Joan Crawford with her four children, clockwise from left, Christina, Cathy, Cynthia and Christopher. (Photo courtesy of Neil Maciejewski, legendaryjoancrawford.com)
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JOEY DiGUGLIELMO
Friday, March 28, 2008
Gays ponder ongoing appeal of screen queen Joan Crawford |
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Love it or hate it, there’s no denying “Mommie Dearest” is the first thing that pops into most people’s heads when they hear the name Joan Crawford.
Crawford’s memory has been on a strange rollercoaster ride since she died in 1977 at age 73.
Her life’s coda is well known. Oldest daughter Christina wrote a best-selling tell-all in 1978 called “Mommie Dearest” that was made into a movie in 1981.
The biopic was re-released on DVD in 2006 in a “Hollywood Royalty Edition” that features a healthy bounty of extras. Wisely, the disc was unabashedly marketed to gay men who revere the movie for its high (and unintended) camp quotient. It’s on a par with “Valley of the Dolls” in the camp echelon.
But the DVD and what would have been Crawford’s 100th birthday this week again raise questions that have never been authoritatively answered: How true are “Mommie Dearest’s” claims? Did Joan beat her kids?
The DVD claims that Faye Dunaway, who played Crawford in the film, refuses to speak about the movie. She was a no-show for the disc’s extras though she’s participated in similar featurettes for her hits “Network” and “Bonnie and Clyde.” But she doesn’t exactly fly into a rage (a la her performance) at the mere mention of it the way the DVD commentary by John Waters implies.
In the mid-’90s, Dunaway was a guest on Tom Snyder’s “Late Show” and a caller asked if she thought Christina’s allegations were true.
“You know, it’s one of those things where God is the only one who’ll ever really know what happened between those two,” Dunaway said.
Refreshingly, Dunaway goes into considerable detail discussing the movie in her 1995 autobiography, “Looking for Gatsby.” Though stills from “Mommie” showing her decked out in full Crawford regalia are noticeably absent from its photo pages, the book provides Dunaway a forum to settle some old scores.
She’s obviously proud of some aspects of the work but says director Frank Perry let her down by not reining her in. Whether you consider her performance fearlessly no-holds-barred or ludicrously over the top is another topic. Critics have been divided. Pauline Kael said scenery chewing was too subtle a phrase to describe the performance while Entertainment Weekly, in a retrospective appraisal, considered it one of Oscar’s most criminally overlooked turns.
But back to the real Crawford. Was she an abusive bitch or has she been unfairly maligned? I won’t pretend to be able to say authoritatively but having read much on the subject, I’d say the truth is, as one might guess, somewhere between the two extremes.
One of the problems with the books that have been written about Crawford since she died is that most try to peg her at one extreme or the other. In Jane Ellen Wayne’s sordid “Crawford’s Men,” (1988), Joan’s a bitchy, raging nympho; others, such as Fred Lawrence Guiles “Joan Crawford: the Last Word” (1995) and the new “Not the Girl Next Door” by Charlotte Chandler, go too easy on Crawford, glossing over or ignoring altogether unflattering biographical facts.
Crawford’s 1996 episode of A&E’s “Biography” is noble in its attempt to give her a fair shake. Hell, she deserves it after so many years of being trashed, but even a Crawford fan has to admit it goes too easy on her. Such black-and-white, good guy/bad guy characterizations simply ring false. Only in fairy tales are characters so easily categorized.
It was refreshing to see the late Cindy Crawford Jordan, another of Joan’s adopted daughters, interviewed for a change (she and twin sister Cathy Crawford LaLonde aren’t even mentioned in the movie).
“[Mother] never lost her cool in front of us,” Cindy told A&E. “I think sometimes she showed her frustration, but not in the cruelty that the book had mentioned.”
But the episode ignores Joan’s copious and well-documented drinking. She was probably a functioning alcoholic for much of the 1960s and early ’70s (and perhaps before), but another point that’s often neglected is that Crawford quit smoking and drinking completely a few years before she died.
Too little too late? Perhaps, but still a brave accomplishment.
Cathy and Cindy, twins Joan adopted in 1947, are key to unlocking the mystery. They’ve both been press shy and haven’t said much about the subject, but they have occasionally commented. Son Christopher, who is shown in the movie, corroborated Christina’s claims. (Ironically, Cindy and Christopher, who hadn’t seen each other since Joan’s death but did correspond sporadically, died within a month of each other at ages 60 and 62 respectively, last fall).
