克里斯蒂安·克劳福德

Christina Crawford (born June 11, 1939) is an American former author and actress of the 1960s, best known for her 1978 memoir and exposé, Mommie Dearest, which described the alleged abuse she was subjected to by her adoptive mother, film star Joan Crawford.

Early life and education

Christina was born to young mother Bernice Iva Siglar in Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Los Angeles, on June 11, 1939. Her biological father, an engineer, was married to another woman at the time of her birth, and had several sons by her. She was one of four children adopted by Joan Crawford. The adoption took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, due to the strict adoption laws in force in California at the time.

After graduating from Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, Crawford moved from California to Pittsburgh to attend Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. She dropped out after one semester and then moved to New York City, where she studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

After fourteen years as an actress, Crawford returned to college, graduating magna cum laude from UCLA and receiving her master's degree from the Annenberg School of Communication at USC. She then worked in corporate communications at the Los Angeles headquarters of Getty Oil Company.

Career

Crawford appeared in summer stock theater, including a production of Splendor in the Grass. She also acted in a number of off-Broadway productions, including In Color on Sundays (1958). She also appeared in At Christmas Time (1959) and Dark of the Moon (1959) at the Fred Miller Theater in Milwaukee, and The Moon Is Blue (1960).

In 1960, Crawford was cast in a supporting role in the crime drama film Force of Impulse, which was released in 1961. Also in 1961, Crawford appeared in the musical Wild in the Country, a film starring Elvis Presley. That year, she made a guest appearance on Here's Hollywood.

In 1962, she appeared in the play The Complaisant Lover. She played five character parts in Ben Hecht's controversial play Winkelberg. The same year, she appeared on the CBS courtroom drama The Verdict is Yours. In October 1965, she appeared in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park, with Myrna Loy, a friend of her mother, before being fired after the cast complained of Christina's unprofessional behavior. She was considered a capable actress, but difficult to work with in the industry. She also had a small role in Faces (1968), a romantic drama directed by John Cassavetes.

She played Joan Borman Kane on the soap opera The Secret Storm in New York from 1968 until 1969. In October 1968, Christina Crawford missed several episodes due to emergency surgery for a ruptured ovarian tumor. Her mother Joan Crawford was asked by executive producer Gloria Monty and network executives to fill in as Christina's character. Joan performed as "Joan" in several episodes so that the part would not be recast during her absence.

In the early 1970s, Crawford also appeared in other TV programs, including Medical Center, Marcus Welby, M.D., Matt Lincoln, Ironside and The Sixth Sense.

Later career

After Joan Crawford died in 1977, Christina and her brother Christopher discovered that she had disinherited them, her will (signed on October 28, 1976) citing "reasons which are well-known to them". In October 1977, the pair sued Crawford's estate to invalidate the will. Cathy LaLonde, another of Crawford's daughters, and her husband Jerome, the complaint charged, "took deliberate advantage of decedent's seclusion and weakened and distorted mental and physical condition to insinuate themselves" into Joan's favor. A settlement between the parties was reached on July 13, 1979, which provided Christina and Christopher a combined $55,000 from their mother's estate.

Mommie Dearest

In November 1978, Crawford's book Mommie Dearest was released. It described her mother as career-obsessed, alcoholic, and overly strict. Joan Crawford's two other daughters, Cathy and Cindy, denounced the book, denying any abuse. Many of the older Crawford's friends and co-workers, including Van Johnson, Ann Blyth, Myrna Loy, Katharine Hepburn, Cesar Romero, Gary Gray, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (her first husband) also came to her defense.

Christina's ex-husband, producer Harvey Medlinsky, said in response to Christina's memoir, "I have only good things to say about Joan Crawford. She was always nice to me and Christina." The Secret Storm producer Gloria Monty countered Christina's allegation that Joan "stole" Christina's role on the television show when she fell ill in 1968. According to Monty, she and CBS asked Joan to substitute for her daughter on the show, and that Joan agreed only in the interest of not allowing Christina to be permanently replaced by another actress until she could return to the show. Monty added, "I'll tell you that I saw Joan Crawford do everything she could to save that girl's life and job." Helen Hayes, June Allyson, and Vincent Sherman stated they had witnessed strict discipline. For example, Hayes and Sherman both stated in their autobiographies that they felt Joan was too strict a parent. Allyson stated in her autobiography that she witnessed Joan put Christina in "time-out", and did not let her go to a friend's birthday party as a punishment. However these people never stated they witnessed any outright abuse.

Mommie Dearest became a best-seller, and was made into the 1981 film Mommie Dearest, starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford. Christina had no involvement with the making of the film, and has denounced the film as "grotesque" and a work of fiction. Christina has stated that the film is highly inaccurate, and that the portrayal of her mother in the film bears little resemblance to the real Joan Crawford. However, Christina's issues with the film were in the presentation, not the instances of abuse. In an interview with Larry King, she confirmed that Crawford would fly into rages and beat her with household objects for frivilolous reasons. "Hair brushes, and – the famous hangers, of course. It was very violent."