and some of it is as bad as what Christina endured. In my perspective throughout life, it seemed that child abuse is in many homes. At school you could always tell which kids were abused. They were the ones who were gossiped about, you know, the really weird kids. People may not know or care why these people are so deranged, say/do weird things, but i can tell you its cause of child abuse.
I read the book Understanding the Borderline Mother by Christine Lawson which gave me several references to Mommie Dearest on the topic of Borderline Personality Disorder. The author states that approximatly six million Americans have BPD. What happened to Christina is very common actualy. I am surprised she never spoke about and possibly never learned about the disease. The author makes other references such as Mary Todd Lincoln and the her behavior as a BPD.
Their are many children who are not being protected from these horific women. Many of these children are missunderstod, and by themselves eventualy because the world doesnt' believe them, doesn't protect them. My mother was a BPD. As a child i was put on medication for ADD, although i did not have ADD. I had symptoms of child abuse insted. Many teachers tried to intervene with my apparent desire to not pay attention( i was actualy locked into daydreams, dreaming of escaping a world of costant missunderstanding, to my unaware) none of these teachers had any idea of how i was being treated at home. What i ended up developing was many anxieties about who I am, because people were just diagnosing me, or friends calling me names of things that i just wasn't. I was hyper and motivated, i payed attention as though my dear life were at stake, school work seemed pointless. How did school relate to my own needs of survival. When your punished more and more, blamed at home, blamed at school, not a shred of understanding. So wrong you foreget your own real explanation (lies on top of lies), explainging becomes old, escaping becomes everything. I wasn't aware during most of my life that i was abused. That it cauld actualy be concidered abuse. I think i just simply foregot that i existed.
People do seem like ghosts. in a bubble. People are taught about Math, English, History, were never taught about ourselves. Our real selves. Its not directly productive i spose. People want entertainment, they want gossip. When will these childrens needs come next. Maybe it doesnt matter. survival of the fittest, love life, live the way you want. Eventualy i know something will be done, because improvment is enevitable. i just wish that people cared more still.
Im not sure why the world is ignorant. People perhaps think it is their place to do anything about how kids are treated. But what are the kids suspose to do, Christina experienced many adults not saving her, claiming they cant do anything. This whole society is built on people doing things, changing things. Yet nobody has made enough time or change for these poor defensless children. whose experience in life is a constant begging for help, understanding, substance.
Posted by: A Child of | January 28, 2007 at 10:46 PM
I can't believe after this many years that you would even give this dreadful woman a voice! she did nothing short of killing these kids emotionally and physically- she was a psychotic! I've seen the movie several times and Christina was a product of her enviironment. I feel for the children that live with abusive adopted parents! Just because she was a movie star it didn't give her the right to do what she did and in today's society she would be spending time in jail!
well... at least we hope she would but with all the injustices in our society it probably would never happen as they give movie stars better treatment and the breaks in life that no one else gets!
Posted by: Sandra | February 25, 2007 at 08:36 AM
I think the final testament that Joan Crawford is guilty was made by Crawford herself. Joan makes the statement by the fact that she cut her children out of her will. For what sins would a mother do this? Only murder, rape or other severe criminal behavior. She bought those children, considered them possessions and then got rid of them when she felt she didn't get her money's worth. That her children exhibited the symptoms of both overindulgence and neglect is not surprising, having been trapped with a person who clearly suffered from some sort of manic/depressive mental illness.
Posted by: Faye Whitbeck | February 25, 2007 at 10:34 AM
Some of the criticisms of the movie include the fact that Joan wasn't portrayed other than as a one-dimensional character who was cruel and abusive. I disagree. There was a scene in which the adult Christina is given a valuable strand of pearls by her mother for no apparent reason and Christina seems genuinely overjoyed and touched by her mother's generosity. Also, her mother seemed to support Christina's acting career and appeared proud of her daughter in that respect. I think the movie (I confess that I have not read the book) did try to show that like most mentally ill individuals, J.C. did have some good moments. Her daughter loved her mother for those moments and hated her at the same time for all the bad things she had done. If another movie was to be completed on J.C., I'd like to see some of her background as a child included in it as well as see what her own parents were like. For me, that would help complete the picture of why J.C. was the way she was.
