Mommie Dearest

by Christina Crawford

  Just before Thanksgiving vacation, this letter from mother was sent from Detroit, Michigan.

  Tina, my darling angel,

  I loved your letter. This is going to be a brief note as my day is scheduled as one of the busiest I have had. We have been up since 5:45 a.m., and my last appearance is at 9:00 o’clock tonight in the theatre lobby, and that means I won’t get back to the hotel until after midnight.

  I’ve been rushing so much from city to city. We leave tomorrow morning at 8:30 for Chicago, where we’ll be only four hours. Then we go to Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and home.

  I send all my love to you - and I’ll see you on Thanksgiving.

  Love,

  “Mommie”

  I was so excited by these sudden changes I could hardly think about anything else. I was getting out at long last. We were all going to Europe for Christmas. I was getting new clothes. I could hardly believe it.

  At first I had been cautious about hoping, for fear it would all fall through. But as Thanksgiving vacation approached and nothing went wrong, I let myself be excited and happy.

  Mother sent a car and driver to pick me up from school. I was very nervous during the ride home. As we got closer and closer the scenery once again became familiar and I started getting scared. What if something happens and I don’t get to go? What if Mr. Steele doesn’t like me? What if I do something foolish? I hadn’t been home in such a long time. I hadn’t been anywhere in such a long time I wasn’t sure I’d remember how to act with people. What would I do … what would I say? Is the past year just swept under the rug and forgotten? Is it a trap? Thoughts tumbled one after the other through my mind faster and faster.

  At long last we turned onto North Bristol Avenue. It was a beautiful, wide, quiet street just as I’d remembered it. Almost everything was exactly the same. There were one or two new houses but the rest was the same as before.

  Chris and my sisters were home too. We rushed into one another’s arms, laughing and hugging. They were just as surprised as I’d been to hear the news of our trip. Chris had grown more and was a little taller than I. The girls hadn’t changed much except they were of course a year older. I was sixteen and a half, Chris was thirteen and the girls were almost eight.

  I first saw Alfred Steele swimming in our pool. I remember standing on the steps leading out to the garden and asking mother what I was supposed to call him.

  “What would you call anyone who was your father?” she asked me. I had to think about that for a moment. It had been ten years since she’d been married before and I couldn’t remember what I’d called Phillip Terry. In between there had been lots of her lovers I’d had to call “Uncle” but that didn’t seem appropriate either. The problem was that it seemed positively weird to call a total stranger “Daddy”. I’d never even been introduced to him as Mr. Steele. It was very confusing, but I wanted to be as polite as possible and do anything I could to please her, so I finally decided on calling him “Daddy”.

  Mother turned to me and said: “He’s too fat, he wears glasses and he’s slightly hard of hearing in one ear, but he’s a nice man. Go introduce yourself.” It was getting dark outside and I couldn’t see her face too well. Fortunately, I realized she couldn’t see mine very clearly either because if she’d been able to she would have noticed a look of shock. This was how she described her husband of less than six months? She’d used a tone of voice with which I was all too familiar to describe the man swimming in the pool. I’d heard that condescending tone of voice all my life. It was the one she used most effectively when she didn’t want to be quoted as saying anything outwardly terrible but wanted to get the message of her disdain for the person across.

  In the semi-darkness I walked down to the pool alone. When I got near the edge I stopped and waved at the man in the pool. He swam up to where I was standing and smiled at me. I kneeled down and stuck out my hand. “Hello, Daddy … I’m Christina.”

  He took my outstretched hand in his dripping wet one and I knew immediately that I was going to like him.

  Alfred Steele was a very direct man. He’d started out as a geologist, of all things, graduating from Northwestern University in Chicago. By what path he went from geology to sales at Coca-Cola, I never quite understood. But from Coca-Cola eventually he went to Pepsi-Cola. When Alfred Steele took the job at Pepsi, it was a little more than a regional southern drink with a loosely knit group of family owned and operated bottling plants and not much national distribution. By the time he married Joan Crawford, he’d driven Pepsi into national prominence and distribution, second only to his former employer Coca-Cola. Pepsi was giving Coke a run for its money in every nook and hamlet of America. Al Steele welded a national network of bottlers together, standardized the syrup formula, introduced Americans to the Pepsi generation, brought the distinctive logo into mass conscientiousness and was on the brink of going international for the first time. He liked music, loved jazz, had a deep respect for excellence and told good jokes. He was a self-made man with an education who inspired the people around him to do their best and didn’t need to resort to that driven quality so often the earmark of successful men. He did not stand very tall … five foot ten maybe, but Al Steele was a big man and people loved him.

  Thanksgiving vacation went wonderfully. We had a family dinner in the formal dining room. All of us were on our very best behavior, trying very, very hard to make everything go smoothly.

  The Saturday before I was to leave for school, mother had a man come to the house and fit me for a fur coat. I wasn’t allowed to open my eyes, so I couldn’t see the fur but I could feel its softness. There were lots of new clothes too. The store brought them to the house where they were spread across the beds in our rooms. We were all getting new clothes, new shoes to match, the girls were getting new purses and Chris was getting totally outfitted in suits, casual wear and sport clothes.

