Mommie Dearest

by Christina Crawford

  Tina darling,

  Thank you for your sweet letter. Thank you too, darling, for sending your Daddy and me the invitation to your graduation exercises, with your very formal card enclosed. One usually crosses off the name and writes her first name on those little cards to her friends, Tina.

  You don’t need a new dress to wear to the Baccalaureate Sunday service, Christina dear. You have enough dresses at school, and you must be able to find one in all of those dresses that I have sent you.

  You don’t need a strapless bra, Tina. Ask Bullock’s to put little lingerie straps on each shoulder of your graduation dress, as I have on my dresses, and you can fasten your bra straps in them.

  Love,

  “Mommie”

  I had to go to Sister Benigna and ask her to explain to mother that the bra straps would show through the sheer fabric of my graduation dress. The top was lined, but only just up to the arms. It was so embarrassing to have to always ask Sister to intervene for me, but I had no choice.

  As for “all those dresses” … I didn’t know what she was referring to because all my good clothes were still at home and all I had at school were just some regular clothes, nothing special.

  I still didn’t know from her letter whether or not anyone was coming to my graduation. All the other girls were excitedly making plans with their parents for parties and trips and all the other festivities. High School graduation was a big event for all of us. It was an important turning point for everyone, a moment every single person can remember for the rest of their life.

  I remember my high school graduation as one of the most unhappy days of my life. It wasn’t one of the worst days, but it was one of the most unhappy.

  On June 11, the day before graduation and also my 17th birthday, I received this Special Delivery letter:

  Tina darling,

  I’m so very sorry, but I am working, and I won’t be able to attend your graduation exercises. I have to work all day on Tuesday at the Studio to get my clothes ready, and then take your Daddy to the airport in the evening.

  Aunt Bettina will bring your birthday and graduation presents out to you on Tuesday. She will also bring you a white strapless bra.

  All my love,

  “Mommie”

  I crumpled the blue Joan Crawford stationery into a ball. I clenched the blue ball of paper in my fist. God … I hated her.

  So … she and daddy were both right here in Los Angeles … and no one but the secretary was coming to my high school graduation. The secretary wasn’t even coming to the graduation; she was just delivering presents and a bra!

  My mother and my step-father were less than one hour’s drive away from my school and neither one of them were coming to my graduation. She wasn’t shooting a picture … she was trying on clothes! She couldn’t find any better excuse … so she was trying on clothes at the Studio … all day? And, since when did she drive Daddy to the airport? They had limousines do that.

  So that was to be the story. The reason that neither my mother nor my stepfather were coming to my graduation was that she had to try on some clothes and he had to catch a night flight?! That’s the reason they couldn’t take three hours out of their busy lives to come to my high school graduation? One was trying on dresses and the other had a plane to catch, at night? My graduation was scheduled for 2 p.m. in the afternoon. This was just another way to let me know I was being punished.

  Betty arrived early the next day bringing me three small, gift-wrapped boxes, some cards and a white strapless bra. She stayed through graduation.

  When the graduation ceremonies were over, I met many of my classmates’ parents. There was a short school reception immediately following graduation, then the majority of the girls left with their parents.

  I went back to my room about 4 o’clock. I took off my pretty white graduation dress, hung it up carefully and sat down on the edge of my bed. I sat there crying for some time. Everybody knew that I was the only girl in the graduating class without any family in attendance. Everybody knew that I was being punished. Everybody knew, and I could see the old look of pity in their eyes. How I detested that look. It made my skin crawl with humiliation and anger.

  That night while the rest of my class was enjoying the big Irvine party, I ate dinner alone in one corner of the empty dining room. I watched an hour of television in the recreation room and I went to bed. Two days later, this letter arrived from my hard-working mother.

  Christina darling,

  Aunt Betty told me about your beautiful graduation ceremonies, and how exquisite you looked. I am so proud of you. Also, I am delighted that you received the Scholarship ribbon and the Legion of Honor medal from the American Legion.

  You are a good, sweet girl, and you are behaving beautifully now. I want you to know that I love you very much and am proud of you.

  Christina dear, be sure to write thank-you letters for all your birthday and graduation gifts and cards, and send them to me. I will mail them from here.

  “Mommie”

  I seriously wondered if mother had written that letter. It sounded more like the way Betty talked and I wouldn’t have doubted it if mother had said “you were there, you write the letter and I’ll sign it.”

  Actually, among the cards was a very sweet note from my Aunt Helen Hayes and another from Eleanor Powell. They had both sent gifts. I was very surprised that they had remembered me and tried to write really nice thank-you notes to them.

  That I still had to send the finished letters to mother galled me. I was seventeen years old for heaven’s sake and still treated like a nitwit.

  But to mother personally, I wrote a dilly of a letter. The final crowning blow of that miserable graduation day was when I opened the so-called birthday and graduation presents from her. There were two small, matching boxes that had been separately gift-wrapped. Each box contained one gold earring! One box had a birthday card on it and the other box had a graduation card on it. She had given me one earring for my birthday and one earring for my graduation! And that was it … nothing else. I was so furious that I couldn’t find words for it until sever days later. Her reply, dated June 20, is one of the classic letters in my collection. I had really gotten to her. I had touched some of the buried triggers. She replied at length and in true “queen bee” style.

