Mommie Dearest

by Christina Crawford

  By the time I returned from the studio it was nearly seven o’clock in the evening. I guess I should have remembered the lessons of the old days a little better and waited until the next morning to call mother. But it was only 10 o’clock in New York and I didn’t think she’d be asleep yet. I was so filled with joy that my gamble was paying off so quickly that all I could think of was sharing it with her.

  I got through on the phone right away. I bubbled over with the good news, telling her that I’d gotten the guest star part on Marcus Welby, that I was playing a nun, and that I was in almost every scene throughout the entire episode.

  Then I waited for her response and congratulations. But I waited in silence quite a long time. Such a long time, in fact, that I thought we’d been disconnected. “Hello … mother?”

  An icy voice replied only, “How did you get the job?” I didn’t catch on right away. I was still in my own place of happiness, in spite of the strange welcome I was receiving. “You remember, mother, I did that one day’s work on Vince Edwards show that they said was like a test, then I met a lot more people, got another show and some good publicity and I guess the meeting with Lew Wasserman certainly didn’t hurt.”

  Her voice never changed. It was cold, icy, chilling. We didn’t talk much longer before she hung up on me! I stared at the phone in my hand. Tears welled up in my eyes? What the hell had gone wrong now? How could she turn such good news into this awful feeling I had in my stomach? What in the world was going on? I called to tell her the very best news I’ve had and she hangs up on me? What the hell is happening to us?

  The next evening I had made plans for a small dinner party at the apartment. Just a few close friends were invited, so I decided to turn it into a little celebration of my good fortune. Everyone, of course, asked if mother wasn’t terribly pleased. I lied to all of them, saying that she was delighted.

  I could hardly sleep the entire weekend, I was so excited. I worked very hard the following week, but the show went very well judging by the remarks I heard and the compliments I got. Robert Young was really nice, although we didn’t have any scenes together. We did have pictures taken together because the studio publicity department had arranged several interviews for me which we did during the lunch hour in the commissary. I was now very careful to say all the right things and never hint at any estrangement between mother and myself. Except for two occasions of very peculiar behavior on her part, I was still under the impression that everything was generally all right.

  I was never more wrong in my life. It was one week after I’d finished shooting the Marcus Welby show at Universal that I’d been invited to lunch with the same friend of mother’s who had lent me the family car.

  When we met for lunch, he seemed unusually distant. I greeted him as usual, not knowing anything was amiss. After we ordered, he asked me if I’d spoken with mother lately. I told him I hadn’t talked to her in almost two weeks now.

  He looked at me carefully but very strangely. I asked him what was wrong. He looked down at his silverware on the table for a long moment as though he was in the midst of a decision he hadn’t expected to make.

  I was getting very uncomfortable, but I didn’t have the vaguest idea what was going on. Then he said that mother had called him several nights ago. He measured his words carefully as though he were in the midst of a negotiation deal and didn’t want to be misunderstood.

  He went on to say that mother was in a terrible rage against me when she had called. He said that she went on and on about what a dreadful person I was, how ungrateful I was for all the help she’d given me. The crowning blow was my last phone call. Mother told this man and his wife over the phone that the only reason I’d called to tell her about getting the part on Marcus Welby was to gloat! She said that I’d just called her to gloat over the fact that I’d gotten a part on the show, when I knew full well that Marcus Welby was the one show she’d always wanted to do!!!!

  I looked at this man, this long-time friend of mother’s as though he’d struck me with a thunderbolt. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this insanity. I actually asked him to repeat the last two sentences he’d said to me, just to make sure I’d heard him correctly. Although it was nearly two weeks since my last conversation with mother, it was only two days since she’d called him on the rampage. My first thought was: if she was so damn steamed up about me, what the hell took her so long to call?

  I was totally speechless. I didn’t know what to say to him. There was no real reason to defend myself, because I hadn’t done anything wrong. But that’s not how he felt. His experience with mother and the phone call were somehow designed to make it look as though I’d done something awful.

  “You can’t believe that,” was all I could say to him. At that moment the waiter brought our order, so I had a moment to collect my thoughts.

  “You simply can’t believe that,” I repeated. “It doesn’t make any sense.” He didn’t say anything. “I mean, for god’s sakes, I called to tell her good news … I called to share good news, nothing else. As a matter of fact I thought she acted a little strangely that night because she hung up on me. But, I didn’t do anything to her.”

  He looked me squarely in the face. “Christina, she was on a rampage the other night. I don’t know how many other people she called, but I don’t think we were the first. It was almost 9 o’clock our time when the call came through.”

  My mind raced to grasp what he was saying to me. That call was made at midnight New York time. God help me. Mother was never up that late unless she was crazy drunk and couldn’t sleep even with the pills. What the hell happened? She just got around to calling these friends two days ago and yet I talked to her nearly two weeks ago. Where in God’s name did she get these ideas? Who got her so fired up against me? What was going on in that strange mind, in that strange world of hers that she could turn my first real success into such an incredible holocaust? How could she turn it all against me like this?

