When was mommy dearest written

Original Title. Mommie Dearest 1. Joan Crawford. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Mommie Dearest , please sign up. Okay so here is an obvious evidence that the critics seem to overlook That seems unbalanced or vindictive.

Whether Mommy Dearest is true or not I can appreciate why it was written. If I had a wealthy mother that deliberately omitted me from her will I think I would feel slighted to say the least? Roberta It looks like you only came here to voice your own opinion but, actually, some people who are supposedly good parents have left their children nothing …more It looks like you only came here to voice your own opinion but, actually, some people who are supposedly good parents have left their children nothing, or intend to.

Kirk Douglas left his money to charity. Marie Osmond explained: "My husband and I decided that you do a great disservice to your children to just hand them a fortune because you take away the one most important gift you can give your children, and that's the ability to work. You see it a lot in rich families. Driver I'm not sure I understand this question as it was meant, but I'll give it a try anyway: Although Joan is said to have abused alcohol and at times othe …more I'm not sure I understand this question as it was meant, but I'll give it a try anyway: Although Joan is said to have abused alcohol and at times other substances this story is not focused on drug addiction or substance abuse, no.

See all 3 questions about Mommie Dearest…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Mommie Dearest. The Jeez Louise Award Barely 2 stars for the writing but 4 stars in a fascinating character study of Christina Crawford!! Christina Crawford was a celebrity poster child for alleged abuse done to her and siblings by film actress Joan Crawford who was her adoptive mother.

This film terrified me when I was a child and I had nightmares for several weeks after a babysitter let me watch this with her on a friday night. Here is a clip of my 10 3 "poorly written but utterly fascinating" stars!! Here is a clip of my 10 year old self's nightmare scene!! I am not going to focus on the allegations of Christina Crawford as if what she describes is completely true then Joan Crawford is one of the most disturbed women ever.

I found the character study of Christina as she writes about her life fascinating. She comes across as both extremely naive and extremely rageful. The book is completely regressed and Ms. Crawford was likely dissociating while writing it. Here is a sample of very strange and immature writing: "Mommie dearest got her feelings hurt. Mommie dearest became distressed.

Mommie dearest became enraged when she perceived that all was not well in mannequin-land. The children, the babies were in a state of mutiny! Mommie dearest has to punish bad babies She is clearly fairly bright with a master's degree but she has a tendency to externalize all her difficulties on her mother as well as fate. She has completed a communications degree as well as having an estimated net worth of 5 million due likely to both her books and film.

She also has done some TV and film acting work. She is an unreliable narrator either because of trauma or capitalizing on alleged traumas and it is very difficult to tease out. I feel that the truth lies somewhere in between and that Christina had a very challenging if privileged upbringing with a mother that was extremely personality disordered.

Likely this has led to a more benign personality disorder in Christina herself. She appears to have overcome many of her obstacles and is able to enjoy life and be in a loving relationship.

Good for her and I am glad the she has healed many of the hurts and traumas inflicted on her whether they were as terrible as she makes them out or more moderate in nature. Twisted sisters all the way around huh?? View all 28 comments.

Aug 17, kisha rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction-biography , books-that-are-movies. Ok reading the reviews had me so upset. Not because people didnt like the book. Thats a matter of preference. But because the nerve of some people to choose sides as if they know either parties.

That concerns me. People are abused everyday and they have so much support, but the second someone is abused by someone rich, famous, and beautiful; everyone wants to debate it and take the side of the popular. I dont know if Christina is telling the whole truth about her childhoold. But even if she fabr Ok reading the reviews had me so upset.

But even if she fabricated or made the whole thing up, obviously there was some things going on behind closed doors that were pretty ugly that would make a person want to ruin the last memory of the only mother she knows. I loved the book, and the movie. The book may not have been a challenge to read, but nonetheles it was good storytelling.

View all 4 comments. View all 7 comments. For the record, I did say in my review "I am not denying that nothing ever occurred. Read that last sentence again. I wasn't present in the Crawford household, nor were any of you. With that being said,there are several contradictory statements in Christina Crawford's story. For those unfamiliar with this book. It is a tell all from Joan Crawford's eldest adopted child, Christina. Christina speaks in depth about her mother's strict discipline which included: harsh chores, seclusion, and "being nearly beaten to death.

However in every other public photo of Christina, she never has on the gloves she was "forced to wear. A page later, she tells how she awoke to find a stack of cards from her friends She claims Joan Crawford was jealous of her Christina's acting career. Yet it was Crawford, later confirmed by directors and producers, that secured most of the auditions and roles for Christina.

Other parts of Christina's story that sit uneasy with me are based purely on my opinion; listed below: 1 Christina wrote this tell all a year after her mother's death.

This came on the cusp of learning she and her brother received nothing in Joan's will. The will stated " To make aware of child abuse or to slander the woman who slighted you?

The claimed that Christina had fabricated the story after being angry over the will. The other children insist Joan was a loving, devoted mother. Joan's first husband. I suspect it is because Joan Crawford was the one who offered Christina the opportunities to meet with people that would further her career.

I have read several accounts by producers that it was Joan who set up the meetings, otherwise they never would have considered her "less than talented" daughter.

So it seems as long as "Mommie" was willing to give, Christina was willing to take. I am not denying that nothing ever occurred. I am certain that Joan Crawford was a strict disciplinarian, a control freak, had OCD cleaning tendencies, and may have been a bit eccentric. She grew up in a terrible home herself and so perhaps she did not know the best way to parent her adopted children.

However, I also believe that Christina Crawford was a spoiled, selfish child. Many of these stories, in my opinion, were embellished or fabricated to make herself appear the poor, helpless victim. As it is written, Christina appeared to do very little wrong in her life. She focused mostly on her shining attributes.

