Christina Crawford on the Phil Donahue Show 1978 Part 1

who next Christina Crawford is here Christina Crawford is Joan Crawford's daughter and is the author of a book about which millions of people literally millions of people are talking it's titled Mommy Dearest and it is an unflattering portrait of one of America's most beloved popular movie stars your mother Joan who was given two really erratic and rather antisocial behavior in behind closed doors away from the public let me just try and characterize what I'm what I sense from the book she really could become a very violent person she slapped you often she made you eat the raw portions of the meat that was served and as a child you just hated it you would eat the burnt ends around the edge and leave the red pieces on the plate because it literally made you gag that's it when you fail to eat that meat she put it in the refrigerator and forced you eat to eat it the following morning for breakfast that's when you didn't eat at the following morning what happened it was put back in the refrigerator and I got it for lunch and then dinner and then breakfast again the following day yes you peeled you peeled absent-mindedly as a five-year-old or maybe you were seven the wallpaper off your bedroom wall in a certain area and then you panic when you realize what you had done and tried to paste it back only succeeding and getting fingerprints and making it worse as a result of that indiscretion you were she did what she went to my closet and I had a favorite yellow dress and she took a pair of scissors and she cut it to shreds and then told me I had to wear it for a week and if anybody asked me why I was in this condition I was to tell them I didn't like pretty things so you were forced to actually meet outsiders wearing this tattered oh yes what your underwear was visible - it was later in your mother had a very unhappy childhood I guess I'm as curious about your mother as I am about her relationship with you and about you let me just offer some observations here miss Crawford one is this book this book is a desperate it seems to be a is a desperate say terribly an emotional cry from you almost begging your mother to love you the book is written through the eyes of a child growing up it's not written as an adult looking back so that what happens I think is that the reader experiences I hope the reader experiences what I experienced as a child and yes I spent most of my life trying to make sure that my mother left me she there were night raids in which she dragged you out of bed by your hair that's right she dragged you into claw into your closet and and began screaming as you were just waking up I guess you probably thought you're in the middle of a nightmare I did yes and she was screaming because there were wire hangers in your closet yes my mother had very strict rules we sort of lived in a regimented fashion as though we were in the army I think everything had a prescribed time to be done and there were rules for everything and everything in its place so to speak if there was a minor infraction of those rules particularly if she had been drinking and particularly if it was late at night something took hold of her I don't know her own terror her own fear and she would focus on those minor infractions and punished me brutally sometimes because of it I don't pretend to be the first person that's asked you this question miss Crawford but your mother was such a had such a desperate need I guess in this the word is appropriate when at this point I think you'll agree your mother had a desperate need to present to the public as the classiest the most beautiful the youngest the most intelligent the most vibrant star in Hollywood and all of those close to her her family for how many husbands three actually four four husbands this is our family and aren't we wonderful and you better smile when photoplay took your picture if you knew what was good for you that's right so here was this enormous need for love and esteem this book would just kill her if she was alive well that's probably true because you see what happened was that the the face of herself the image of herself that she presented to the public was so very different than the way we live privately that many people and didn't know who this person was it was as though there were almost two different people so that you're right I was a public person from the time I was a child and that public image of me was a fantasy as well yeah who or what I hope you don't I don't want this to sound like an angry question because I have to say I was in I was very absorbed by this book and I I believe everything in the book I mean I am NOT for a moment questioning the truthfulness in fact your candor is very painful in this book who is served by this book I tell you quite frankly I think the book is much more Universal than just a story about my mother and myself our relationship set in the background of Hollywood from what I have understood from traveling around the country as my husband and I have been doing now this book touches many people's lives people have said to me if you change the names and the extraordinary setting you've written my story and I never thought anybody would understand I never thought that there was anybody out there that I could share this with I thought this was my own private nightmare that I had to keep a secret and that's exactly how I felt all my life I tried to tell the truth nobody would believe me I tried to get help nobody would help me this has been good for you than hasn't it emotionally is this cathartic a lot of people have asked that question I think that if the book itself had been written as a catharsis I couldn't have written it I couldn't have dealt with everything about my life in that compressed period of time if it hadn't been for the fact that I had been trying to deal with my life in some positive fashion for many many years is that visual red Iran you were the only member of the family who agreed just to view your mother's body prior to cremation when she was Davis in fact you make the ironic point that the funeral director seemed to be rather pleased that somebody was going to see the wonderful work he did with the body that's correct so in this awkward way that so many millions of us have have had to sleepwalk through this nightmare of dealing with the funeral director and the cosmetics and the after the embalming and all and isn't she wonderful and doesn't she look nice and all those inane things that people say at wakes you said yes I'll go and you went to the basement of the funeral home and your mother was lying on a table yes you described er is looking very frail she was very thin but somehow attractive even in death well her face was different face yes and here's what you said to yourself as you looked at