  Christina dear,

  Thank you for your sweet letter. I am glad you liked the ear-rings. The reason I had them boxed in two boxes was that one was for your birthday, and the other was your graduation present.

  You say “I’m sorry you weren’t at my graduation because it was an experience we should have shared as it happens only once, and can never be recaptured.” Christina, if you could only know the many moments we could have spent together that we can never recapture. You would not have written this letter if you had fully understood. There have been years of moments that you have failed to share with me - for your good, and for your life; so your sarcastic criticism of me for not being at your graduation made me feel awfully sorry for you. If you really understood about my work, you wouldn’t have bothered to criticize me. It so happens I stood for seven hours that day, having fittings for a film so I can pay for your education.

  The children and I are fine, thank you for asking. They will be home for a long weekend this week.

  I’m not sending your letter to Christopher, because he didn’t send you anything, not even the cards. And it isn’t sad that he wasn’t at your graduation. He has to earn the right to go out, and he has to behave in public before he can attend a graduation. I am sure you can understand why I am not sending your letter to him, as he would wonder what he had sent you. He is so thoughtless that he shouldn’t be thanked until he has really done something, and has improved as a human being; and until he thinks of others first, for a change. Like you -

  I don’t know when I am leaving for Europe yet, as we are having a lot of costume problems and story problems.

  I noticed you had “Room with Bath” marked on your Carne
gie Tech, application form. I changed it to a room where you share a bath, as I cannot afford any more expenses.

  Christina dear, will you please send me a list of the relics and other museum pieces that we took to the Chadwick School from the Museum in Carmel, and which were put on display in their “Science Room”. Please do not contact the Chadwicks about them. I just want you to list them for me from memory.

  You thanked Aunt Betty for the eleven pairs of stockings. They were given to you by Jennie and Jimmy and a birthday card from them was attached to the gift. Would you please write thank-you letters to them? As it should be.

  Love,

  “Mommie”

  P.S. Please see next page.

  Christina dear,

  Since I talked to you tonight about Kathy Edwards, I would like to know where else you have been. I would like to hear it from you rather than from someone else. How did you know Kathy’s name and address - and where to go - and what did you go for?

  I don’t care how silly you think the questions are that I have asked - or how ridiculous - I want an answer to them.

  If I don’t hear from you within one week, I will cancel your enrollment at Carnegie Tech.

  Love,

  “Mommie”

  Mother had taken us to the lunatic fringe again. Working backwards, Kathy Edwards was a friend of my brother’s. He told me where she lived and what part of town it was in. I’d never been there but mother wouldn’t believe me and I didn’t feel like arguing with her anymore. It was all too stupid. I wrote her that I’d never been there or anywhere else that she didn’t know about and left it at that. She was just going to have to deal with the rest of her paranoia by herself.

  But the first part of the letter was something else. From long years of experience I knew that somewhere in her being mother felt guilty. She couldn’t stand any kind of honesty outside of the narrow confines of her work. She couldn’t tolerate personal honesty. She interpreted any kind of honest reaction from someone else as criticism of herself. This time she’d been flat out wrong and she knew it. Her answer always to hide behind her work … to play the martyr … to try and make us feel guilty for receiving an education … to make us feel guilty about being alive. It was bullshit … We cost her almost nothing. Flintridge tuition was $1,200 a year. That included room and board as well. I had never been home except those four days of Thanksgiving. Chris, Cindy and Cathy were all in boarding schools. She was the one who put us in boarding schools … she decided we were all to leave home … not us. She put me in boarding school when I was only ten years old. My sisters started Chadwick when they were in second grade. She could have left all of us in public schools, but she chose differently, not us. We never asked her for any of it, but she totally ignored that and tried every way she knew to make us take the responsibility for her decisions. We were supposed to be forever grateful for her bountiful provisions … her care and concern for our well being … the sumptuous manner in which she had provided for our wonderful and privileged life-style. It was all bullshit … right down to the last syllable.

  Indeed, mother and I had missed years of shared experience, but who’s doing was it? I never asked to be sent away from home and locked away in boarding schools. I never asked not to come home. I never asked not to see my own brother and sisters grow up. She sent us away because she wanted to. She made the decisions about our lives and we had no choice but to live with them.

  I thought back over the last two or three years of my life. What was it that had brought two years of punishment upon me? Well, let’s see … one year of punishment was for not preparing a list of Christmas cards fast enough to suit her and the seven months of punishment were caused by a two-day visit to a couple in their sixties who had been my foster parents for five years.

  Those were my “crimes”. A Christmas card list and a visit to a couple in their sixties. For these heinous disobediences, I received a sentence of one year, seven months in solitary confinement.