  It was better than any Christmas I could remember. We were all jumping up and down with glee. The girls and I had been in catholic boarding schools and Chris had been in military academy. We were sick to death of uniforms and this was an unbelievable bonanza. It was two days of continual fashion shows and squeals of delight.

  I went back to Flintridge bubbling over with the story. Sister Benigna was reserved and even skeptical, but she prayed for me and wished me success.

  The next few weeks flew by. I had extra schoolwork to do before I left and homework to take with me on the trip since I would be a month late in returning.

  At long last the moment had come. Mother, the girls, Chris and I were boarding the train for New York. Mrs. Howe was also with us to take care of my sisters. As a Christmas bonus, she was spending a week at home in Scotland.

  This trip was such a monumental event in my life that I decided to keep a diary of it. I wanted to remember all the details, all the people and all the places we were going to visit. My brother and I also collected souvenirs during the trip and made a big scrapbook filled with matchbooks, menus, photos and samples of currency.

  We boarded the train in Union Station, Los Angeles on December 8, 1955. We had been finishing the last minute packing until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Mommie had invited a number of friends over to the house for cocktails and most of them accompanied us to the station. At 5:30 that afternoon, two Tanner Limousines picked us up and drove us down to the station.

  The group of well-wishers who came down to see us off included Liza Wilson, Elva and Bob Martine, Asher Hayes, Bill Seay, Louis Meltzer, Stanley Medieros and fans Milderine Mues and Florence MacDonald.

  In mommie’s room there were baskets of fruit, champagne and various small gifts for use on the trip. Wherever mother went there was a crowd. Some of the crowd she brought with her and some appeared to see what the fuss was all about.

  I wasn’t used to being around all these people. My life had been so quiet and solitary during the last year that all this excitement left me exhausted. I didn’t quite know what to say to everyone and was tr
ying so hard to be on my very best behavior and please mommie with everything I did that I was constantly looking for a way to serve her or be helpful.

  I was actually relieved when they left and we were able to settle down to our compartments in some peace and quiet.

  It snowed the next day as we watched Arizona and New Mexico speed by the windows of the train. We stopped in Albuquerque where more friends and fans of mother’s met the train. My sisters were excited about seeing their first snow.

  The next day we arrived in Chicago around noon and went to the Ambassador Hotel to have lunch in the famous Pump Room. Mommie had an old friend named Casey who met us. Casey joined us for lunch and stayed with us until it was time to go back to the station. After lunch, Miss Fields from a store called Bramsons came to the hotel with more clothes for me. Mommie bought me a suit and three more dresses. They had to be altered and Miss Fields said she’d send them to New York before we sailed.

  Every time I turned around I seemed to be getting presents. I didn’t know why and I didn’t bother to questions it. This whole adventure was like a dream come true. Mommie was in a wonderful mood, everything was going smoothly and we were getting tons of new things. It was better than any Christmas I could remember.

  On the overnight train to New York City we met the director Danny Mann who had drinks with mother. Then in the dining car we sat next to Sugar Ray Robinson and his family. We were all eyes. This trip was like something out of the movies and we were beside ourselves with anticipation.

  We arrived in New York about 9:30 the morning of the third day. Daddy and the press photographers were there to meet us. We were all beautifully dressed and lined up for dozens of group pictures. I realized that I wasn’t used to having pictures taken any more and my mouth began to hurt from trying to smile for the cameras. Not that I wasn’t happy and more than willing to smile or stand on my head if necessary … I was deliriously happy. I just wasn’t used to smiling on command any more. I did my best though and prayed that Mommie wouldn’t be angry with me for ruining the pictures when she saw the clippings from the newspapers. These were the first “family” pictures we’d had taken with Daddy. These were the first family pictures we’d had taken in almost four years.

  That evening mommie and daddy took all of us to dinner at Voisin and afterwards we went to the Stork Club. I slept soundly that night for the first time in a week.

  We had acquired another voyager … daddy’s valet-bodyguard named Jimmy Murphy. Jimmy was as wide as he was tall and an original character right out of Damon Runyon. Jimmy had an accent you couldn’t believe and a vocabulary to match. Jimmy knew everybody from the dockworkers to the maitre d’s to the royalty of Europe. He was a walking encyclopedia of information on any subject you’d care to name, from baseball to stock prices with everything in between. He knew about skeletons in family closets that the family didn’t know and he loved gossip with a passion other men reserved for gambling, horses and women. Not that Jimmy didn’t like those things too, but information was his passport to the world. Jimmy could find out anything. If he didn’t know, he knew ten guys who would and he’d get the information fast as a computer. Jimmy was great and we all loved him. I should also add that Jimmy Murphy drove mother wild. He made her totally crazy with his irreverence for convention and his street talk. Jimmy could have said, “Yes, Mrs. Steele” for the rest of his life while bowing politely and it wouldn’t have made any difference to mother. There was just something about Jimmy that got her crazy. They had their run-ins, true enough, but mother never got into an all out war with Jimmy. She never overstepped the bounds of nagging him … she never took him on as an outright enemy, toe to toe. So, while there was evidently no love lost between them, Jimmy was always polite and mother remained civil to him most of the time. Jimmy had been with daddy for years and mother knew better than to try to get rid of him. Our second day in New York City, Jimmy took Chris to get a haircut and then took him shopping for a hat and gloves. Chris really felt ridiculous in his formal getup because he was only thirteen years old, but he was quite pleased with all the attention he was getting.

