Recently in comments, we were talking about Mommy Dearest. Fans of Joan have never believed her adopted daughter Christina's claims of abuse. Me, I'm on the fence. It was a great campy movie and pretty much like the book. But, I just came across THIS site while half heartedly searching for the truth. Christina talked to People in an interview and about Joan's "twins" and she had this to say.."For one thing, they were never twins. They were raised as twins, she called them twins. Her career needed a boost, and one child alone wasn't going to get her the publicity she wanted, so she got two girls who both had brown hair and brown eyes. That was the extent of their "twin-ness."
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This claim clearly isn't true. I have eyes. The girls, Cyndi and Cathy are fraternal twins and they later found their biological dad who confirmed it. So, what was Christina's deal? Jealous? Embellishments for profits? Or just sticking with her story? Whatever the reason, that statement is a lie. The real truth of Joan as a mother would most likely be found somewhere between Christina's story and her sisters, who claim Joan was a great mom. They inherited money, Christina did not. It sure was a fascinating movie though..NO WIRE HANGERS!!!! There's some awesome family pics on that site I linked. And some factoids I didn't know..like they had another brother named Christopher who was taken away at about a year old. And Christina, according to some, was a hell bent rotten brat from the getgo. Well worth a click. Ahh, when Hollywood was Hollywood, pools were kidney shaped and stars were stars!
This claim clearly isn't true. I have eyes. The girls, Cyndi and Cathy are fraternal twins and they later found their biological dad who confirmed it. So, what was Christina's deal? Jealous? Embellishments for profits? Or just sticking with her story? Whatever the reason, that statement is a lie. The real truth of Joan as a mother would most likely be found somewhere between Christina's story and her sisters, who claim Joan was a great mom. They inherited money, Christina did not. It sure was a fascinating movie though..NO WIRE HANGERS!!!! There's some awesome family pics on that site I linked. And some factoids I didn't know..like they had another brother named Christopher who was taken away at about a year old. And Christina, according to some, was a hell bent rotten brat from the getgo. Well worth a click. Ahh, when Hollywood was Hollywood, pools were kidney shaped and stars were stars!
34 comments:
My favorite Joan Crawford story is still the one where she took Kirk Douglas home after a date, laid him in the foyer and then told him to leave. Douglas said it was the worst fuck of his life, like screwing a mannequin.
Oh good, a chance for me to ask if anybody knows where I can watch this online?
My son and I used to play "Mommy Dearest" when he was younger. We're both kind of twisted.
Tonya, You Tube took it off, the bastards. I looked on Hulu and they don't have it. I guess you'd have to order it online somewhere.
DD, I'm getting sucked into this website. Did you read the article on his personal blog of when he met Christina? Interesting stuff!
vanity fair did a small story with the one twin who is still alive....she was saying that her mother wasn't as christina portrayed her though she was strict....you could find it on vanityfair.com i am sure.....
i gotta bookmark this site....have homework to do and pan to take care.....
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/03/crawford200803
found the vanity fair article.....
I believe that there was big-time trouble in that family. I met Christina about 20 years ago in DC. She was an attractive blonde person who introduced herself as Christina Crawford, author. I found that funny.
Sounds like she and her Christopher lived a separate childhood from the twins. They say Crawford was strict but wonderful. Christina herself says that the wire hanger incident was only written in for the movie. Apparently Joan knew the book was coming... Christina told her.
Dayum, the more I read about this the more I wonder how on Earth this book was ever published? I've been sucked into this whole Crawford drama now.
Oh thanks for posting the website and the VF article. I enjoyed them both.
I read the book when I was younger and I have seen the movie. I think that maybe Joan was not AS bad as the book said but it is very telling that two kids turned out one way and two kids turned out another. Maybe it was jealousy of the twins from the beginning. Who knows.
Joan was a beautiful woman. She had freakles.
First movie I ever saw her in was The Women.
I always found it fascinating that Bette Davis hated Crawford's guts and yet was horrified when Christina's book came out. Bette defended Joan's mothering techniques and then said that she would DIE if her daughter ever did something like that to her.
And guess what?
Bette's daughter wrote an equally scathing tell-all a few years later.
I'd have to side a bit more with Christina's version of her uprearing.
Joan, with those crazy boiled egg eyes of hers, always looked capable of manic behavior. And she was OCD and totally driven by her career and hatred of germs. She couldn't have raised those kids with much, if any, normalcy.
But, times were different then and a lot of stuff about raising children wouldn't be accepted today.
I just ordered it on netflix, how exciting ;)
I always found the whole Joan/Christina thing interesting. At first I believed what Christina wrote but when I found out her twin sisters said she was full of shit, it made me think. Especially after hearing Christina was a spoiled brat herself.