Posted by: Jamie | March 25, 2007 at 11:33 AM
I to was the product of abuse and feel for Christina, it's awful when pople know and don't do anything about it. It leaves you feeling ashamed and felling helpless. more people need to get involved.
Posted by: Linda | March 29, 2007 at 07:37 PM
Very interesting article, thanks for posting! Crawford is a mystery. What exactly was her problem? She was obviously a mentally damaged person who took out a lot of her rage at her kids - but why the discrepency in treatment between Christopher (R.I.P.), Christina and the twins? Forever a mystery.
Posted by: Patrick | April 07, 2007 at 01:09 PM
I've read pretty much everything you've written here. The one thing I didn't know is how she got her children. I guess it didn't occur to me that it was why Christina was labeled as expensive in the movie. I assumed he meant legal fees. Anyway, after all of that, what gets me the most is how she replaced the first Christopher as if he were a possession. It makes me believe every word from Christina's viewpoint, even if I may have had doubts before.
Posted by: Carla | April 13, 2007 at 04:17 PM
Thank you very much for this fantastic piece of writing. I've been fascinated by the story of Joan Crawford ever since I saw the film "Mommie Dearest" (I agree that it's a terrible shame that it's such a campy portrayal of Christina's memoir). Personally, it isn't just the fact that she inflicted such horrific abuse on her children, it's the fact that such a public woman managed to keep this hidden in such a private way. Thanks for casting a new light on Joan and her life.
Posted by: Matthew | May 22, 2007 at 11:26 PM
Very well written essay. Like Joan my mother met the criteria for BPD. I have never thought of this connection before, but as in Joan's childhood, my mother's father abandonded his family during the depression, her mother had to become the breadwinner, and they were very poor. One theory about the development of BPD is that the person who has it experiences severe trauma when they are extremely vulnberable and they haven't resolved it psychologically. (In graduate school I was introduced to the theory that BPD doesn't exist, and in actuality all those folks are experiencing PTSD.) My mother has blocked out most of what happened during her child rearing days, which is actually fairly typical of BPD folks. They do not posess the ego strength to acknowledge the bad things they did. As for the doubters, as was said in "American Beauty", never underestimate the power of denial.
I too remember thinking the film was very well done when I originally saw it back in '81, but have since relegated it to "camp". Interesting phenomenon. I posit that in part this is because we as individuals and a society are still uncomfortable with those kinds of issues. However, I still cringe during the child abuse scenes.
Posted by: Tim | June 08, 2007 at 03:44 AM
Well, it's nice to see that SO many people take MOMMIE DEAREST as the "truth." However, in the new book JOAN CRAWFORD HOLLYWOOD MARTYR, the author deconstructs many of Christina's claims. A good for instance: The rose garden. Unfortunately for Crawford Jr., the dates are wrong. At the time of Joan's leaving MGM, the rose garden was a Victory Garden, a much hyped event as we were in the midst of WWII. Yes, I think La Joan was a little unbalanced, but for chrissake, what do you do as a single mother with spoiled brats to take care of?! It has been noted repeatedly that Christina was a petulant beast. Sorry, kids. If someone is willing to take in an orphan and give them something more than a splendid home and a good education, they have nothing to bitch about. I'm adopted, a survivor of abuse, but I am ever grateful to have a name, a history....things I would never have had in an orphange. Oliver Twist Christina Crawford ain't.
Posted by: Craig Curtis | June 30, 2007 at 11:17 AM
I have a mood disorder and I think that Christinas account of a single mother with a mental illness is very credible having been there myself.I saw the movie some time ago and read the book recently. I felt pain for those children when I read some of the examples of pure rage and hatred expressed toward them, because I am ashamed to say I have behaved that way on occassion though certainly not to such a degree.
But we are in different times and I am no superstar. I feel guilt and shame for my behaviour and I would hope that should my bevaiour have been witnessed that someone would have stepped in to help. All children deserve to feel safe and loved adopted or not. You cant buy that.
Posted by: Sally | August 09, 2007 at 12:42 AM
If anything, Mother Dearest makes you incredible irritated with Christina because of the two extremely annoying actresses that play her. They probably did a good job portraying her.