  Mommie, the girls and I went to Bonwit Teller … for more clothes! I couldn’t believe it. Where were we going to put all these things? During the past two weeks, Chris, the two girls and I had been totally outfitted with brand new wardrobes. Not one thing in my suitcases or trunk was from the past. From the skin out, we were in newly bought outfits.

  After Bonwit’s, we met daddy and Chris at the “21 Club” for lunch. Mike Stern, a friend of mommie and daddy’s, joined us at the big table. We were allowed to order whatever we wanted from the menu. The waiters and maitre d’ hovered around our table like bees. In fact, it occurred to me there were nearly as many people waiting on us as there were people at the table! Of course we were a rather large group, but we were also seated in full view of the entire restaurant.

  That evening we had dinner in the Hampshire House Hotel alone. Mother had to be an usherette at the benefit premiere of Rose Tattoo. But before she and daddy left, they’d invited Sonny Werblin from MCA to join them for drinks. I liked Uncle Sonny very much. I’d known him since I was a little girl when mommie and I used to visit New York. He was always kind to me, but tonight he took some special time with me to discuss college. I wanted to go to Carnegie in Pittsburgh because I’d heard that their drama department was one of the best in the country.

  The Werblins invited us to dinner the next night at the Colony Club after which we went to see The Lark with Julie Harris. It was only the second Broadway play I’d ever seen and I was very excited. I’d already decided that I wanted to go into the theater, so I watched everything and everyone with a very special attentiveness. (My diary carefully noted that her performance was very exciting and that we met Leslie Caron and Henry Fonda when we went backstage afterwards.)

  On Wednesday, December 14, our third day in New York … mommie took us all shopping again! This time we swooped through Saks Fifth Avenue, Mark Cross, Bergdorf Goodman and Verdura. Part of the justification for this trip was Christmas shopping. At Saks, the four of us kids pooled our money and bought mommie a huge leather travel bag.

  That night we went to “21” again for dinner. We were obviously regulars there and because mommie and daddy knew everyone. Uncle Bob Kriendler was always there to greet us and everybody always made a big fuss over mommie and daddy. After dinner we went to see Maurice Chevalier at the Waldorf Astoria.

  It was an absolute whirlwind of a time. This was just like the fantasy other people always had about what it was like to be a movie star’s daughter! It was all right here … it was all happening right now … the beautiful, expensive clothes, the long black limousines, the best table in the best restaurants … the photographers wherever we went … the shopping sprees and the seemingly endless stream of money. I saw Daddy tipping $20 and $50 at a time … I saw mommie signing for hundreds and hundreds of dollars of clothes and accessories. I saw the world at our fingertips … everyone smiling and bowing and doing our bidding. I saw more money and the things money could buy than I’d ever seen in my life. Mommie had always spent a lot of money on herself and the house, but I’d rarely seen the bills … I’d only seen the results. Now that Daddy was paying the bills, the pace picked up considerably.

  Maybe it was all the time I’d spent alone in the convent … maybe it was the years of not enough clothes, no money at all, no privileges of any kind that created these extreme contrasts. Maybe it was the speed with which these changes had happened that made me begin to feel uneasy. Maybe it was just too much, too fast that unsettled me.

  Whatever it was, I welcomed a quiet day of just packing and being with the other kids. Uncle Sonny and Aunt Leah Ray Werblin went with us to dinner at Pavillion and afterwards to the Stork Club, but our last day in New York was quiet in comparison to the previous four days.

  Friday, December 16, 1955, we sailed aboard the Queen Mary for Europe. Mommie and daddy had a party in their suite of stateroom
s. At 10 o’clock in the morning everyone who’d come to see us off was drinking champagne and having lots of fun. There were more photographers so, we smiled and waived for dozens of photographs.

  Once the ship had sailed and we’d passed the Statue of Liberty, Jimmy took Chris and me for a tour of the ship. Without Jimmy, I’m sure we would have been bored to death before the trip was over. He was wonderful to us, kept us amused with various activities and always kept us laughing.

  We were told that this particular time of year, the north Atlantic was rough and we were soon firm believers. In fact, it was the worst crossing in five years according to members of the ship staff. It was so rough that they put up handropes along all the passageways and stairs. In the dining room, all the chairs were fastened down and the sides of the tables turned up to form boxes so the plates wouldn’t slide right off. However, despite the best precautions, one day at lunch it was so rough that the long buffet table collapsed and a huge roast turkey rolled by our table with the chef brandishing his long-handled fork in hot pursuit! Shortly afterwards, there was a fire in the kitchen and they had to evacuate the entire dining room. I don’t think any of us were in real danger but the whole dining room was in such complete shambles that it was impossible to finish lunch anyway.

  Chris played in the Ping-Pong tournament and did very well, especially considering that the tables were on a 45-degree angle most of the time.