your mother's body I know you're not really here with me anymore mother I know your soul is gone already I just want to tell you that I love you that I forgive you you know I forgave you long ago we had so much pain together you and I but now mother God has set us both free God has set you free to begin another journey I pray the next one has less anguish God has set us free mommy dearest go in peace goodbye mother goodbye and I love you no following that very poignant mental or silent prayer that you offered for your mother it wasn't long after that that she discovered that she left you purposely and with a final slap in the face out of her will it was one of the great ironies of my life yes irony would not be the word I would use now this doesn't make me right but you had to be angered by this I was shocked I weren't angry shocked not initially no because at first it was very difficult for me to understand I don't think that anybody who has ever been through anything like that can possibly say that you really understand what's going on inside of yourself there are motions tumbling over one another so fast that it's very difficult to sort them out but I really believe that my mother have come to peace with each other and it was quite obvious by that that at least one of us had not what's the line in the will I'm not gonna be able to find it do you must know it by heart I think it's for reasons which are best known to them are well known to them I in other words your mother said in the will I leave nothing to my daughter Christina yes or to my took Christopher my brother for reasons which are best known to them well known to be well known to them and you had to say why you wanted to know okay let's assume the worst you don't here you don't want to put me in your will why do you have to make this parting shot I didn't understand that and I still don't understand that and the will is being contested in a state of New York my brother and I are contesting it so that I'm not really at liberty to say a great deal about it because we will have to go to trial you also you also stand there incredulous as you as you read this document which had been written about a year prior to her death that's right so it was written at a time when you thought you had some reconciliation with your mother that's right and you said you you speculate in your book that here is your mother in death reaching out of the grave and slapping you one more time that's right that's right it was it was very disturbing very upsetting and particularly because I felt that as I say that if it were simple disinheritance there was another way to go about it I felt that my my reputation my life was in question no this analysis and a dime will not get you a cup of coffee in the 70s but please allow me ask you to comment on that it an ammeter analyst will be tempted to conclude that if your mother reached from the grave to slap you by leading you out of the will you have returned the indignity with this public disclosure of her in disgrace there have been people who have said that yes and I I think it's no secret that the book is very controversial that I have become a very controversial person my feeling is and the reaction has been that when people have read the book when they've read the whole book when the book is able to stand for itself and they haven't asked the question and that's what I hope for that the book will touch people in such a way that they will have a better understanding about their own lives we were public people and under public scrutiny but there are millions of people who live with what I lived with and nobody seems to be interested in this story you also say that your mothers that we are all of us reflections of the mirror offered to us by our parents or by those who to whom we become attached as children and that that reflection is often distorted yes particularly I think I've spoken to a number of people who work in the field of child abuse who are experts are not but they they say the particular children are so malleable they want so much to please they want so much for their parents to love them and particularly the abused child who gets such a distorted image of themselves in other words if mommy and daddy beat me and I don't know what I've done wrong I must be some ugly must be something bad about me there must be something intrinsically wrong with me and so the child becomes very guilty and and that becomes like a vicious cycle the harder they try the less they succeed and so particularly I think in the fields of child abuse it's important to understand that the child keeps working harder for that parents love and gets less and less so that they grow up into adulthood having this image of themselves as a mirror of what they see from their parents that's very distorted very distorted how are you doing you look happy you ever you have a happy marriage yes I do I'm very fortunate I'm very lucky how long did it take you to get on your feet from what had to be a I mean you had to feel like you had to feel awful by the time you were 18 years old going much younger than that there were there were times when I was around 15 16 when I didn't think I had the world to live anymore I honestly thought I was going to die when did Powell were you and your mother last slapped you in the face oh I guess that was about probably 15 16 years old I was I was rather surprised that there was not a more vigorous attempt in the book to explain your mother's behavior through her own loveless childhood it's it's touchdown in the book I have to explain also that my mother wouldn't talk about her past she wouldn't tell us what had happened to her so that the little information I had I had to put the P together like pieces in a puzzle and the stories changed from time to time so that I put everything in the book that she told me everything that I knew about but it didn't is it is it possible that your mother behaved this way well I don't I I know this is I don't mean to say we're all robots but I wonder if you had been raised the way your mother had been raised she lost her parents early her father deserted her I mean she had a father who just took off didn't come home then another man entered her mother's life and she became attached to him and he bailed out you know what you're saying I did have that same one very similar but there's okay well my question is if you had been raised as your mother had been raised do you think you probably would have knocked your kids around too I pray to God I wouldn't but I think that you have to make some conscious

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Views: 338,217

Rating: 4.7066059 out of 5

Keywords: Joan Crawford Christina Crawford Wire Hangers Mommie Dearest

Id: YQB7heGEnIo

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2017