Mommie Dearest

by Christina Crawford

  A number of people wanted interviews with me or to take pictures of me, but as politely as possible, I refused. Whatever was going to be immediately reported about all this would have to be done without any quotes from me. And that’s exactly what happened. A lot was written by many columnists during the next few weeks, but it was drawn entirely from their own previous knowledge and hearsay, not from me.

  That evening, the paragraph from the will which disinherited my brother and myself was reported on the television news. In fact, to my astonishment, the newscaster read the entire paragraph verbatim. From there it was picked up and reported in newspapers. The stories were mostly the same. They mentioned the trust fund for my sisters, the unspecified sums to charity and then quoted the paragraph ending with “for reasons well known to them.”

  I suppose that wills were in style now after the fuss over the Howard Hughes and J. Paul Getty documents. I guess there was a momentary fad about reporting wills. I suppose also that a paragraph as suggestive and open to speculation as the one mother had put in her will about us was too good to pass up on the news. I guess it was almost irresistible. I know too that the entire thing was a public disgrace. Now the lie would continue because it had just been well-fed once again. If she’d simply wanted to disinherit two of her adopted children, if that’s all she wanted to do, there are very simple standard ways to do that. There was no need to use the language she chose. There was no need to do what she did, if all she wanted was to make sure we didn’t get anything from her estate. But that’s not what she did, because that’s not all she wanted to accomplish.

  As the days passed after the reading of the will, I tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. What exactly was it that had happened over the years that intervened since last I saw mother. I’m sure it’s not complete, because all the information was second hand, but the picture that emerged was as follows.

  First of all, everyone I spoke with was shocked at what had happened. None of them knew any reasons for it, none of them had any explanation. They all expressed not only their condolences but their empathy.

  But, about two years before her death, a number of different incidents coincided to change her life substantially.

  Mother had completed her last picture in 1970. It was a terrible film called Trog and is best simply forgotten. Her drinking had gotten progressively worse over the years until she was nearly unable to go out in public any longer. It was so serious that the people in the apartment who worked for her put chairs around her bed so she wouldn’t hurt herself in the night and stationed other chairs at various places for her to hold onto. Apparently, during one of the rare times when she was left alone in the apartment, she fell, hitting her head on the corner of a table. She was unconscious for as much as several hours before she was discovered with a severe wound to her temple and one eye. Though it was evidently a fairly serious injury and could have resulted in complications from both the length of the black-out and the wound itself, mother refused any medical attention. She blamed the fall on antibiotics she was supposedly taking, but the conjecture is that she was drunk and slipped on the bare floor. The people who worked for her cleaned up her wound and took care of her as best they could without medical assistance. She categorically refused to see a doctor.

  Pepsi had finally retired her. She was well past 65 years old but the retirement hurt her feelings. Part of it, I believe, had to do with the fact that she knew there were no more acting offers. She insisted on being the “star” and she just couldn’t make the transition that some of the other big stars were somehow able to make. She didn’t become the grand dowager or the character woman. She wanted to remain the big star and the world had passed her by. Her fierce tenacity had outlived reality and usefulness. So, with no more “stardom” the only thing she had left was her job. She finally outlived that too, but she couldn’t reconcile herself to the fact that those were the natural progressions of life. People who saw her said that she seemed to enjoy private life, but I’m not sure that’s totally accurate.

  This was one situation she wouldn’t be able to will herself out of. She was finally retired and fully a private citizen for the first time since she’d been about 16 years old. All she had left was the mail and her prolific correspondence. However, with no New York secretary on company salary, even answering the mail was not an easy task.

  To the best of anyone’s knowledge, the last time mother saw a doctor was also about two years before her death. I do not know what he told her but she never went back to see him again. I do not know what medication she was given. I do know her health began to decline shortly afterwards. But she refused to allow anyone around her to call for medical care.

  After the serious fall and subsequent head injury, mother is said to have stopped drinking. How she did it no one could tell me. But, it would seem that she stopped drinking also without assistance of any kind. After years of alcoholism, that is quite a feat.

  Even during the years I was in New York and saw mother nearly every day, she had been very conscious of security measures that had to be taken to ensure her safety in the apartment. Unfortunately, she received a crank call from an unknown person, threatening her life. The lawyers and her few friends who knew about the call tried to tell her that it was an accidentally dialed number and that the man who called probably didn’t even know the identity of the person answering the phone. But mother was not convinced of the chance nature of the call. It was reported to the police, but no one was ever charged with any offense. The incident unnerved mother. She had extra locks put on all the doors. Everyone had to be announced and checked thoroughly before they were allowed on the elevators. She rarely left the apartment to go anywhere except perhaps to the dentist. She also was never alone again. She was really terrified that someone was going to kill her. In fact, for the last two years of her life, I am told that she never left her apartment at all. She continued to have the woman companion buy those shifts for her, but the labels were never even removed. She continued to have the companion buy things for the apartment such as china and other housewares, though she never entertained. She continued to spend money as though life were going on as usual, but it wasn’t.

