Joan Crawford or Christina?

Why can't you treat me... like I would be treated by any STRANGER on the street??!!!

Joan. While Joan may have been a strict disciplinarian, I don't believe all of Christina's story. The twins didn't see Joan the same way- they loved her. Christina was jealous and ungrateful and seemed to want to compete with Joan.

100% Joan. Christina was nasty and ungrateful,

My mother refused to watch Mommie Dearest, because she strongly felt that one should never speak ill of the dead.

Not only that, but she felt it was dirty to air all of this, without Joan being able to refute what was said about her.

I tend to agree with my mother.

Team Joan all the way

Joan's 1952 "Jimmy Fund" promo is all true. She was a loving, caring, and grateful mother. So grateful. How truly blessed she was.

The twins are so much younger that I think they experienced a very different approach to mothering than Christina and Christopher.

Joan was so damaged by how roughly she was treated when she was growing up that i think she didn't know how to be a mother at first.

I am thus Team Christina.

Christina is an ungrateful little bitch. I know because I have a daughter just like that. But, it doesn't change the fact that Lucille was a shitty mother. Fuck her.

TEAM CHRISTINA ALL THE WAY.

Christina was telling the truth. She was dreadfully abused by Joan Crawford. Others saw the abuse but did nothing about it. On the Dick Cavett show June Allyson recounted having lunch with Joan Crawford (she never had lunch with her again) and Christina. Christina was silent throughout the meal. Joan explained that Christina has been a bad girl, had talked back or something and was being punished. At the end of the lunch she commanded Christina to go upstairs and bring down the beautifully wrapped package that she was to take to a birthday party she was supposed to go to that day. When she brought it down she told her she was to sit there, with the package on her lap, until the birthday party was over. "Isn't that sad?", she said. Cavett and the studio audience was speechless. When Cavett spoke he said "I wish Joan Crawford were alive so I could paste her one." He also called her "a psychopathic sadist." He was right.

Is that your example R9? She had to sit in a chair with a package on her lap? She couldn’t speak in a restaurant?

Agreed, R10.

That doesn't sound "horrific" or anything close to "torture."

Christina was a spoiled brat.

Both are/were crazy cunts. Christina, even given what her mother put her through, is still a reprehensible woman who I find extremely repellent. Remember when Bette Davis's daughter tried to ape her shtick? She's terrible too.

FFS leave it alone! You queens manage to post something about Joan and Christina every few fuckin days!

"She had to sit in a chair with a package on her lap? She couldn’t speak in a restaurant?"

Oh come on, you idiot. That was just one incident. Read Christina's book. See how YOU would like being treated the way she was.

Don’t forget about that big piece of raw, unappreciated meat. What a waste.

Here's another example of Joan Crawford's parenting. Christina, as a small child, absentmindedly picked at the wallpaper in room, while lying in bed, causing a small piece of the wallpaper to come off. When Joan finds out she tells Christina to take out her favorite dress. She then proceeds to shred it and commands Christina to wear nothing but that one, shredded dress for a week. If anyone asks why she's wearing a shredded dress she is to say "I don't like pretty things." Only a very sick, cruel person would do something like that to a child,

I am on the side of all those Uncles that came and went.

Joan — because we were both on fire with Pepsi.

The Dirt.

There I said it, Joan. I'm mad at YOU.

DL fav Miss Cesar Romero was a good friend of Crawford. He said in later years the only time he and Joan didn't get along was when he would criticize her for being "too hard on the kids".

So who REALLY drove Al Steele to his grave? rofl

Mommie Dearest tanked because a) it was a lousy, campy film that got trashed by reviewers, b) Joan was old school Hollywood, dead, and long past relevancy, which didn't interest New Hollywood and their baby boomer audience, except the gays.

The pretty and talented one.

Cant say I have a dog in this fight. Am a FAN of Crawfords work, and in awe at what a brilliant backbiting bitch she was, I can't defend child abuse. Exaggerations? maybe, but there are statements about her 'unique ' approach to discipline from her third ex husband and her colleagues), but Christina was an abysmal actress and has made her entire adult life about being a victim.

I wonder though, about both her and Christopher because of the horrible agency they were bought from, there were behavioral/mental issues abound.

Did the "Barbara, please??!!!" scene happen in real life?

If so, then one would have to be team Christina.

Christina always knew where to find the boys.... AND the booze!

Would someone PLEASE think of the rose bushes. They were innocent in all of this.

R4, R8: As Miss Davis was supposed to have said: "When someone dies, you should never see bad things about them, only good things. Joan Crawford is dead. Good."

Christopher. He girded his loins, strapped himself in and didn’t make eye contact.