Christopher and Joan had, if one can imagine, an even more strained relationship than that of Christina and Joan. One story Christopher told — perhaps apocryphal — is that upon introducing Joan to his infant son, she suggested it was “a bastard” because it didn’t resemble him.
Could Cindy and Cathy, in refuting “Mommie Dearest,” have been covering for Joan? Or perhaps Joan softened after the first two kids — parents are sometimes known to be pushovers with younger children who get away with things older siblings would have been punished for.
Cathy Crawford LaLonde spoke to author Charlotte Chandler. “Not the Girl Next Door” ends with a postscript by LaLonde in which she, as Cindy had done, disputes the claims in “Mommie Dearest.”
But Christina is far more persuasive than the twins. Attractive, articulate, educated with a master’s degree and accustomed to public appearances, Christina is a compelling writer and speaker. In documentary appearances she’s given to Turner Classic Movies and on DVD extras of Joan’s movies, she speaks calmly and rationally about a variety of topics.
Sure, she could be a liar, but if so, she’s a damn good one. Unlike Bette Davis’ daughter, B.D. Hyman, who wrote a laughably bad “Mommie Dearest” rip-off about Bette called “My Mother’s Keeper” (that nobody believed), Christina spins a compelling yarn.
Christina is, as one might imagine, a polarizing figure among Joan’s fans. But even Crawford fanatic Neil Maciejewski, webmaster of one of the most thorough Crawford web sites, admits succumbing to Christina’s charm when he met her on the set of a documentary included on a new DVD edition of “Torch Song.”
“She’s very attractive, very engaging,” Maciejewski said. “I had very mixed feelings. Kind of intrigued, angered, curious and genuinely shocked to see her in the first place because I didn’t know she’d be there.”
Cathy and Cindy as adults have not been good communicators. That doesn’t mean they’re liars, of course, but they’re not nearly as compelling as Christina, with whom they’ve had no post-“Mommie Dearest” contact except in litigation.
Cindy appears awkward and uncomfortable in the “Biography” episode. Cathy’s postscript in Chandler’s book sounds like it was written by a third grader. The most compelling memory she seems able to recall is a benign tale of running into Judy Garland at Hollywood bistro Chasens and trying to get her mother’s attention to point it out.
Far more compelling in this department is Cathy’s son, Casey LaLonde. Though he only knew his grandmother as a young child, he’s become an authority on all things Joan and answers readers’ questions on the “Legendary Joan Crawford” web site. Some answers are repetitious and have been explained elsewhere but occasionally he displays fascinating background, previously unreported details and insight.
The oft-cited theory that Christina wrote the book — either a complete fabrication or a gross exaggeration — to get back at her mother for leaving Christina and Christopher out of her will, holds some water. Christina has milked it repeatedly with expanded anniversary editions, a sequel (“Survivor”) and a related book, 1994’s “No Safe Place: the Legacy of Family Violence.”
If the book was revenge by way of tome, Christina learned from the best. Who can forget Crawford’s clever upstaging of co-star and rival Bette Davis at the 1963 Oscar ceremony when Crawford managed to sneak to the podium despite not being nominated for “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,” to accept the absent Anne Bancroft’s award while the nominated Davis, who’d been sure she’d win, fumed in the wings?
Christina, of course, made a fortune off the book and more money still selling the film rights. She no doubt ended up for wealthier than either Cathy or Cindy who were accounted for in the will.
The strained relationships between Joan, Christina and Christopher were not surprises when the book came out. Crawford acknowledged tension with her older children several times in late-life interviews, most memorably in the book “Conversations with Joan Crawford” in which she speaks candidly, if not specifically, about the rift (among many other topics).
“I have had problems with Christina and Christopher, yes — and right now things are rather strained between us — but it’s a two-way street and they have things to answer for, too,” Crawford told author Roy Newquist. “I don’t think I’m the only heavy in this act.”
Joan also knew Christina was planning a book, though it wasn’t released until after Joan died. She’d heard Christina had gotten in touch with some of Joan’s long-time friends and associates and dreaded the prospect, figuring it would be unflattering.
There are only three options: Christina made the whole thing up, it’s all true, or it’s partially true. All things considered, I lean toward the latter.
I’m not going to pretend that Crawford was without flaws. She clearly had a strong-willed, bitchy streak but she could not have sustained the lifelong friendships and inspired the warm sentiments so many share about her had she been the all-out, crazed bitch-on-wheels Dunaway’s portrayal would indicate.
