Mommie Dearest

by Christina Crawford

  At first I didn’t realize exactly what was going on with some of the kids I met during that fourth grade year. It was a confusing time because they teased me about dressing funny and then would be very nice to me. It was a bit of a paradox that I was overdressed at the birthday parties and had to wear overalls to school. What mother’s thinking was, I don’t know, but it was unusual for little girls to wear pants to school in those days. I guess she thought it was most practical, but it made me feel funny not to be dressed like the other kids. After a while I begged and pleaded and she got me some cotton dresses for school. Not enough to wear one every day, but at least part of the time I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

  The same kids that teased me about my funny clothes and high topped shoes, the same kids that snickered about my not having a father were the very kids that for no reason I could figure out suddenly did a complete turnaround and became super nice to me.

  Sadly enough I guess I was so pleased to have the teasing subside that I naively interpreted their change of behavior as an indication of friendship. Since it was well known that I was hardly ever allowed to go anywhere on the weekends or during the summer, the only way to pursue the friendship was for me to invite them over to my house. Usually after a couple of hints on their part about having heard that we had a pool, I would ask my mother if I could invite a couple of school friends over for a swim that Saturday and she would usually say yes.

  On Saturday afternoon the children would arrive and we’d all go swimming. Afterwards mother would let us have some Good Humor ice cream bars as a treat. Somewhere during that span of time, one or another of the kids would bring up the subject of mother being a movie star. Then someone else would ask if they could maybe have a photograph. If mother was home, I would go into the house and ask her if she’d give my friends an autographed picture. She was always quite happy to oblige and would come down to the pool with the latest 8x10 glamour portraits and sign each individually with the child’s name on it.

  In a short while, the kids left with their movie star pictures tucked under their arms.

  I’d only seen one of mother’s movies. It was called Humoresque with Johnny Garfield. I was in love with John Garfield. I adored him. He was my hero. I was about eight when I saw that movie. At the end of the picture mother walked into the sea and died. I had been sitting next to her during the film, but she’d gotten a phone call and left before the end. I was so engrossed in the movie that I didn’t realize she was gone. The movie was very sad and then at the end she walked into the ocean and died. I was crying. When the lights went on I turned to hug her … she wasn’t there! Before I could sort things out, I thought the movie was real and that she was really dead. I screamed and ran out of the theater like a little crazy person. I ran everywhere looking for her screaming “Mommie … mommie” until I finally found her in the house, still on the phone. I threw myself across her lap sobbing with relief.

  Monday at school when I’d bounce up to the same kids who were at my house on Saturday, the reception was entirely different. It was just one step short of the cold shoulder. I was very hurt and didn’t understand what could have happened.

  One day I was nearly in tears. After school, my friend Judy and I sat down to talk about it. It was Judy who finally told me: the only thing those kids wanted was to see a movie star’s house and get the autograph to prove it.

  I got so mad at her we nearly had one of our old fights. I called her a liar and rode off on my bike in a total fury. By the time I got home the exercise had calmed me down somewhat and I began to try and sort out what she’d said. I didn’t talk much to anyone at home that evening, just ate dinner did my usual chores and homework. When it was time to go to sleep, I lay awake in my bed going over and over the last few months. I realized that what Judy had told me was true. After I’d invited those kids over for a swim and they’d gotten mother’s autograph they weren’t my friends any more. I didn’t know anything yet about what I later called the big lie, but I’d already felt the full impact of it’s force and it’s cruelty. It was inescapably clear to me that those kids didn’t care a bit about me and that all they’d wanted was to get to see some Hollywood star in person. Some of the kids hadn’t even tried to get an invitation, they just asked me point blank for an autographed picture and would continue to bug me about it until I either had to tell them to forget it or go though the whole embarrassing process of asking mother and then taking the picture with me to school. I felt like a pawn constantly being used.

  I already knew that mother used us for all those publicity stories in the movie magazines. Even at eight years old it wasn’t hard to tell the difference between our regular routine and the make-believe situations the photographers always wanted. Everything changed when the publicity people were coming. I had to get dressed in one of the many “mother and daughter” outfits we were always photographed in and my hair was specially curled. Then mother and I would go through the whole day doing things for the camera and changing from one matching outfit to another. The publicity people would have all these scenes they wanted us to act out like it was part of our normal day and there was always somebody asking silly, set up questions and writing down all the pre-rehearsed answers.

  Mother told me what she thought the writer was going to ask me and also told me what to answer in reply. We would practice that a few times until she was satisfied I had it right. She made me pronounce my words carefully and stand properly. She said that if they asked any other questions, I was to let her answer. You couldn’t be too careful with the press, she said, and it was better to say nothing than to risk being misquoted. So I was to smile and look pretty and be polite and speak only when spoken to and do as I was told like a good girl.

  My young world was getting to be full of contradictions. When the publicity people and the photographers were around I was still treated like the little golden princess. But at school the kids were mean to me because I wore coveralls and didn’t have a father. Worse yet, they pretended to be my friend in order to get a lousy picture and see a movie star. It was the beginning of the confusion as to who I really was and none of the images rang exactly true.