R28 Yeah, Bette was classy like that. She only said that Joan screwed everyone but Lassie on the MGM lot while she was living.

The film Mommie Dearest was not a documentary and often strays from the original text.

For example:

There was never a Carol Ann, J.C. was not fired from MGM and the rose bushes were removed by a japanese gardener.

Don't believe everything you read.

Joan was the OG of creative correction.

I recall Liz Smith saying she had observed Joan’s abusive behavior- lots of people did. I tend to believe Christina. Abuse is a horrible legacy. I really believe she was working it out. And why did Crawford leave her and her brother out of her will? What kind of parent does that?

Seriously, Joan was never dropped from MGM? Wasn't she box office poison at one point?

Joan was an alcoholic and had a personality disorder along with a mean streak. Joan was abused as a child and had to endure abuse in exchange for movie stardom. She in turn abused her eldest daughter and son. This is Christina 's story to tell,again and again . I do understand why people don't want to hear it or don't believe Christina. Her memoirs exposed a subject that was not openly discussed before.

[quote]Seriously, Joan was never dropped from MGM? Wasn't she box office poison at one point?

Joan was declared "box office poison" by some movie trade magazine in 1938, but she continued on with MGM for a few more years. However, Joan found herself increasingly pushed aside in favor of younger stars like Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, and Greer Garson. She refused parts that were second leads or beneath her stature, and was put on suspension. When MGM balked at giving her the leads in "Random Harvest" and "Marie Curie," she decided it was time to go. MGM agreed, and they mutually terminated her contract in 1943.

that is interesting r36. You know, DL is always the place to go for Hollywood history. Merci.

Here's Joan being sidelined by the new queen of the MGM lot.

NO WIRE HANGERS! CHRISTINA YOU CUNT!

The sword.... cuts both ways.

I would very much like to believe that "Mommie Dearest" was a documentary.

What I'd like to know, is why Christina always wore GRANNY PANTIES???!!!

I'm team Carol Ann.

OP?

Get out before I kill you!

I'll take Joan any day, over this little TROLL.

"What I'd like to know, is why Christina always wore GRANNY PANTIES???!!!"

That's the only kind of underwear she had to wear. Joan wanted to keep Christina a sexless child. Hence, the way she's dressed in the choking scene; she's a teenager, but she's dressed like an eight year old girl. Joan was the same way with her "twins." B. D. Hyman, Bette Davis's unpleasant daughter (now THERE was a "nasty and ungrateful little bitch") remembered her first meeting with Joan Crawford; Joan indicated her twins (15 years old and wearing identical corduroy overalls, middy blouses and the same hairstyle and color of hair ribbon) and told her "I would appreciate it if you would not try to talk to them. They have been very carefully brought up and shielded from the wicked side of the world. You, obviously, have not. I don't want your influence to corrupt them. They are so sweet and innocent, you see? I know you will do as I wish. Thank you. Bless you, dear." Her "twins" allowed her to infantilize them, but Christiana rebelled against that. Christina had a strong, independent nature; the obedient twins were putty in Joan's hands.

That is totally creepy, R46.

How did the twins turn out? I don't know anything about them OR Christopher.

My mother was just like JC...in front of everyone she was a real charmer, funny, life of the party but out of sight, to her kids, she was a monster. A raging lunatic, who like Joan would go into daily rages and do fun stuff like cut up my brother clothes while screeching "I stand on my feet all day to buy you kids nice things"...no she didn't Anyway, I'm on Christinas side 1000%

R36, it seems that Joan is the only star who gets heckled with "box office poison", but the list was far greater than even this one: Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer, Luise Rainer, John Barrymore, Dolores del Río, Katharine Hepburn, Edward Arnold, and Fred Astaire.. There are a LOT of big stars on that list.

Joan Crawford had to pay off her contract to MGM.

After her (very costly) departure from MGM she ended up at WB, was cast in Mildred Pierce and won her Oscar.

Smart woman.

She left Christina and Christopher out of her will because she knew about the book.

R49, By 1938, the popularity of the stars on that Box Office Poison list had plummeted, and the writer of the article argued that their superstar salaries were not commensurate with their negligible box office numbers.

Also in that article were the names of stars who "deserved their high salaries": Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, William Powell, Jean Arthur, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, and Carole Lombard

R50, it's worth noting that "Mildred Pierce" director, Michael Curtiz, was dead set against hiring Joan for the part. After Bette Davis turned it down, he sought Barbara Stanwyck. Warner Bros was pushing for their latest acquisition, JC. Quoth Curtiz, "She comes over here with her high-hat airs and her goddamn shoulder pads… Why should I waste my time directing a has-been?" So he made her audition, illustrating how far her star power had declined. She redeemed herself with MP, won the Oscar, and turned in a few more good performances before becoming camp.