I imagine both sides deserve some blame. Joan was probably a control freak germophobe but Christina was probably stubborn and bratty.
Barbara in VA- I love that Christina introduced herself to you like that. It's hilarious.
I had always just assumed that Christina was right.
I read what the writer on his blog had to say about the whole thing. Of course, there are always two sides to a story. The fact that he is so enamored with Joan Crawford, he is willing to oversee/skim over her faults. He is to black or white. Does not see that it "could" have been a possibility.
I do think that the movie exaggerated the facts but also do tend to believe there was some abuse. She had to have some basis for it. Joan might have not intended to be such an abuser, but in that day/age and with her childhood traumas, career and pursuit of perfection, I can only imagine that it did lead to some abuse, whether physical or emotional.
All in all, just a sad story - I hope she has gotten what she needed out of telling it to the world, and hope that Joan can rest easy now.
We will probably never really know.
I read the Legendary article and I'm confused about something. She told the twins that they were not twins. But in the picture, it looks like they are both celebrating an 8th birthday. I couldn't read the cake, but that's the way it appeared to me. I wonder when the girls found out they were twins? And what did she claim their birthdates were? It really sounds like a messed up family.
Memo to all moms: Be nice to your kids. The little f'ers will get even one day. I hope I'm dead when that happens. I cannot imagine what Bette Davis went thru as she was still alive when her daughter wrote her masterpiece.
By the way, Daddy Dearest was Bing Crosby. His 4 boys by his first wife were (according to them) abused by him. I believe 2 committed suicide and some or all were alchoholics (sp). He was much nicer to the 3 he had with 2nd wife from the orange juice commericals.
Henry Fonda was also a very distant, but not abusive, dad.
This site has some great pics of Joan through the years. http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/images.htm
I wonder why the little girls weren't addressed in the Mommie Dearest movie? That movie was so weird, we love it!! I realllly love the beginning credits when she's scrubbing her arms & hands with rubbing alcohol & uses ice on her face, it does firm you up! Paul Newman said he dunked his face in ice water everyday, don't know for how long. But he always looked great. It does something to the skin to keep it firm and it tends to stay that way. You gotta stay with it. But when Joan is scrubbing herself with that scrub brush, even her elbows! Who scrubs their elbows? Thats not good! But she almost bleeds! It was kinda creepy but so cool to see. Hated the part when she was a substitute for Christina on that Soap Opera. That was ridic. Coulda left that part out. Hated it.
rox
Bette Davis's daughter wrote a tell all? I did not know that. The nerve! I have to go look for that now.
Rox ~
That part where Joan substituted for Christina on the soap was real.
I was watching the week she was on. One of the more bizarre things ever aired on the tube - and it was LIVE!
Those crazy eyes and that slash of lipstick......
B.D. Hyman - My Mother's Keeper
(Bette Davis tell-all by her daughter)
Bette wrote a book back at B.D.! Craziness.
I spent like 6 hours yesterday reading different blogs about Joan Crawford. It was like an addiction and I don't want to ever go through anything like that again!!!
For all you disbelievers, I can tell you that I believe Christina. My mother was the same: same abuse, same rages, same kinds of punishments. But everyone besides my brother and me thought she was a lovely person, because it all happened behind closed doors and we knew if we said anything the rages would become worse and we would pay the price. I could write a whole lot more, but believe me people like Joan Crawford get away with things and no one any the wiser except the ones being abused. In my case my own father did not know and we were too afraid to tell him.
DD I sent you an article about bettes kids book
and bettes rebuttal book. The kid was a nut. Kiki
DD I sent you an article about bettes kids book
and bettes rebuttal book. The kid was a nut. Kiki
Kiki, can you share the article here too? I'd love to read it.
Anonymous, fair enough. I see your point and why you would think that about Joan Crawford but she has 2 other kids who flat out deny abuse. They don't paint her as a saint, but as a cold perfectionist. They have no reason to lie. On the contrary, they have everything to gain by saying Joan was a child abuser. They could make a lot more money saying that than they could defending their mom.
Joan also had 4 husbands who didn't accuse her of abuse and several long term employees who saw nothing. I refuse to believe that a woman as out of control as
Christina paints her was able to keep it together in front of her husbands, 2 other kids, long-term employees, coworkers, and grandkids. She was beating her 2 oldest kids but virtually nobody else in the entire world? And lets not forget that those 2 were never home except for holidays! She saved up all that rage for Christmas and birthdays? No offense to you or your situation, anonymous, but I'm not buying Christina's bullshit.
Tonya @7:17, I'm sorry you don't believe. Many abused people are not believed. But I know the truth of my own life and when I read the book "Mommy Dearest", I knew it was the truth too.
Swings I'm so sorry. I definitely believe some people abuse their children and put on a happy face for the rest of the world. It's just sick. I also know some people abuse only some or one of their children and leave the rest alone. It happens.