Joan was passionately devoted to signing autographs, replying to fan letters, remembering birthdays and sending Christmas cards. Some claim this is just more of Crawford’s phony star routine, but I believe there was sincerity there because these practices didn’t come and go — these were lifelong habits she did in both feast and famine stages of her career. The 2005 book “Joan Crawford: Her Life in Letters,” though shoddily produced and edited, is an eye-opening testament of this.
Looking to outside sources often raises more questions. One of Crawford’s housekeepers who was interviewed on an episode of E!’s “Mysteries and Scandals” said she saw the kind of abuse of which Christina wrote. Other friends and employees said they saw nothing of the sort.
Vince Sherman, one of Crawford’s directors (and lovers), who died in 2006, said he saw Joan humiliate Christopher by back-handing him across the face.
Sherman seems a credible source — what would he have to gain one way or the other? Christina’s credibility, however, has decreased as the decades have passed.
She claims in her book “Survivor” to have been appalled by the movie, yet she appeared with drag queen Lypsinka (dressed as Joan) at a “Mommie Dearest” revival with wire hangers (which the movie depicts Joan beating Christina with) as party favors.
If she were really scarred by these images, would she be able to participate in such silliness, even decades later? Think you’ll ever see Tina Turner show up for a revival of “What’s Love Got to Do With It” hamming it up with Ike impersonators? Turner has said the idea of revisiting her abuse-filled biopic, even on celluloid, makes her want to vomit.
One must remember, too, that corporal punishment was not the social taboo in Crawford’s era that it is now. While spanking may or may not be child abuse, depending on whom you ask, it was widely accepted then.
That doesn’t prove, of course, that Crawford didn’t get carried away at times, but social norms were different.
Probably the biggest key to understanding Crawford’s parenting modus operandi is to imagine she approached it the same way she approached her life and career.
Aside from the alcohol abuse in later years, Crawford was rigorously disciplined. Her biggest fault as a parent may have been that she didn’t know how to let kids be kids. In her autobiography “Natural Blonde,” Liz Smith recalls a 1940s Christmas visit to Crawford’s Brentwood house in which everything was planned to the letter.
“It was the most un-spontaneous thing you ever saw,” Smith said.
Hardly abusive, but not much fun either.
It’s easy to understand why the image of Crawford as gargoyle remains. It’s more fun for a culture weaned on tabloids to imagine she was horrible, especially those who never liked the actress. It’s unfortunate that “Mommie Dearest” is synonymous with her name at the expense of some of her roles.
Yes, she overacted, especially later, but she’s genuinely effective in “Grand Hotel,” “The Women,” “Susan and God,” “A Woman’s Face,” “Mildred Pierce,” “Humoresque,” “Possessed,” “Harriet Craig” and others. Even at the very end she proved, with the right director, she could shed the camp and deliver emotionally genuine performances. Her 1969 tour de force in Steven Spielberg’s teleplay “Eyes” (a segment of Rod Serling’s “Night Gallery”) magically manages to be simultaneously bitchy and heartbreaking.
To have made it from the silent era into the 1970s, she was doing something right (Lillian Gish is the only actress who transitioned to talkies whose career outlasted Joan’s).
Even so, “Mommie Dearest” will always be part of the Crawford story.
So who was the real Joan Crawford? The most authentic glimpses I’ve seen have come in fragments.
There’s the passage in her early ’60s autobiography (“A Portrait of Joan”) in which she admits she was physically abused as a child while working in a laundry. Christina’s explanation that that’s where the aversion to wire hangers came from is a little too tidy for me, but seeing Crawford as an abuse victim herself sheds some psychological insight on the matter.
Carl Johnes’ 1979 book “Crawford: the Last Years” rings endearingly true, if for no other reason than it doesn’t sensationalize the star’s reclusive final years (her last public appearance was in 1974).
Then there’s the wonderfully fair and balanced 2002 TCM documentary that’s included on the DVD of “Mildred Pierce.” It’s refreshing to see Christina participate and admit to some fond memories. Though all four of the children were alive at the time, none of the others participated.
I also see the real Crawford in fleeting moments from vintage talk-show appearances. Whether decked out in hot pink lame (with matching turban) and diamonds for David Frost or in a late ’60s BBC interview to promote “Berserk,” her penultimate movie, specks of candor infiltrate the mannerisms and airs she spent a lifetime perfecting. You realize she was a rigorous, flawed and complicated woman — but also reasonable, gracious and kind.
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