Joan had a miserable early life, working all the time to try to achieve success at any cost. Her success depended on her amazing self-discipline. As with so many control freaks, the strain and tension began to get to her, more and more, and she turned to alcohol. Much of the abuse that Christina describes wouldn't be out of place in some Victorian novel, but it wasn't expected in the household of a successful movie star: that's the conundrum. Beneath the carefully composed veneer, sheathed in sequins, she was still poor white trash, scrambling to hold on to the life she had earned for herself. She had very little formal education, and was very self-conscious about it, but also direct and honest about her regrets. Later in life, when Architectural Digest did a feature on one of her condos at the Imperial House, the photos included shots of a portrait and a sculpture depicting her, but none of her books. That hurt her terribly: that she was depicted as a Hollywood has-been living on her past glories, and not showing that she had an intellectual and artistic curiosity. She and Al Steele collected Haitian primitive art, and she had a collection of Chinese porcelain. That's what she hoped the public would one day see: that she was now a lady. And that never happened. So I'm very sympathetic to Joan. Christina, not so much.

^Yes, I know. Paragraphs.

I would beat up Christina as well, little white bread bitch!

Joan's twins only have nice things to say about their "Mommy." By the time Joan got her hands on them she was older and mellowed a bit; they weren't treated as badly as Christina and Christopher were. But then they were much more compliant than Christina and Christopher were, which made Joan less inclined to abuse them. Still, she brought them up in her warped fashion, dressing them as little girls when they were growing into women and keeping them on a tight rein. They would be seen on her movie sets quietly knitting and everything was "Yes, Mommy" or "No, Mommy." It was weird. Although they were the favored children, Joan was not particularly generous to them in her will. I think she left them modest trust funds to be distributed to them over a period of years.

There's not much to say about Christopher. He was no doubt damaged by his upbringing. He got into trouble, stealing a car at age 16. He married at 19 and worked as a lifeguard. He and his waitress wife had a child; when he visited Joan with his wife and baby she allegedly said visited, "It doesn't look like you. It's probably a bastard." That was the last time Christopher ever saw his mother, Joan Crawford. He had three children with his first wife; they later divorced. He served in Vietnam. He did not have a close relationship with his three grown children and in a 1981 interview he was asked about his three grown children and their whereabouts, all he said was "no idea." After the Vietnam War in the mid 1970s he moved to Greenport, NY with his second wife, Gale. Christopher and Gale had one child together named Chrystal. Christopher worked as a utility company lineman for the majority of his life. He was disabled off and on and unemployed for the most part in the later part of his life. He lived in Greenport, NY for the rest of his life. He died of cancer at the age of 62.

When Joan Crawford adopted all those kids no doubt people thought "how lucky they are, to be adopted by a rich, famous movie star!" Lucky? I don't think Christopher Crawford (and certainly not Christina) would have agreed with hat.

Joan was a cunt. A fabulous cunt, but a cunt nonetheless.

Christina 100%

The twins that were adopted after Christine and Christopher absolutely adored Joan walked on.

I'm not discounting Christine's story, I'm just saying that some children bring out the worst in their parents.

Let's just say that Joan was an AMAZINGLY great star and a very beautiful woman. Also, she was an Oscar winner. Perhaps the Academy waited too many years to acknowledge her - but she finally was awarded. THAT SAID, Joan was not mother of the year. Most mothers are not. But Joan in particular wasn't. We are all products of our own childhood and some of us are just not cut out for the stress of parenthood (particularly at a time when hard working, self-made women were perhaps rare). Maybe her lack of maternal instinct came from the fact that she adopted these children (but that is no excuse really). So my take is Joan 50%, Christina 50%. And I have to say that I LOVE JOAN 100%. She was a really fantastic actress and STAR and should be revered forever.

I detested my father growing up. If I would have written a memoir about my father in my 20s, it would have detailed every slight, every wrong, and every "abuse" that I suffered at his hands. But if I wrote the same book now, it would be a much different book. As you get older you understand adult pressures and the choices, both good and bad, that adults make when raising children. You also get a clearer picture of your parent's backstory when you get older, that informs who they are as people and you take all of that into account.

None of us is born with an instruction manual. Parents are just flying blind. I'm not saying that Joan was perfect or didn't do what Christina says she did. But at the same time I think Christina was an angry little girl who became an angry woman and wanted some kind of revenge. And I guess she got it, but at what cost? At some point, you need to let the past go.

r57 - sorry, meant to say that the twins adored the ground that Joan walked on.