  However, while serving this sentence, I was supposed to feel unending love and deepest gratitude for the benevolence of my long-suffering, hard-working mother. My mother who believed in a philosophy of “take away what she loves most … and she’ll learn giving.” A philosophy of “maximum punishment for all disobedience … she’ll learn to behave.”

  The truth of the matter was that I had nothing to be grateful for! I had spent approximately three months out of the last three years off the campus of a boarding school. I had no money, few clothes, none of the normal privileges given to other kids my own age and no home. I had been orphaned twice. Once by my own biological parents and the second time by my adopted parent. Since the age of ten I had grown up in institutions and foster homes, even if they went by other names. And, I had received better treatment, more consideration and basic understanding, compassion and fairness at the hands of comparative strangers than I ever had in my own home. For all this, I was to be eternally grateful.

  It is no wonder that I had suffered from migraine headaches for the last year and a half. The headaches had gotten so bad last year that Sister suggested to mother that I should be taken to a doctor. First I was taken to an eye doctor who checked my vision thoroughly and could find nothing wrong. Then, when I was told I was being taken back for a final eye examination, I found myself instead in the offices of a psychiatrist! I was furious with the deception, not with the fact that I was being sent to a shrink. I took the battery of tests the lady doctor gave me, stacked up the cards in yes and no piles, and gave my interpretation of the Rohrshalk pictures.

  When all these were concluded, the woman asked me to come into her private office. She seemed like an understanding person, she seemed genuinely interested in helping me. I told her about the terrible headaches and when they had started. She asked me a few questions about my answers to the Rohrshalk test and then she asked me if I had any idea what might be bothering me … what might be causing my headaches.

  I looked her squarely in the face and said to her directly: “Yes. I hate my mother.”

  That was the end of the interview. That was also the end of my visits to any doctor. That was not the end of my headaches.

  Before she left for England, mother sent this letter, the last I was to receive for nearly two months.

  Christina dear,

  I am returning your letter to Andre Fleuridas, Jr. It is a sweet letter, but you haven’t mentioned the gift that he sent to you. It was in a little square box, Tina. Perhaps that will help you remember which gift he sent to you.

  Also, please write thank-you letters to Jennie and Jimmy, and send those, with Andre’s letter to me.

  Love, “Mommie”

  Jenny and Jimmy were the cook and her son. Andre was the son of one of mother’s jewelers, the man who made most of her specially designed matching sets of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, topaz and emeralds. I had known his son since I was about eleven.

  During the remainder of that summer after graduation, I did what I could to help Sister Benigna. I worked in the office, answering the phones, typing transcripts, processing the applications of prospective students. I tried to lighten the enormous work load Sister had in her dual role as principal and administrator of the school. She had been very good to me. She had stayed up many, many nights talking with me when she knew she had to get up every morning at 5 o’clock. She had taken responsibility for bending some of mother’s restrictions and letting me go to an occasional movie. She had obtained permission from Mother Superior to allow me on one of the outings the sisters took to Lake Arrowhead where they had a small cabin. She had done everything within her power to make life bearable for me. She had extended herself way beyond any call of duty or technical responsibility for my well being.

  I realized during the quietness of that summer that I had also learned a lot from the sisters and the special life of the convent. As much as I had originally hated it and the circumstances that had brought me here, I had learned some lessons that perhaps could not have been
attained any other way. I had come in contact with myself, with my own loneliness, my own craziness, my own hatred and impatience. Before, I had never known the kind of pain I’d felt during these long months of solitude. There was no escape for me … I had to find a way to face myself … learn to live with myself … and begin to be patient with myself. Patience. I had come face to face with my own Nemesis. Patience. The curse of the young. Patience. The secret weapon of survival.

  I thanked Sister for her understanding, her many kindnesses toward me. I was a difficult person. I tended toward brooding and turned inward upon myself. She had met me with gentleness, with wisdom and with love. I admired her deeply.

  Shortly before I was to leave for college I read an article in the Los Angeles Times about an auction. It was with great sadness that I realized it was the contents of our house that were going up for sale. I wrote mother a letter inquiring about that auction and received this handwritten reply on August 27 from Great Fosters, Surrey, England.

  Tina dear

  Thank you for your two letters and sweet card - I know you called Aunt Bettina thinking I had left earlier than I did - but as I told you - the papers had me leaving every day for two weeks before I actually left - It’s strange you never cared about the house or the running of it - until you saw an ad for auctioning - the house will be sold soon I hope - because there is no more love in it

  Yes dear I know about the doctors-dentists the bills -come in even before you arrive for the appointment

  We start shooting this coming Wednesday - with no script - as usual - the weather is glorious for me - its cold - rainy - and not the blistering heat of Calif and New York - No refrigeration-no air-conditioning - the food is horrible - its fish with flies or steak -so thin you cannot find it - Everything is cooked in mineral oil - its a laxative every meal - I’m in the Suite of Henry the Eight and Ann Bolyn - the beds sink to the floor in the middle - the spiders are as big as tarantulas - and they are every where - we check our beds each night –