  She made out the last version of her will in October. Until then, she had seen the people she invited to the apartment, including Cathy and her husband. In fact, Cathy’s husband had visited her fairly regularly during the previous year since his business brought him into the city often.

  However, in December mother stopped seeing anyone other than the three or four people who worked for her and the Christian Science readers who came regularly. Past December, she never saw any of her old friends, would not allow even Cathy and her husband to visit her. The lawyer told us that the practitioner became concerned about mother’s health and she arranged for readers who were also practical nurses. Mother wouldn’t let them help her in any way or even touch her. By this time her physical condition was deteriorating rapidly. She’d been loosing weight steadily over the past year. Mother was always very proud of her body, but the weight continued to disappear until she was thin and frail. She was no longer strong enough to take care of herself, to bathe, but still she refused to receive help. She refused to allow anyone to notify the family, to call for her doctor or to get medical attention. The only thing anyone says she complained about during those long months was a bad pain in her back which was so severe that she was unable to walk easily or sit for very long. But that is all she would acknowledge: a bad pain in her lower back.

  Two months before her death she stopped smoking. By now she was bedridden and had to be attended as best the two women who were left with her could manage. Neither of them were nurses, but they did the best they could to care for her and make her comfortable.

  The morning of May 10, 1977, there was only one woman with mother. She came in the morning to relieve the other woman who had stayed the night. She realized that mother had a very bad night, but was amazed at the clarity with which she spoke. There
were only the two of them in the room when the end finally came. The woman, realizing there was nothing more she could do, began praying for mother. At first the prayers were silent but as she realized how close the end really was, her prayers became audible. She was praying aloud and mother heard the words. Mother raised her head. The last words from her mouth were: “Dammit … don’t you dare ask God to help me!” A few minutes later she was dead.

  They say that death is for each person as they imagine it to be. They say that the journey into the next world is also as each of us imagines it to be. But every religion has something to say about what is waiting in that next world. They say that it depends on what each of us did with this life.

  The big memorial service in Los Angeles for the motion picture and television industry was scheduled for June 24, 1977. It was being organized by George Cukor and a committee representing a cross section of the industry. I had nothing to do with that either. I think it was George Cukor’s idea.

  Jane Ardmore who had written one of mother’s books called to formally invite me to the memorial. I accepted and said I would also bring my husband and stepson. I thought it was important for him to have some understanding of the woman who was so briefly his grandmother. Not including my stepson, mother had eight grandchildren. The three or four who had met her were not allowed to call her “grandmother”. They had to call her “Aunt Joan”. In fact, the only reference to her being a grandmother that I know of was in the obituary and the articles published after her death. I often wondered if that quirk about not wanting to be called grandmother went all the way back some fifty years to her experience with her first mother-in-law, Mary Pickford.

  There had been a great deal of publicity about the Los Angeles memorial. Evidently, it was the first time all facets of the industry had cooperated to create a tribute to one of their members. The studios contributed film footage, a number of companies made donations to cover the expenses and numerous people gave of their professional skills to make the event a success. I do not know by what process the committee chose the people who were going to speak at the tribute. The program listed their names and called the event “An Industry-Wide Celebration in Film and Fond Memories.”

  My husband, stepson and I arrived at the proper time. David spoke with one of the guards at the door and they admitted us through a side entrance. I was not about to stand in the long line that had already formed.

  Once inside the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences building, a man took us to the elevators. Through the partition separating us from the main lobby of the Academy, I could see the crowd. There was a champagne reception in progress before the tribute itself began. There were also television cameras and photographers flashbulbs going off like strobe lights.

  I stood watching the crowd with fascination. Everyone was behaving as though it was a premiere … and an opening night of some sort. People were being interviewed and having their pictures taken. It was an “event” and I guess they just didn’t know any other appropriate behavior. In fact the entire tribute was being videotaped both for the Academy archives and for future broadcast. So, it was definitely the place to “be seen” that night. And there they all were in the lobby, enjoying the champagne reception and the photographers flashbulbs, the fans milling around outside the building waiting for a glimpse of their favorite personality and the television cameras inside the lobby.

  Special television interviews were going on upstairs on another floor where it was quieter. Up there, former directors and lovers, friends and producers were being interviewed on one subject: Joan Crawford. It was a big event in the careers of the audience tonight. They were definitely “being seen.”

  The man ushered us upstairs and into a private office that had been turned into a temporary waiting room for the people who were going to speak during the tribute program.

