The Oscar-Winner And Notorious Stage Mother Joan Crawford
Wikimedia CommonsJoan Crawford purportedly beat her adopted daughter for years and lied about the child’s biological mother.
Best known for her 1978 memoir about her traumatizing childhood, Mommy Dearest, Christina Crawford claimed to see a side of old Hollywood staple Joan Crawford that nobody in Tinsel Town knew existed.
Joan Crawford was an esteemed studio player with a rags to riches tale, starred in classic films with Clark Gable, and won the Best Actress Oscar for Mildred Pierce. At home, however, she was a vicious stage mother.
According to Crawford, her celebrity parent would suddenly erupt into alcoholic furies at a moment’s notice and dole out sadistic punishments for the smallest perceived slights. Christina Crawford recalled how her mother dragged her out of her bed one night when she was nine years old in order to beat her with a can.
When she was 13, Crawford said her mother grabbed her by the throat, punched her in the face, and slammed her against the wall. “You never forget that,” said Crawford. “It was up close and personal. She came this far from my face, and you could see it in her eyes, you can see if someone is trying to kill you.”
Gene Lester/Getty ImagesChristina (left) and domineering stage mother Joan Crawford.
“It was the hypocrisy of it that was so difficult,” she continued. “People fantasized about who or what I was; that I had this privileged, wealthy, film-star family life. I didn’t have any of that … What my mother wanted was fans and puppies, not human beings. She was as close to being a totally manufactured human as I’ve ever met.”
After a string of romantic encounters in her youth with both men and women, Joan Crawford found herself unable to have children. A divorcé with four ex-husbands, she decided to adopt children, instead. Which is how she found her daughter, Christina.
Crawford alleged that her celebrity parent did reveal that she was adopted at a young age but added that her biological mother was dead — which she wasn’t. But by the time Christina Crawford discovered the truth in the 1990s, both of her real parents were dead.
Ultimately, however, Crawford has found some semblance of peace.
“I think she wasn’t a healthy person,” she said. “The most gratifying part of getting well is that I’m not afraid. If she walked in the door now I’d tell her she’s not welcome and could she please leave. Because that’s what I couldn’t do as a child.”