Many of the passages are devoted to what I consider "whining" about how she didn't know all the children at her parties that were filled with everything a child could want or the fact that she didn't love the clothing her mother chose to dress her in she wanted to wear the same attire her ritzy school friends wore. So, in conclusion, this poorly written novel did she even have a editor would have never been published had Christina been given a cut of Joan Crawford's money.

Apparently, all the elaborate vacations, gifts, clothing, private schools, and career opportunities were not enough to satisfy her.

How very sad. On a side note, her husband she mentions in the book "David Koontz," divorced her. Christina Crawford is now on her third marriage. She spoke so highly of David that I wonder where their marriage failed. Perhaps he did not give her everything she wanted? That seems fair. Besides, I think people should know what kind of person Joan was—an extraordinarily fine person.

Many people, among them even some who knew Crawford, believed what Christina wrote. Some felt Crawford had mistreated her two older adopted children. Most of those closest to her, however, were vehement in their denunciation of the book and of Christina for writing it. Nevertheless, Davis was outraged by Mommie Dearest. What she did not deserve was that detestable book written by her daughter.

An abomination! To do something like that to someone who saved you from the orphanage, foster homes—who knows what. Gary [Merrill] and I adopted two babies, because when we married I was too old to have our own.

We were very pleased with our little boy, Michael, but our adopted daughter, who was a beautiful baby, was brain-damaged. I never have had regrets, though, because I think we provided for her better than anything else that could have happened to her, and we gave her some happiness in her life. I wanted one, and Bette was so lucky to have been able to have her own daughter.

With Mommie Dearest as her inspiration, B. It would not only have been out of character, but she only used covered, padded hangers. I really knew her, when she was still Billie, as she liked to be called in the early days. In a relationship as close as ours, I had the chance to see her in every kind of personal situation. She was never out of control.

The most she was guilty of ever was a few sharp words, and not many of those. We had our rows, but she never showed any sudden bursts of temper. Cathy Crawford totally denied what Christina had said. She and her twin sister, Cindy, were devastated by the book and the film based on it.

Cindy and I had a different reality—the opposite. Our Mommie was the best mother anyone ever had. I totally disagree. I wish the book had never happened. But if it had happened when Joan was still alive, and not too sick, I know her well enough to know she would have fought back, in her way.

She had a quiet strength, but she was strong, and she was determined. Nothing wishy-washy about her. I think if she could have, Joan would have protected her life and her body of work against that viper she had taken to her bosom. What perplexes me and makes me profoundly sad was that people wanted to spend their money that way, on such trash, and, worse yet, believed it.

The readers who believed it were the ones who did the damage. She had to endure the hurt, but anyway she was there to defend herself and to go on the offensive. She was strong, but the Joan I knew was a very, very vulnerable person. I think it would have depended on her health, but because she cared so much about what her fans thought, she would have done something if she could.

Joan was punished for her good deed. She had worked so hard for her place as a star and an icon. She even gave up her chance for a good marriage and personal happiness.

She was willing to give up everything for it. She became used to loneliness. At 10 she was sent to boarding school but the bizarre, random outbursts of maternal rage continued through the holidays. After graduation she briefly became an actress before training in communications and working in the marketing department of Getty Petroleum.

She has three failed marriages - her second to the film producer David Koontz, with whom she raised a stepson - and made a conscious decision not to have children of her own. For the past 15 years Christina has lived in rural Idaho in a modest clapboard home on a vast Indian Reservation, surrounded by conifers and grassy mountainside.

The only other buildings nearby are a church and a dilapidated general store. She does not entirely fit in here. She is dressed in a smart moss-green trouser suit, with a low-cut top and espadrille wedges in the same shade of pink. Her hair is dyed blond and her eyes, a clear, watery blue, are obscured for much of the time behind sepia-tinted wraparound sunglasses. She is extremely polite and hospitable, given to the occasional unexpected fit of guttural laughter. She is also, I think, very mistrustful.

Many of her answers are delivered with a penetrating stare, a wariness in her voice. When I ask if money was a motivating factor for reissuing the book, she looks at me straight on for several seconds. Inside her open-plan sitting room, it strikes you immediately that there are no photographs, as if the interior has been stripped bare of anything that might remind her of the past.

The walls are hung with anonymous knick-knacks - a framed print of Shakespeare, a clock that chimes with birdsong on the hour. Although she successfully contested the will, Christina has never been able to shake off the suspicion that the book was revenge for her disinheritance, nor, when I ask her about it, does she entirely disabuse me of this notion.

So none of the later years had had any impact on her emotionally whatsoever. She has clearly never forgiven her. Forgiveness is a two-person process. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that if Christina really wanted to sever the ties that bind her she would not be reissuing the book that links her permanently with the mother she now disowns. I just remember her as a normal, loving grandmother who would babysit for us and make us lunch and give us gifts. There was never anything strange or mean about her.

Still, it is possible that a movie star so obsessed with protecting her own image, who was so rigorously perfectionist in all that she did, would go to great lengths to conceal any abusive behaviour from outsiders. Christina might be many things - disillusioned, sad, a bit defensive - but she does not strike me as either a fantasist or a liar. And she has her supporters too. And with its sizable budget, lavish sets, and A-list star, the prestigious resulting biopic was considered a surefire box-office hit and Oscar shoo-in.

Still riding high from her recent Oscar win for Network, Dunaway saw in Crawford a role only she was brave enough to play. The affinity was mutual. But few know how gross, weird, strange, and, possibly, supernatural the set was behind closed doors. Dunaway was a trained Method actor who set out not just to understand but to experience her character.