  Once I decided to run away from home. It was one of those frequent times I’d found myself eating on the freezer in the back porch for some minor infraction of the rules. I was going to school anyway and decided just to leave early. Out the back door I went and headed for Cynthia Shaw’s house. It wasn’t a very major attempt at running away because before I got very far down Sunset Boulevard I heard the sound of screeching brakes and looked behind me to see mother’s black Cadillac coming to a dusty halt. She jumped out of the car and hauled me off the street. She was furious with me and demanded to know just what in the world I thought I was doing and where I thought I was going. Scared to death, I mumbled something about going to Cynthia’s house. Despite all my protestations, she took me to the Shaw residence where the entire household was told about my “runaway” plans. Of course the entire incident was a complete surprise to Mr. and Mrs. Shaw and although they seemed to be sympathetic, they clearly didn’t want any part of the mess. Driving home in the car, mother seemed to be pleased that the family had disavowed any pleasure in my choosing their home. She asked me how come I always seemed to like everybody else’s house better than my own. She said, “Every time you go over to someone else’s house they always have such glowing reports about how helpful you are, which is odd because you never want to lift a god-damned finger in your own house. You constantly complain about having to help.”

  As I sat there listening to her I wanted to run away all over again. Somehow she’d turned the reports of my good behavior into a condemnation of me. I didn’t know how she did it but I couldn’t win. No matter whether I was good or bad it somehow got me into trouble. If I tried to be a good girl, she said I was only being good to show off to others, or worse still that I was only being good because I wanted something.

  For some reason Cynthia and I weren’t as clos
e friends after that. Mother was always suggesting that she come over and they were good friends. At mother’s own request, Cynthia called her “Stinky” and they seemed to have fun together. I don’t know why but I never quite trusted Cynthia to be my friend from then on. It seemed that it was getting harder to trust anyone to be my friend. And if it looked as though mother was paying a lot of attention to any of them, I would decide never to tell them anything important or any of my little secrets anymore. They could still come over and play from time to time, but they wouldn’t have any more real information about how I felt or thought about anything in particular.

  I think if it hadn’t been for my really good friend Judy Clayton I would have died of boredom and loneliness.8

  Anyway, I continued at the Gretna Green school for another year. With the exception of math which still posed problems, my schoolwork was straight A’s. Again the teachers suggested that I be double promoted and again over a weekend I went from the top of the fifth grade to the top of the sixth grade. This time the transition wasn’t so easy. Now the other children in the class were a full year older than I and it made a difference. It happened so fast that I had no time to catch up on what I’d missed in the first half of the sixth grade and Mrs. Howe had her hands full with the twins who were still pretty little, leaving no time to tutor me. I picked up most of the subjects all right but math was beginning to be quite confusing. As hard as I worked at it, I couldn’t seem to fit all the missing parts together. Mother had always been very demanding about my grades and I got into a lot of trouble if I didn’t get all A’s on my report cards. If my grades slipped, my privileges at home were taken away and I had extra work to do, so there was more than enough incentive to study. Fortunately for me, I always liked school. It seemed to come fairly easily for me and I never had to work too hard to accomplish good grades. Ironically that’s why the school kept promoting me, because they could see that I didn’t have to struggle. I guess the point was that if you didn’t have to struggle, something was wrong.

  It didn’t matter too much though, because my scholastic vacation was about to come to an end.

  8 After the book was published, people who personally witnessed the abuse toward my brother and me came forward to tell of their remorse never saying or doing anything to stop it. Everyone was a studio employee and afraid of loosing their job if they interfered. One of these eye witness’ accounts involves Chris. It was a Sunday afternoon in summer. Several guests were sunning themselves around our pool when they heard a commotion. My brother had been caught playing with matches and accidentally set papers in a wastebasket on fire.

  As a punishment, mother dragged him by the arm to stand in front of the guests and then she proceeded to forcibly hold his hand over lighted matches until his skin burned and he howled in pain. He was then spanked and sent to his room.

  The second eyewitness was about me. Mother’s studio publicity had acquired a “Mother of the Year” award for her from a children’s charity. One evening, publicists from the studio and the charity were gathered in our formal dining room with samples of the advertising campaign strewn across the long table.

  Evidently my brother and I were playing “hide and seek” in another room when a shriek followed by crying was heard by everyone in the dining room.

  Mother sent for us and moments later the governess brought me into the room saying quietly that “the children” had been playing and Chris got his fingers caught in the door when I ran through it and closed it behind. She made clear that it was an accident.

  Without a word, mother grabbed me by the arm and in front of everyone gathered for the meeting, shoved my hand in the doorframe, slammed the door shut with considerable force while I screamed.

  The nurse ran to me, opening the door. Mother ordered us out. She then turned back to the stunned group, resumed work on the publicity campaign for “mother of the year” behaving as though nothing had ever happened!

