Mommie Dearest

by Christina Crawford

  I didn’t particularly want to do the show because it was some stupid segment that guessed who people were … I was going on as the daughter of a famous person. I didn’t particularly like that part but I was so eager to begin a professional career that I swallowed my pride and did the show.

  I was very nervous. I’d never done a live TV show … I’d never done anything professional at all. I’d been so thoroughly rehearsed that I’d memorized all the answers perfectly. I knew how to learn lines by them, and everything went smoothly. I even made a new friend. The NBC producer on the show was a young guy named David Sontag and he was so genuinely kind to me that night we became friends and saw each other for years afterwards.

  After the Jack Paar Show was over and I was on my way home again, I realized for the first time that I’d made a fundamental personal error; one that was to haunt me over and over again during my professional career. I had no real credentials at all. I was on that program only as an extension of my mother. I was a movie star’s daughter … one of the first of my generation and background to move into the public eye as an aspiring actress. I was a novelty, a curiosity. It was the old “What’s it like to be a movie star’s daughter?” routine again. The questions were about mother, about Joan Crawford, not about me. I was standing in for her … I was important only by association and not because of myself.

  Nobody had asked me anything about what I was doing or what I wanted that wasn’t related always back to mother. Was she helping me … was I following in her footsteps … what was it like growing up in Hollywood.

  That was the first of those questions, but down through the years I came to know the pattern so well I could anticipate them long in advance. That was the first time I knew I’d been used and wasn’t going to get anything but grief out of it. That was the first time I felt the monstrous lie I was telling in public by not being able to ever tell the truth. It was one of those awful trade-offs you make when you think that you’ll be able to deal with the betrayal of your own value system later, but for now you’ll do what has to be done to get ahead. The problem is that you never get to “later”. The lies are always now, and have to be lived with in the present. The feeling about yourself, your own self respect is always now, not later.

  Mother and Betty both sent telegrams of congratulations. My TV debut was a “success”.

  Tina darling you were wonderful see you soon “Mommie”

  Tina dear you were enchanting and divine on your television debut I adored seeing you and you looked lovely so poised and a great credit to your proud mother.

  Love

  Aunt Betty

  I sure was a credit to mother … I spoke only when spoken to, I said all the publicly right things, I was dressed in one of those outfits ordered for our European trip and there was nothing of me in that show except my physical presence.

  I felt like I was a perfectly programmed automaton. There really was no Christina at all … there was just “Joan Crawford’s daughter”.

  Up until that time, most of the other students at school didn’t associate me with my famous parents because I never said anything about it and the name Crawford isn’t uncommon. After I did the Jack Paar Show, I could see the attitudes of many change. I really hated what being known as “Joan Crawford’s daughter” did to people. Suddenly they stared at me or became uncomfortable around me. It was not the old days of the elementary school kids wanting autographs and then disappearing. It was my peers, people who wanted the same thing I wanted, who had the same dreams and ambitions I had that suddenly related to me in all kinds of funny ways. It was as though the information alone changed something about me, something about the human being, something fundamental. It wasn’t true of course, I was the same person the day after the show as I had been the day before. They were the ones who went through the changes. It was their fantasy about the information that changed, not me. But because of it, I had to deal with them differently. I had to somehow reassure them that I wasn’t a snob, that I wanted to be friends, that I had to struggle just as hard as they did to get where I wanted to go. All that was very hard for strangers to believe. The fantasy was that I was being helped, that I had everything I could possibly need. If I didn’t quite fit the image than it was attributed to the fact that “slumming” must be chic. Thank god for Eddie. Somehow he understood, and never changed a bit. If anything we became better friends. If anything it opened the whole thing up and allowed us to talk about it. Then we dropped the subject and continued being friends.

  That fall I also appeared on the Arlene Francis morning talk show, but Arlene was a very gracious lady and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. She had a way of making everyone feel not just comfortable but welcome and special. After the show, she wrote me a very sweet note which mother forwarded to me.

  November 4, 1957

  Christina darling,

  Thank you for your wonderful letter. I was so proud of you on the television show, and your letter was delightful.

  I’m enclosing your monthly allowance check, which is due on November 15th.

  We send much love to you, my darling, and we will see you very soon. We will be in New York tomorrow.

  God bless,

  Mommie

  The house on Bristol was finally being sold to Donald O’Connor. Mother said she was only getting $150,000 for it, but that was better than having to keep paying upkeep and taxes. They were going to let the 36 Sutton Place apartment go as well because mother and daddy had bought a 16-room penthouse condominium on 70th and Fifth Avenue. Not only had they bought this giant duplex overlooking Central Park in the most expensive neighborhood the city had to offer, but they were in the process of tearing the two floors down to the steel beams and completely rebuilding. The apartment was redesigned. Where sixteen normal rooms had previously existed on the two floors, there were now going to be eight gigantic ones. Where walls had once stood there were to be huge window and a panoramic park view. Where four bedrooms had existed, there were now going to be only two … one for her and one for him.