  I looked carefully at the man I’d thought was my friend as well as mother’s friend. And I knew it was going to be just the beginning of the old story all over again. I couldn’t leave mother’s sight before she began running into her own insane ideas about me. I didn’t know whether she had any help with those ideas or whether she was all alone in the venture, but unless I was personally and physically in her immediate presence, right there in her line of vision, able to defend myself, she seemed to allow her own insanity to run rampant. There was no defense against it because she never said any of this to my face, to me personally and directly. She never told me what was in her strange mind. She told other people after it was all twisted and convoluted by the opinions of the snakes that surrounded her. But by the time it came out, she was dealing with the figments of her own imagination as though it was the absolute truth. She believed all of it, even though she’d made it up herself as though it were rational fact.

  I knew there was no use trying to convince this man that the entire thing was mother’s insanity. I knew there was no use trying to tell him that I’d only meant to bring her happiness and proud feelings. I knew it was all useless by the look on his face. I’d seen that look too many times before in my life not to know what it meant.

  The truth was so colorless by comparison with his phone call, so harmless that it didn’t even seem to fit the situation. I knew I wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. Once these vendettas started, people disappeared and the invitations ceased with lightening speed. It was like the rats deserting a sinking ship. No one wanted to be associated with trouble. No one wanted to have their name mentioned in connection with other crazy phone calls mother might make. After all, if she could call them in the middle of the night ranting and raving against the world in general and her own daughter in particular, there was just no telling who would be next. Who needed that kind of trouble? Business was hard enough, there was no sense in looking for more aggravation.

  Indeed, that was the last time I saw this friend of mother’s.

&
nbsp; Before that year ended, I did another show at Universal. This time I auditioned three times for the job. It was a good part, a female radical on the show Ironsides. I’d gotten myself quite a range of characters in the last few months. I’d played a child psychologist on Medical Center, a nun on Marcus Welby and now a radical leader on Ironsides.

  When the agents confirmed that I had the part and would start work again the next week, I took a precaution for my own sake and wrote mother the good news rather than calling her. I was still very hurt over her reaction to my success, over her phone calls to friends, over the fact that she could not or would not share the good fortune with me. I’d worked so hard just to get this far and I thought she would be so proud. Instead what I got was a slap in the face behind my back and a lot of insults.

  I’d only seen mother once during these last months. When she finally came to Los Angeles, it was to present an award at the Golden Globes. It was a hectic evening, as was customary when mother had to make a public appearance combined with a speech. She managed to turn everybody upside down and give her own publicity people instant ulcers, but I was so used to it that it didn’t bother me much any more.

  A few days after the Golden Globe awards dinner, she called to ask if I’d like to join her for lunch at the Bistro restaurant in Beverly Hills with a “man-about-town” friend of hers I’d never met. I just about had time to get dressed and drive to the restaurant if I was going to meet them on time, but I didn’t have anything else planned and I was pleased with the invitation. She was supposed to leave town the next day, so it would be another chance to see her before she went back to New York.

  I arrived at the Bistro about two minutes late and asked for the gentleman whose name mother had given me. He was already seated at the table and I noticed mother had not yet arrived, so I introduced myself to him and sat down. He was a very charming older man and we chatted pleasantly for some time. He ordered us drinks and we continued talking. After about half an hour passed, he started looking at his expensive watch. Both of us were wondering what had happened to my usually punctual mother, but neither of us wanted to initiate the subject of her tardiness. Finally, we had been there waiting for nearly forty-five minutes. He asked me if he should call the apartment. He told me he’d just spoken with her this morning to confirm the appointment which had been made several days in advance, so he was quite sure there couldn’t have been any misunderstanding about either the time or the place.

  I was beginning to have one of my old intuitive feelings that there was something very fishy about this whole set-up. As casually as I could, I inquired what time it was when he’d spoken to her. He guessed that it was about 10:30 or 11:00 this morning. That was just about the time she’d called me. I was beginning to realize that this was a very embarrassing “set-up” on mother’s part. She never had any intention of meeting this man for lunch. Instead of just telling him she was too busy, or any other polite excuse, she’d maneuvered me into taking the brunt of the social slight for her. I knew she wasn’t going to show up now, but I wasn’t quite sure how to let this total stranger know that. Finally, I suggested that we order our lunch rather than waiting any longer for her. I simply said that something must have come up and I was sure there was nothing to worry about. So, we ordered and ate a delightful lunch. The man was a very social, very conversant gentleman and I had an interesting time with him. We had ordered some coffee when he was called to the phone.

  As he left, I thought … poor man, no one deserves this treatment. It was about the rudest thing I’d seen mother do to a totally innocent person. I guess she figures she can behave any way she damn well pleases and most people will just come back for more. I could never understand that.