Why is it so hard to believe that a child can be mean and spiteful? It's not always the parent who's mean and although Joan Crawford was doubtlessly eccentric, she totally rocked and I really believe Christina was just a cruel child who turned into a vengeful woman.
Posted by: anders | August 26, 2007 at 06:36 PM
This is a very good article that tells a more well balanced account of Joan Crawford that you won't find on most "worship at the alter of Joan" sites. While i do admire Joan Crawford for her ambition and her professionalism as an actress. As a mother she was without a doubt THE WORST! Crawford was a woman with many undiagnosed mental issues. And was property given the title of being "unfit" to adopt children back in the late 1930's. I completely believe Christina's accounting of her childhood. Her book "Mommie Dearest" is still the best written autobiography I've ever read. The 20th anniversary edition is even better with more detail then that of the original. It was good to read here about what Christopher went though as well. It's very unfortunate that he refused to stand up with his sister when the book came out. Or too appear on talk shows with Christina to share his feelings. This would have given a lot more creditability to the story as a whole. And would have made a more compelling impact on the public. The movie was severely fault in it's portrait of Joan. She was made one dimensional with no background on her life before the kids. Or during there growing up years. Joan's mother who came over quite often wasn't even acknowledged. Or that there were two younger sisters! It was sorely lacking in detail that would have given a more well rounded story of her life as well as the children's. Although Faye Dunnway looked great as Joan. Christina was the fault of this as she signed off on her rights to the movie. No too swift on her part.
Posted by: Paul | September 03, 2007 at 02:04 PM
I would seriously like to know what JC's childhood might have been like. What could possess a person to be so uncaring to a helpless child who is dependant on you for everything. I am sure that Christina and Christopher's story is true. Why would Christopher have run away from a mansion so many times unless there was something very, very wrong. The twins having a totally different life is not unusual in many abuse cases. As abusers age, they mellow, which is probably what happened with JC. I don't feel sorry for JC, or look at her in awe. I think she was a horrible person who deserved nothing less then a straight jacket or at the least a shock therapy treatment. It is disgusting that there are childrenbeing born or adopted everyday to people who do this exact thing.
Posted by: Ronda | September 09, 2007 at 10:06 PM
I have to feel sorry you the kids but I also feel sorry for joan she was sick its to bad that no one step up and said somthing that would of help her she should of never had kids?
Posted by: clare wiseaman | December 22, 2007 at 06:04 PM
I have always been so thankful that Christina wrote Mommy Dearest. Christina brought to light how vicious and cruel some mothers can be and have been in our culture as well as other cultures. Prior to this book many people looked the other way when they saw or heard women abusing children. For some reason they stepped in if the abuser was a man but backed away when it was a woman.
Thanks again to Christina for spotlighting abusive mothers.
Posted by: Cherie | February 22, 2008 at 05:24 PM
I don't know if you have read the book, but you should. You just can't go by the movie, which is funny precisely because of its disconnect from reality. The movie takes place inside a technicolor bubble. It just doesn't ring true, although according to the book Joan really did try to strangle Christina in front of her maid and a reporter. And in the book, Christina related that her mother made her write thank-you notes, over and over until perfect if need be, to hundereds of people Christina didn't know and for Christmas gifts she wasn't allowed to keep, which Joan made her do to maintain her fanbase. The notes had to have perfect grammar, straight lines, and the description of the present and various phrases of gratitude were required. Christina wrote that she would spend the better part of Christmas vacation trying to get the notes completed to her mother's satisfaction.
Living in this age, when people just want to blab their life story to anyone who will listen, one can forget that back then there were a lot of things that people just didn't talk about (and apparently some, in their denial, would prefer it that way even now). If I had been adopted by a woman like that, who people who didn't know better believed was the doting parent so generous to "give" me a home, and who were in turn jealous of me for the privileges I supposedly had, I might have written a book like that too. What people don't seem to realize also is that Crawford's will was public information; that upon her death everyone would know that Joan had written Christina out of her will, and then conclude that Christina had been a bad person to deserve it. Christina published the book to set the record straight, and not let her mother define who she was from beyond the grave. I'm sure that getting it down on paper was also tremendously cathartic for her.
Posted by: Chris | March 17, 2008 at 04:21 PM