Christopher Crawford stated "I honestly to this day do not believe that she ever cared for me." īette Davis, longtime rival of Crawford's, denounced the book, stating "I was not Miss Crawford’s biggest fan, but, wisecracks to the contrary, I did and still do respect her talent. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Crawford's first husband, stated, "The Joan Crawford that I've heard about in Mommie Dearest is not the Joan Crawford I knew back then." The two younger Crawford children, Cindy and Cathy, born in 1947 and also adopted by Crawford, have stated categorically many times that they did not witness or experience any of the events that were described in the book. While acknowledging that Crawford was highly ambitious for much of her life, critics have suggested that Christina embellished her story. Among them were Van Johnson, Katharine Hepburn, Cesar Romero, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Sydney Guilaroff, Ann Blyth, Gary Gray, and particularly Myrna Loy, Crawford's friend since 1925. Some of Crawford's friends disputed the version of events presented in Mommie Dearest. The book's publication in 1978 created an enormous amount of attention. The book culminates with Christina learning that she and her brother Christopher were being disinherited upon the death of their mother in 1977, even though Christina believed that both she and her brother had reconciled with their mother prior to her death. (Christina's character was 28 years old Joan was then in her 60s.) She also used money to control the adult Christina's behavior by refusing to give her money for basic living expenses, even while taking her out for expensive meals and paying for taxis. She asserts that Joan was jealous of her daughter's burgeoning acting career, to the point of taking over Christina's role in the soap opera The Secret Storm while Christina was in the hospital recovering from an operation to remove an ovarian cyst. Christina also wrote that Joan strapped Christina's younger adopted brother, Christopher, to his bed each night until he was 12, ostensibly to control his sleepwalking.Ĭhristina reported that Joan's controlling and erratic behavior continued throughout Christina's adulthood. Joan allegedly disposed of her children's possessions to punish them for minor transgressions. In an incident in which Christina refused to eat very rare beef, Joan ordered the meat returned to the refrigerator and refused to allow Christina any other food for a day and a half until she finished the meal Christina managed to hold out until her mother gave up and allowed her regular meals again. In another encounter, Joan reportedly discovered Christina's clothes hanging in a closet on wire hangers, which Joan detested, instead of crochet hangers, and reprimanded her harshly. Often, the threat of boarding school or the actual sending of Christina to these schools was used to punish Christina for defying her mother or fighting back against her abusive behavior.Ĭhristina recounts several events in which Joan's behavior was unbalanced, and at least one encounter with her mother where Joan attempted to strangle her. She implies Joan had a long list of affairs with men, whom Christina was required to call "Uncle" and on some occasions "Gremlin." Christina writes that as she grew older and more difficult to control, Joan found excuses to remove Christina from the home by sending her to various boarding schools and strict religious academies, often specifying in her instructions that Christina must be allowed no contact with the outside world. In the book, Christina contends that Joan, whom she describes as not wishing to be involved in parenting her, was an alcoholic who hit her regularly and placed more importance on her career than her family life.Ĭhristina suggests that Joan may have adopted children as a publicity stunt to sustain her career.
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