  Once we reached the doorway to the office, the man left us without making any introductions. John Wayne was just coming out of the room on his way to one of the pre-taped interviews. I introduced myself and my family and he hurriedly said hello to us, but I’m not sure that he actually heard what I’d said.

  Then I led my husband and 14-year old stepson into the office where a sizable group was gathered. I didn’t recognize all the people but I knew many of them. George Cukor was seated directly opposite me. Kevin Thomas was standing near him and seated next to Kevin was Robert Young with whom I had worked on Marcus Welby. Carmel Myers was there and Jack Jones was seated on the couch next to Myrna Loy.

  I said hello but no one moved or greeted me. There was nearly a total silence which left me standing in the middle of the room with absolutely nowhere to go. George Cukor peered up at me over his glasses, imperiously inquiring, “Who-o-o-o are you?” He sounded just like the Cheshire Cat out of Alice in Wonderland! I almost laughed right out loud. Now the room had fallen into total silence as the people waited for this intruder to identify herself.

  I let the silence last another brief moment, so there could be no mistake about my introduction. Very clearly and distinctly I replied to George, looking him straight in the eyes as I spoke. “I … am … Christina Crawford.” George Cukor stood up as fast as his elderly years permitted. The rest of the room turned into pandemonium. Several people started talking at once. Myrna Loy got up and left the room! She left her drink, her speech and her mink coat right where they’d been sitting the moment before. Again, I nearly laughed. What a strange night this was and it was just beginning. George took my hand and I introduced him to my husband and stepson. George complimented me on turning into a handsome woman for which I thanked him and sat down next to Jack Jones in the spot Myrna had vacated. We were offered some champagne while various people began trying to pick up the threads of their previous conversations. Jack Jones related a peculiar story to me. It began like the old show I’ve Got A Secret and ended with some tale about how he was Joan Crawford’s “Godson”. Over the years, that’s what she’d called him because she was the first to visit his family after his birth. It had been rather like a standing joke with them, nothing more. And now, he’d been asked to speak at this industry tribute, this memorial, on the basis of that story about being her godson. I was polite.

  When the hour finally came for all of us to go downstairs to the theater and we were congregated around the elevators, Myrna came up to me saying she didn’t recognize me before. I didn’t even smile. Fortunately, the elevators arrived at just that moment. She got into one and I stepped into the other.

  My husband, stepson and I were told to sit in any seat of the first two rows. The second row was already full, so we sat alone in the first row. Only three people came up to talk to us.

  The program began with an introduction of the speakers. Kathleen Nolan, president of Screen Actors Guild, who had never met mother, was first. The other speakers were Fay Kanin who had written one of mother’s movies; Robert Young who told about her sending presents on his wedding day and receiving her letters; George Cukor who read his own article on her from the New York Times; Leonard Spigelglass recounted some lovely, funny experiences from the old days; Myrna Loy who was there as “Joan’s oldest friend” which was simply not true; Steven Spielberg of Jaws fame who had made his directorial debut directing mother in an episode at Universal about seven years before. I remember the incident well. Mother was absolutely furious with the studio for sticking her with a 22-year old kid who’d never done anything before. They had a miserable time together. I couldn’t imagine why he’d agree to be here tonight. But the hype works it’s magic in very strange ways. John Wayne was wonderfully candid and got the best laugh of the show. Jack Jones told his “godson” story and sang later to close the program. In between there were film clips from the old movies including a wonderful segment on the early silent films. Naturally, the film broke several times because it was so old.

  At the very end John Wayne read off the list of participants, asking each group to stand as their particular affiliation was mentioned. As the
people in the theater began standing, I thought back over what we’d just seen. There were several mentions of the letters this woman wrote, several stories about the professional experiences shared years ago, a few silly anecdotes out of nervousness. There was nothing about the woman as a person. There was not one mention about her family. No one ever alluded to the fact that I was seated not three feet away in the first row, right under their noses. In fact no one mentioned that she even had a family and no one offered their condolences to me or the rest of the family. In fact, neither the private funeral nor either of the two public memorials had made one single reference to her family.

  At first I had thought that was peculiar, strange behavior. But then I thought about the publicity surrounding the will and I knew that it was all connected. Additionally, most of these people were probably not aware of anyone but themselves and how they looked on public occasions. They may not have even intended to be rude. They were so much a part of the process I’d grown up with all my life that they couldn’t separate themselves from it. They couldn’t treat me any other way but translated through that same screen. They didn’t know any other way professionally and this was certainly a “professional” occasion, anybody could see that. Why, there were television cameras and press photographers and interviews and film being shown and people to be seen with. This was certainly not the time for any of them to start thinking about me.