  In this huge apartment they were only building accommodations for two people plus a small cubicle downstairs for a maid.

  In the late fall of 1957, Joan Crawford and Alfred Steele had between them five children ages 18 and younger. She had the twins who were almost 11, a son 14, I was 18 and Mr. Steele had a son by his previous marriage. The architectural plans for the rebuilding of the duplex apartment at 2 East 70th Street called for two master bedrooms, two master baths and a maid’s room. The cost of rebuilding this apartment and filling it with brand new furniture designed by William Haines, shipped from California and hauled up through the windows by giant cranes, was over $500,000.00. In fact, before it was all over, the delays and unexpected problems caused the price tag to inch dangerously close to one million dollars.

  Construction went on for months and months, causing the other tenants in the building to complain and finally to try to sue the Steeles for completely disrupting the entire life style of the other owners. There were numerous fights with the people who owned the apartments directly below. The constant hammering and pounding and heavy equipment tore at people’s nerves and strained their patience.

  When it was finally finished after more than six months of construction, my visiting sisters had to sleep on plastic covered couches in the den or at the Barbizon Hotel for women. This $500,000 tribute to success was designed to accommodate one person … my mother. Her pink and white bedroom was the larger of the two and her bath, dressing room and closets took twice the room allotted her husband.

  Downstairs, the entire living room, den and dining room areas were done in white, yellow and green. There was nothing reflecting my father except a chess set and some carved ivory figures in a bookcase. The floors were polished to a dangerously slippery shine and where rugs existed, they were snow white. All the furniture was covered with fitted, heavy plastic that stuck to your clothes in the summer time. No one was allowed to wear shoes in the apartment, because m
other didn’t want the white rugs getting soiled. Walking over those glassy, slippery floors in stocking feet was enough to get you permanently disfigured and before word got out in New York, many an unsuspecting guest was humiliated by smelly feet or a hole in their sock.

  I had seen the apartment in its various stages of construction, but when I saw it’s finished state, I was shocked. At first glance it was spectacular … the space and the view were unexcelled in Manhattan. But it was categorically the most uncomfortable, the most inhospitable, the coldest place I’ve even been in. There was something totally barren about it. There wasn’t one chair really comfortable to sit in and the plastic covers on all the upholstered furniture became clammy from the constant air conditioning. Everything was sealed up … the windows, the furniture, reality. In addition, mother kept it so cold in there both winter and summer that it was like visiting a goddamn morgue! It was freezing in that place and everywhere you sat the plastic crinkled and stuck to you. It was really awful. There were none of the beautiful antiques from the California house, none of the old paintings. Everything was new and starkly modern and plastic. Even the flowers and plants were plastic! With all those windows and all that light, all the green plants in the rooms were plastic. Mother preferred them because they could be washed with soap and water and they didn’t have any dirt.

  When guests came for the first time, mother always gave them the grand tour. She also showed them all of her closets. She’d proudly open the rows of mirrored doors and show off her endless racks of clothes, floor to ceiling, each garment carefully covered with plastic. She showed them an entire closet full of matching, custom made shoes and handbags. Then there was another closet just for her hats. I always felt like I was back looking at Shirley Temple’s costumes, but everyone else seemed most impressed.

  Mother and daddy spent the winter of 1957 at the Plaza Hotel on Central Park South while they waited for their apartment to be finished. They were still traveling a great deal. The beginning of November they were in Washington, D.C. and then went out to California for Thanksgiving with my sisters and brother.

  I spent Thanksgiving with Mickey and her mother in Westport, Connecticut.

  When they returned from California I was invited to have lunch with them at “21”. I was to meet them at the restaurant because Daddy would be coming from the office and mother had errands to run before lunch.

  The meal was pleasant enough, with all the usual commotion over mother and daddy even though they went there many times a week. After lunch, mother and I went to the ladies’ room as usual. Just before leaving she looked in her purse and discovered she didn’t have a one dollar bill to leave as a tip. Everyone else left quarters, but mother usually gave the woman a dollar which of course ensured a big welcome the next time. Only this time mother didn’t have any singles with her. So she asked me to leave a dollar for the ladies’ room attendant. Before she departed, I whispered to her that all I had was one dollar. She patted me on the shoulder and said daddy would reimburse me. She’d said it loud enough that the lady was smiling at me, waiting almost with her hand out.

  Long before I bothered to look in my own wallet, I knew that all I had was one dollar. I’d taken the bus from my apartment to the restaurant and intended to take the bus back. All I had in the wallet was a one dollar bill and some pennies, that’s all the money I had. But, I thought, mother did say that daddy would give it back to me, so I’d be okay. I sort of grudgingly gave the woman her dollar and she, of course, said, “Thank you, Miss Crawford … you know your mother’s a wonderful person … she’s my favorite movie star.” I smiled weakly, seeing her swiftly pocket my last dollar and left to join mother and daddy in the lobby.

