“It’s like Greek tragedy or something.”ĭearest was a minor hit for Paramount, grossing $19 million ($56 million today), but was trashed by critics and shunned by Dunaway. “It’s almost expressionistic,” Xander Berkeley, 65 - who in the film played Christina’s younger brother, Christopher, as an adult - says of Dunaway’s creative choices.
(The saccharine THR op-ed would seem to support this.) Among the more shocking claims made about her mother, Christina wrote that she was beaten for using wire hangers in her closet instead of crocheted ones starved for several days for refusing to finish a rare piece of roast beef and pounded over the head with a can of Bon Ami Powder Cleanser until it “burst open.”Īll those monstrous allegations - and many more - made it into the 1981 movie adaptation of Mommie Dearest, which features Faye Dunaway in one of cinema’s most over-the-top performances as the celebrity mom from hell. Identify all themes of interest from this film (block below). This was one of those big-ish movie releases which somehow let blood in the water and became victim of a feeding frenzy of mockery disproportionate to its failings it dealt Faye Dunaway’s stature as a star/serious actress a blow from which it has never recovered and kicked the quite interesting director Frank Perry into the long grass too.
mommy dearest movie mommie dearest book joan crawford. 1930s Colonial from 1981 Film Mommie Dearest Torn Down After Selling for 18.8M 355 S Mapleton Drive, Los Angeles, California, United States, 90024 An expansive grouping of property along one of Los Angeles’ most coveted streets is being transformed into a single nearly 3 acre estate for Hong Kong-based couple Karen Lo and Eugene Chuang. In 1978, the year after her death, the eldest of her children, Christina Crawford, published Mommie Dearest, a sensational account of life under Crawford, which alleged that the star had adopted her kids only as a publicity stunt. Starring: Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid and Steve Forrest Directed by: Frank Perry Mommie Dearest. Of course, everything was far from fine in Crawford’s home. Original movie poster for MOMMIE DEAREST (1981) 1419 Original Paramount Pictures One Sheet Poster (27x41). Hollywood Flashback: 'Spirited Away' Broke Records and Made Oscar History I administer them myself - and then feel badly the rest of the day until I see them and they kiss me and make up, and everything’s fine once again with the world.” They get spanked the same as any youngsters when they’re naughty, which isn’t very often, and I don’t delegate the spankings to others. Cheyney writes of her kids, “They’ve taught me the value of moulding firmness with love. 31, 1947, issue of THR, Joan Crawford penned a page-long paean to the wonders of motherhood that began, “I’ve been reading in the newspapers and magazines about how noble it is of Joan Crawford to adopt four children.” Three paragraphs later, the star of Mildred Pierce and The Last of Mrs.