I have recently been searching throughout the media and the internet for all information and opinions related to actress Joan Crawford’s daughter Christina reporting child abuse from her deceased mother. I see there are many conflicting opinions as well as unanswered questions of what really happened or who may or may not be reporting accurate information regarding Joan Crawford’s parenting of her daughter.
One point that I must consider in the defense of Crawford is that her daughter waited until her mother’s death before publishing the book which lead to the movie, Mommie Dearest, where Crawford is cast as an abusive mother and a despicable person. Obviously if written during her life, she’d have the legal right to sue or prevent the book and movie from portraying her this way, especially if her daughter reported information that did not even happen. But, after Joan Crawford is dead, there may be nothing to legally prevent her daughter from writing whatever she wants and therefore, it could bring Christina’s credibility into question. And given that it happened so many years ago, before most of us were born and could only be witnessed or corroborated by people who are now dead, there are many things we will never know.
However, I recently read an article written in Redbook magazine in 1960, when Christina was only 21 and her mother was alive and well and obviously aware of all that was written in the article. It would only seem in 1960, not many people thought ill of Joan Crawford. This was many years before her death when nobody would have dreamed of her daughter later publishing a book and airing a movie with the horrific charges Christina made of her in the portrayal of Mommie Dearest. And it would also seem the writer of the article in 1960 would have to be “extremely careful” not to misquote Joan Crawford or print anything she could dispute or get them in trouble for writing. The Revolt of Joan Crawford’s Daughter is that article that can be searched online.
There was one specific fact written in the 1960 article that all but confirms to me who I should believe. Joan Crawford was quoted saying that Christina got expelled from Chadwick Academy as a teenager and her mother had no choice except to send her to Flintridge convent where Christina was not allow any phone calls or mail in or out, nor visitors nor allowed to leave or have any privileges or any life until she was a legal adult and could sign herself out of the place. Crawford is quoted as saying the reason Christina got sent to the convent is because it was the only school that would accept her after the expulsion from Chadwick and all the trouble she got into. Yet Christina affirms she was never expelled from Chadwick. Now obviously this “discrepancy” of their two stories in 1960 is not a simple “difference of opinion” between them. Christina either got expelled from Chadwick or she did not. So it means one of them has to be telling a bold faced lie.
In the article, it states that there is no record of Christina’s expulsion from the school she reports her mother forced her out of to put her in a prison-like convent. Why wouldn’t there be evidence of expulsion if it really happened? The article also presents facts that Christina’s academic standing was far above average. She was involved in school plays, the student counsel, the swim team and was a football cheerleader. Not only that, but the article reports that Christina and her brother Christopher actually lived with the directors of the school, Commander and Mrs. Chadwick in their home until her mother pulled the plug on that. We don’t see Joan Crawford disputing this information in the 1960 article so I’ll assume it’s true. How much common sense does it take to conclude that there’s no way she got expelled nor did anybody have a problem with her going to Chadwick except her mother? It confirms to me that her mother has told a bold face lie. And that shows me what kind of a person Joan Crawford must have been to make these false accusations of her daughter to the press.
There is also information of quotes from nuns at the Flintridge Convent who have gone on the record stating that they did not see that Christina did anything wrong nor had any information for why she got stuck there except that her mother alleged that she had “problems” in her old school. One nun is quoted as saying she thought Christina was a “principled and intelligent young lady” and she thought very highly of her.
Joan Crawford is also quoted as saying that the charges that she had “issues” with the Chadwicks are not true and she had very warm regards toward them. Christina disobeyed their rules and had problems with them. Yet it’s kind of odd that Crawford is reported for taking not only Christina out of their school but Christopher and the two other daughters she had as well. Why all 4 kids? Obviously she had issues with them.
In the article, Mrs. Chadwick is quoted for writing in a telegram, in response to the request for her comments, that “because of her experience with Christina’s mother”, she thinks it would be unwise to get her school or herself involved by giving any information about Christina’s separation from her school. Of course, it’s not impossible that she did in fact believe that Christina is the “bad guy” when that’s all she wrote in the telegram. But we also learn, in the article, that while Christina was stuck in the convent, she snuck out one weekend to secretly visit the Chadwick’s although her mother forbade her from every seeing them again. Why would Joan Crawford have a problem with her daughter developing a relationship with adults who run a boarding school, who were probably strict Christian military people and never reported to let her do anything “illegal” or inappropriate? And why, if they booted her from their school, would they later invite her to visit them against mommy’s wishes?. We see a later paragraph of Joan Crawford reporting that her teenage daughter got in the way and wouldn’t let her mother have privacy with her new husband Alfred Steele, the Pepsi king, whom she married while Christina was in the convent when they took her on a trip with them. Hmmmmm. If she needs time alone with her husband, then it would seem to me that a simple solution would be to maybe not bring Christina along with them? If mommy can have her daughter shut off from letters or phone calls and stuck in a convent, she probably won’t “miss” Christina if she’s elsewhere and out of mommy’s hair by perhaps staying for the weekend at a chaperoned visit with responsible adults like, say, the Chadwicks??
Of course, we will never know what really happened or did not, regarding Christina’s account of her mother terrorizing her two small children in the middle of the might, because Christina hung up one of her expensive dresses with a wire hanger. We don’t know whether or not Crawford insulted her 6 year old daughter for “losing” the swimming race because her adult mom was twice her size and could swim faster. We don’t know if she made her daughter eat nasty raw meat. And it may very well be accurate that young Christina mistakenly assumed that the reason mommy had her little brother Christopher strapped to a bed was to torture him. It could have been, as I read in another article, that Crawford did that because Christopher was a danger to himself when he would sleep walk and so she had no choice except to do that for his safety.
And the “allegation” that Christina held the threat over her dying mothers’ head, to “go public” as soon as she is dead, with false accusations her mommy could not defend herself by writing the book, Mommie Dearest, could for all I know, be accurate. It’s not impossible that Christina told mommy in order for her not to smear her after she dies, mommy would have to fork over her $2 million estate solely to her daughter. But, as we know, Crawford did not end up “complying” with any such ultimatum. It’s a known fact that both Christina and Christopher were completely cut out of their mommy’s will. So that makes me assume that Christina either did not want the inheritance and/or was willing to risk losing it in order to tell the truth. Or maybe she did not even know that she had been disinherited until the will was read to her after mommy’s death, when it was too late.