  They had their coats on already and were preparing to leave. Mother had just recently gotten a new mink which everyone looked at and daddy was just putting on his hat. I got my own coat and caught up with them at the door to the limousine. I expected daddy to give me the dollar in the car. But did I have a surprise in store for me. Mother was already in the car, daddy was just shutting the door as mother waved goodbye saying how nice it was to see me again, just like I was a fan or something. It happened so fast, I never got a chance to say one word. My heart sank as I watched the big black limousine pull away into traffic. The wind was blowing and it was cold. It looked as though it would begin snowing any minute now. I pulled my coat around me. The restaurant doorman asked politely if he could get me a cab. I turned to face him and managed to say nonchalantly, “Oh, no thanks. I think I’ll walk.” He looked at me like I was a bit strange, but off I went in the opposite direction.

  It was a long walk across town from 52nd and Fifth Avenue to 58th Street and First Avenue. The wind was howling. People were hurrying alongside the buildings trying to get to their destinations as fast as possible. I was freezing cold. Every steep I took I got angrier. How could they be so bloody cavalier? How could anyone be so unthinking, so mean as to take my last dollar and then not even offer me a ride home? How did she think I was going to get any where … fly? What was I supposed to do … wave a magic wand and will myself across town? I bet she never said a word to daddy, either. I bet she just went out there to the lobby like a grand lady, allowed one of the men to drape her new mink coat around her shoulders and pranced out of the restaurant to the waiting limousine without a backward glance … or thought. It did start snowing before I reached the apartment. The walk had taken the better part of an hour and I didn’t even have boots on that day because I was supposed to get dressed up. It’s a wonder I didn’t catch pneumonia or fall and break my neck walking through the freezing cold in high heel shoes. I was totally numb by the time I walked into the apartment. I took off my clothes and filled up the bathtub with hot water. I sat in the hot tub until I stopped shivering and then drank some hot tea. I did get a cold, but fortunately it was nothing worse than that.

  Because it was a professional school, Neighborhood Playhouse didn’t really have a Christmas vacation. We got about two weeks from just before Christmas until a few days past New Years.

  I was doing all right at the school, but I wasn’t in love with the place. My acting class with Sandy Meisner was going very well. I think it had to do with the fact that I’d already had most of the basics the year before at Carnegie, I’d already been a number of plays and learned to handle myself at least adequately on stage. Sandy’s criticism after scenes could be brutal, but he never landed hard on me. In fact I liked him and I didn’t mind the sarcasm as much as some of the other students did. Of course, it was probably a little easier for me because I was rarely the brunt of his humor.

  What I hated and detested was Martha Graham’s modern dance class. At first I’d been rather in awe of her just like everyone else in school. She was famous all over the world and it was a great privilege to be able to study with her. But I grew to hate that class with a passion. Miss Graham would go around to each student in class while they were in the middle of trying to do one of the contortionist exercises and she had a miserable habit of slapping whatever part of ones anatomy that wasn’t performing correctly. She also made very personal remarks to both the men and women on the construction of their individual bodies. It was very embarrassing for everyone. We all blushed crimson when she singled us out individually. What made it ten times worse was that one whole wall of the dance room was mirrored, and Martha Graham was always right about our various physical flaws … those mirrors were staring right back at us. When she came to me she slapped my leg and said I had fat thighs … I’d have to get those legs working harder. It was the way she said “fat” that made me want to walk out of that class and never return. Miss Graham was thin as a rail from years of discipline as a professional dancer, what she said always had the ring of total authority. But the way she chose to conduct her classes made me never want to hear her name again. It may have worked with aspiring young dancers, but it had the opposite effect on me. I tried every way in the world to get out of that class, but nothing worked for very long u
ntil I decided to cook up a doctor’s excuse for the remainder of the year. I still had to sit through the class, but I didn’t have to participate in it.

  Christmas itself came and went with little fanfare. I saw mother and daddy several times for lunch or dinner. They were getting ready to move into their new apartment and didn’t have much time left over for anything else.

  I got little presents for everyone in the family and delivered them myself. Mother sent nicely wrapped gifts over to me via the chauffeur.

  December 30, 1957

  Tina darling,

  Your Daddy and I thank you so much for the four beautiful, beautiful linen towels. They are so lovely, and will be so useful in our new apartment.

  The twins are delighted with their new piccolos, and you were very sweet to think of them. We are all enchanted with the lovely pictured boxes of matches.

  Darling, did you receive the gifts that we sent to you? We haven’t heard from you yet, and I was just wondering.

  We love you, and hope you are having happy Holidays.

  Love,

  “Mommie”

  It didn’t amuse me anymore that mother wrote me formal thank-you notes when she lived in the same city, less than a dozen blocks away. The stationery was still from the Plaza Hotel, but the return address was 2 East 70th. It didn’t amuse me that I had to get all dressed up whenever I was invited to see them and always had to wonder if my clothing would be acceptable. It didn’t amuse me to see their palatial apartment, her endless closets of clothes, their $100 lunches and the ever-present limousines while I struggled to feed myself and could never pay all of my monthly bills.