  She’d just stood this man up, plain and simple. She set it all up so that I’d walk into a very rude, very embarrassing situation and have to try and cover up her creation. It wasn’t even as though I’d met this man before. He was a total stranger to me!

  When he returned to the table, the man looked hurt and puzzled. I’d recognized his name from seeing it a number of times in the social columns and I assumed he wasn’t the sort that had very much experience with being stood up! I wanted to just laugh it off and tell him to forget the whole thing, including his bruised ego. I wanted to tell him it was a reflection on her and her bad manners, as insulting as it was. But since I didn’t know him well enough, I couldn’t say much of anything.

  The “story” he repeated to me was so ludicrous and so childish that even he had to see right through it. He just shook his head and sat down. But then he turned to me and said directly to me, “Did you know your mother wasn’t going to be here for lunch?” I looked at him with what compassion I could feel for a total stranger and said, “No, I’m sorry I didn’t. When I spoke with her, she asked me to join the two of you.”

  It was so obvious to both of us that we were just pawns in a set-up that it wasn’t worth further discussion. He tried to say something polite about my being a charming substitute for my mother and I thanked him for a lovely lunch and it was all a totally meaningless exchange.

  We parted company on a cheerful note and drove off in opposite directions.

  During the time it took me to drive home, I started thinking back over the other times I’d been sent in at the last minute to make things look good for mother, to take up the slack for her, under the guise of how good it would be for my career. As I looked back, I tried to separate helpfulness from the times like this one, where she never had any intention of showing up and had planned the whole thing way in advance. In New York, she had set me up with men who could be helpful to her by suggesting they date me. The implication I got from them is that I was supposed to go to bed with them. They were most surprised and pissed off when I refused, as though an agreement had been broken. Perhaps it had, but I was not a party to it.

  I tried to call mother when I returned home to ask her what the hell was going on, but I was told she wasn’t feeling well and was resting. I didn’t speak to her again before she left. She never returned my phone call.

  It so happened that an apartment in my building was going to be vacant around the middle of February 1971. It was a beautiful apartment, high beam ceilings, hardwood floors, stained glass windows and six big rooms with an occasional ghost in residence. I had not seriously thought about moving to California again, but with this apartment available my thoughts turned to making the decision. I liked New York and I’d always done quite well there professionally. I had a good apartment in the Dorcester and my entire family lived in the east. But maybe it was time to make the move. Everything pointed to continued steady progress in Los Angeles. I’d done four shows and a couple of commercials in just six months. Maybe it didn’t have to be a bad town for me after all. Maybe it was time to give it another try.

  I decided to take the apartment and made the arrangements with the landlord. I even bought a car the woman who was moving had up for sale.

  On my way to New York, I stopped in Florida to visit friends and had what amounted to a lovely vacation for 10 days.

  Once back in the city, it was a hectic stream of phone calls and arrangements. It was the end of February and it was cold. I planned to spend two months in New York and then move back to Los Angeles.

  I called mother upon my return and she was completely cordial. The whole thing was very weird. The first night I was back in the city I attended a dinner party at the home of a very elegant friend of hers. Mother was supposed to be there too, but she never showed up. She never called to cancel either. Her friend was crushed by the social slight. Late in the evening, he called me into another room and asked me point blank if mother hadn’t come to his dinner party which was supposed to have been in her honor, because I was going to be there? I apologized for her not appearing, but I said I didn’t think it had anything to do with me. Of course that was a lie. She was punishing her friend for inviting me, but it was too late now. I couldn’t do anything to save his dinner party. My god … I
thought … it can’t be happening to me all over again … it just can’t. I haven’t done anything wrong! I don’t deserve this! Why does she do this to me?

  I went to see mother a number of times. For once, I did ask her about the dinner party and she just brushed it off, saying she wasn’t feeling well that night. I couldn’t figure her out. To my face she was the same as always, just maybe a little cool, a little distracted. To my face she wished me all good luck and success. It was a very strange time because she never mentioned the phone calls or the other incidents. She never said anything that would indicate there was anything wrong between us. I tried to ask her on several occasions if everything was going all right for her, but she disregarded my questions and went on to other subjects. I gave her the air dates for my last two shows which were scheduled just about a week apart in March. She said she’d watch them.

  It was May before I actually got settled in my new home. Moving cross-country is a chore at best and exhausting. My furniture was a week late arriving and the apartment hadn’t been completely repainted yet, so everything was a mess.

  I thought that my timing was good, though, because the television season was just starting again and I didn’t have a doubt in this world that I’d continue to get work.

  I spent hours on the phone letting everyone know that I was back in town, living here now. I arranged a couple of small dinner parties in my new apartment and was invited to several parties in return. One such gathering was given by a publicity man who had been at Universal. That evening I saw lots of people I knew and had a wonderful time, even though I’d come to the party alone, as I often did. Toward the end of the evening I sat down to talk with my host who told me a rather strange story.