  RECOLLECTIONS FROM JUDY

  “Christina will spend the rest of the afternoon in her room, Judy. Please phone your Mother to come drive you home.” Another visit with my friend ended much before planned. I was bewildered and embarrassed. Over the years, detailed plans would be made through our mothers for me to spend overnight or the weekend, to accompany Christina to a specific event or for us to spend the afternoon playing in her room, swimming in the pool or watching a movie in the theater at her house. But it was not uncommon for the plans to be abandoned without warning. Some disciplinary action taken by Christina’s Mother to punish her usually for not cleaning or scrubbing or straightening some personal item or household space to Joan’s satisfaction, would be announced violently. It was confusing and embarrassing to me, but something to which I adjusted, as it was the price paid to visit with my longtime friend.

  Christina and I had met on our first day at Brentwood Elementary School. When my Mother drove me to school that day, she recognized the driver of the large wooden-sided bronze colored station wagon next to our car as Joan Crawford, one of her most admired movie stars! And the little girl standing up in the back seat with long, white-blond curls I would later meet as Christina, one of my kindergarten classmates. In my years at Brentwood School, we would to be in many classes together and, even if not in the same class, we enjoyed playing together at recess. We shared the experience of being in Brownies together. One year, my Mother was the Troop Leader, which gave her an additional opportunity to interface with Miss Crawford (as I always addressed her).

  I realized that Christina had less freedom than I and my other friends as a security measure. For in those years, the fear of kidnapping the child of a famous star was realistic. As she and I became friends such that I was invited to her house to play or sleep over, I felt privileged. I was always coached on displaying good manners by my More, not that I had a separate set of behavior mannerisms for Really Special People. Even so, my excursions into this privileged life brought me into contact with people and situations with which I had no prior experience. Despite coaching and manners, I alone established and practiced my own personal policy of nondisclosure with regard to Christina’s life. I do not remember discussing with other friends any of our excursions or activities or the extraordinarily severe punishment pattern that was a dependable feature of her life. In retrospect, I believe I accepted her friendship and the awareness of both the typical and the unique aspects of her life without breaking the confidence of her privacy.

  On at least one special occasion, Christina was allowed to come visit me at my house. It may not have been unusual for her to be allowed to visit friends’ homes, but my house was quite different from any she would have visited, I felt sure. It was a small, meticulously clean stucco house about one-twentieth the size of the mansion at 426 N. Bristol. I think our house covered about as much square footage as the Crawford swimming pool. We had a garden in the back yard that produced a few vegetable varieties which we happily consumed at the time of their appearance. We also had a well kept inner yard of chickens that provided a continuous supply of fresh eggs. The day that Christina came to visit, my initial embarrassment at the comparative humbleness of my home was quickly replaced by my recognition that she was experiencing a place different from those she had visited before. Most of all, we felt free of those unannounced guerrilla raids that invariably preceded severe punishment. FREEDOM for the day.

  For ten or so years our friendship allowed me to visit what appeared from the outside to be a fairytale world. I came to see the unreality of that illusion. Despite the elegance of furnishings in a mansion set on beautiful grounds with exceptional recreational facilities, and a household staffed by functionaries who performed with militaristic precision, this was an empty castle. The people were not real people. Most of all, there was not a real family in any sense with which I was familiar. I do not remember ever seeing Joan, “Miss Crawford,” as I carefully addressed her, display any affection, not even the smallest gesture, except when adult visitors, especially movie industry
dignitaries or photographers, were present. At such times, most elaborate preparations were made to create the impression that what the eye saw or the story told was everyday life. In actual fact, the illusion of maternal involvement in the small details of Christina’s life, like my own Mother’s or that of any child’s mother among my own friends, was pure, concocted fiction. Christina was brought up by governesses, cooks, secretaries and a corps of temporary contract characters in the charade-life through which she was led.

  How did this dynamic change after the arrival of Cindy and Cathy, “The Twins,” as they were usually called? To me, the outsider, it seemed not at all. When The Twins joined the household, they were infants. They were of a different time and, as it turned out, were treated to quite different lives. Their activities and care kept them almost completely separate from Christina’s and mine, although we sometimes had Christopher “around” when we played. I noticed that Christopher also seemed to be punished often and probably just as severely. Most people would think that these had to be a couple of very bad kids to be punished so often and so severely. But they were not. Christina knew the rules. She maintained her room and bathroom exceptionally well. Her regular chores included cleaning floors and sinks elsewhere in the mansion. More than once during my visits, she was required to scrub the bathhouse floor again. (It already seemed quite clean to me.) My sincere requests to assist her would be rejected by Miss Crawford.

  After Christina was transferred to the Chadwick School, we were able to visit only occasionally. I would be invited to stay one or both weekend days or sometimes during a school vacation. But not often. And then there were no more calls. No more contact from Christina. No word. I would phone to ask about her. She was unavailable. No word. It hurt. After several years, the pain of never hearing from my friend subsided and was forgotten.