IT WILL probably take another 20 years of our being exposed to Joan Crawford's film career (much of it very good!) before the trauma inflicted on her reputation by the book Mommie Dearest fades a bit.
Mommie was Christina Crawford's vengeful recounting of Joan's less-than-stellar parenting skills as an adoptive mother of four. Christina, and her equally critical brother, Christopher, ran away, misbehaved, acted out and ended up cut out of Crawford's will, "for reasons best known to them," as the star put it.
But there were two other children, Cathy and Cindy. Both girls repudiated Christina's tales of wire coat hangers and other abuse when Mommie was first published. Now, Cathy has gone on record, in Charlotte Chandler's new book about Joan, titled Not the Girl Next Door. An excerpt of which appears in the annual Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair for March.
Miss Chandler and Cathy (Cindy is now dead) make a good case for Christina and Christopher, the older children, being willful and unremittingly resistant to Joan's strict - but not violent, her friends aver - brand of discipline. Crawford pulled herself up out of poverty and became a self-created star. Her life and 50-year career was a phenomenal act of will. She never had anything handed to her, and when she did, she repaid that kindness. (Crawford never ever forgot a favor or welched on a promise.) She perhaps expected too much, of herself and others. But she felt "her way" was correct and would build character. It had certainly built hers, she insisted. Underneath the lacquered mask - the terrifying eyebrows, the over-dominant mouth - she was terribly insecure. But she believed that hard work earned you your life, and even if her adopted children were privileged - thanks to her - they could not take it for granted. (The worst things Cathy can recall are being sent to bed without supper - because she wouldn't eat what was prepared - or was forced to stand in a corner.)
I had my own experience with Crawford and several of her children many years ago. It was Christmas, and it was surreal, with the children marched out like reluctant little martinets. They were all dressed up and did not look the way children on Christmas morning are supposed to look! Years later, when Christina's book came out, I thought back to this. I was inclined to believe Joan was misguided in her attempts to "mold" her children - and was vain and self-absorbed like most great stars - but the stories of beatings and near-madness were over the top.