Specifically in Christina's case, well, I'm not sure what to think. I'd need to know more. All I know is from the movie. I should read the book.
i don't like that blogger, i don't like his simplistic writing style and i don't like the way he feels he has to defend crawfords abilities as a mother simply because he admires her as an actor.
a lot of people who have excelled professionally are woe-some in their private dealings with loved ones.
because he worships crawford as an icon he believes she was an awesome mother. that is as simplistic as his writing style.
he says she was strict as a mother so that the children wouldn't end up spoilt brats and then goes on to say that christina turned into a spoit brat. he can't seem to put two and two together and realise that crawford is somewhat responsible for the way her kids turned out.
it would kill me if someone set up a blog saying i lied about being abused by my mother, because she did abuse me, i KNOW it.
how could some person come along years and years later and say that wasn't true. AND my mother did not abuse my brother so i can easily believe that the first two kids were rejected while the twins were accepted, they probably played the game and were therefore rewarded.
finally the blogger fails to acknowledge the difficulties around adoption. he must think that adopted children should just be grateful that crawford offered them a home. and that if they turned out'bad' it was because of the bad blood they must have had, because after all they were adopted and we don't know where they came from. thats prejudice to the extreme and does not fit in with modern attitudes towards adopted people.
anyone with half a brain should know that these (adoption) relationships are difficult for both the parent and the adopted child and if he is going to judge family relationships he should at least do some research into adoption because this is crucial to the whole family situation that he is writing about.
neither does the blogger seem to realise that sending adopted children to boarding school at 8 years of age would also add to an adopted persons feeling of abandonment.
when it comes to judging crawford as a mother and her children as decietful liers, the guy is an ignoramus and shouldn't be taken seriously.
he might be good at archiving crawfords career achievements but he doesn't know zilch about her merits as a family builder or abilities as a mother because he hasn't tried to grapple with the problems of adoption, multiple marriages and fame. he's a complete amateur.
I am sorry if my post upset anyone. Upon further reflection I can see how it could hurt someone who has suffered childhood abuse. I truly do not mean to hurt anyone (I'm talking to you, Anonymous). I'm very sorry if my words caused you any pain.
Although I still think that the truth lies somewhere between Christina's reality and the twins', we will never know for sure.
Lia, you're right about that website's author. I can't imagine someone who is willing to spend that much time blogging about a celebrity wouldn't use a spell-check.
Hugs to all,
Tonya
It's interesting to see how much discussion ths topic has generated.
I still think that Crawford was a total whack-job and that she did abuse Christina and her brother, Christopher.
Joan was a control freak - everything she did was a photo-op. Every event was fodder for the star magazines of the day, and she controlled every facet of those events. Outwardly, her life was shown to be movie star ideal. Once that door closed, the crazy was let loose.
I think Christina got the worst of it as she was the first child, and had a strong personality that Joan couldn't tolerate. Christina stood up to her as she grew up and Joan shipped her off to boarding school in retaliaton.
I believe the event that sent her off was Christina flirting with one of Joan's husband or boyfriend. Big no no.
In her hey-day, Joan was a sexual predator - one of the reasons why Bette Davis couldn't stand her. (Bette had a puritanical upbringing and loose sex was anathema to her.) So seeing Joan humping anything in pants drove Bette insane.
Remember that movie "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" with Davis and Crawford? The acting must have come easy to Bette on that one.
I think that Christopher and the "twins" lucked out because they were more passive and didn't fight with Joan's authority or expectations.
Christina took the brunt of it and wound up screwed up into her adult life.
its really all about adopted children ending up with someone with a psych disability. joan probably had bi-polar. not enough is said about the heavy load that children with parents who have a psych disability (not to mention drugs, alcohol and physical disability) have to carry. they are the forgotten children, just like the children traded as sex slaves, workers etc. we really don't treat our children well. child abuse is alive and kicking and no one who can change things gives a dam. i think that blogger is dumb and ignorant and needs a good kick up the arse.
Lia ~
I agree with your comment, pretty much.
We need to remember tho, that back in the days when Crawford adopted those kids there weren't the stringent evaluations required of adoptive parents today (those who go through legal channels).
Movie stars, professional people, etc., put out the word they wanted a kid and then a phone call was made and they got a child.
That simple, no questions.
Those days are long gone - provided that people go the legal route in adoptions.
I can't wait until Angelina's kids write their books. Man, that's gonna be juicy!
The fact that the twins claim they were never abused and that there was no abuse means absolutely nothing. There are been numerous cases of child abuse where certain children are chosen to receive the abuse and the others are left alone. AND, the ones who are left alone usually do stand by the offender and deny everything. It has happened time and time and time again.
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