R59 - beautifully said. You have a real way with the written world. I literally cried a little when reading what you wrote.

Joan was not perfect. Christine was not perfect. Maybe no one was at fault. Maybe everyone was trying the best they could.

R59 Christina won’t let it go this is her gravy train!

That's some good dish, R50 and R52!

[quote] She left Christina and Christopher out of her will because she knew about the book.

This is the first time I've heard that. Can this be confirmed?

It's bullshit, R63.

There is a really good doc on you tube about the will.

Christina is interviewed and says she had not seen her mother in 5 years.

The will was changed six months before Joans' passing when she was fully aware of her imminent death.

Joan knew about the book.

Joan Crawford was a ridiculous woman and a phony ass old drunk. Mommie Dearest is a TERRIBLE movie starring an ugly monster faced Faye Dunaway. Kabuki my ass.

Alyssa Edwards is the winner.

Christina, Christopher.... DAMMIT!

Mommie Dearest = Tina

Real life = Joan

OP..... really?

What a silly question.

Joan had an absolutely horrific childhood of abuse both sexual and physical. She was basically slave labor at the "schools" she attended. She was tormented by the students and staff she was forced to serve in order to remain enrolled. A series of botched abortions left her unable to bear children. She had minimal talent, but like Madonna, fierce drive and undeniable appeal. Once she made it to MGM, she used her intense focus to outlast other ingenues and work her way up. Her persona was completely manufactured. Even her name. MGM held a nation-wide contest to name it's new starlet. "Joan Arden" was the winning entry, but the real Joan Arden complained. Joan Crawford was runner-up. Lucille Le Sueur hated it at first. However, once she began to take on the movie star trappings and take the elocution lessons, singing lessons, etc... required for all of MGM's talent, she began to adopt Joan Crawford as her true self as a way to erase her past. She could never go back to what she was or where she came from and her adherence to the Joan Crawford persona became obsessive and compulsive. I believe she was truly insane.

I respected her greatly as an actress and I've seen just about all of her films. I regret that she's remembered mostly for Mommy Dearest and her severe campy look as she aged, but pre-Christina, she was stunning and did some great work in long-forgotten films.

Do I believe everything in Christina's book? No. There's probably some embellishment and a bit of revenge at work. Did Christina experience what we would today consider child abuse? I believe so, without a doubt. Should Joan ever have had children? Absolutely NOT. She was unstable and lived during a time when she would not have acknowledged nor sought help for her own deeply disturbed psyche. She had no business being around children. She had something missing in her life and mistakenly thought it was motherhood. She had been destroyed years before and the only thing keeping her going was being Joan Crawford.

I like and admire Joan as a person who worked her way up from nothing, and as a personality, an actress and a camp figure. She was apparently very kind and generous with her friends. She was also an emotionally unstable alcoholic and should never have been allowed to have children. I have no animosity toward Christina Crawford at all. She was telling the truth. I can accept Christina's story but still admire Joan for what she accomplished.

Now, Bette Davis's daughter BD Hyman - THAT is a REAL cunt.

Brilliantly written, R70. Poor Joan. She was an amazing star for sure - and one of my favorite actresses. That said, adopting children made absolutely no sense for her. She had lovers throughout her entire life (with her looks, that was not hard) and a few failed marriages, but motherhood was never going to heal those deep wounds from her early years. Children just added to her stress and unhappiness. I get the feeling that she enjoyed them in her later years, but by then the damage had been done and at least two of the bridges had been burned. Still, I am team Joan. The lives of Tina and Christopher would likely have been far worse had they been adopted by poor, working-class families. Child abuse used to be part of life back in those days (or so I have been told by all of my family members and their friends).

I think Joan got Christina and Christopher from some crappy orphanage who specialized in bad seed kids. I heard Joan got those kids through shady means, so they probably weren't tested and were just born wrong.

"I think Joan got Christina and Christopher from some crappy orphanage who specialized in bad seed kids. I heard Joan got those kids through shady means, so they probably weren't tested and were just born wrong."

"Tested?" For what? And both Christina and Christopher were adopted as babies, so how could it have been determined they were "bad seeds?" You sound like you have a few screws loose.

The problem is that Christina is wholly unlikeable, and in her book obviously exaggerated at times, and complained about things that weren't strictly abuse.

[quote]According to The Last Years bio, Joan was not pleased when the March/April 1976 Architectural Digest photo spread initially came out. As reported by author Carl Johnes:...she was crushed when she saw the published article. "They didn't put in any pictures of my books, my friends!" she despaired. "You'd think I didn't have any library at all; doesn't that bother you, Carl? And my porcelains! Not one photograph!" She was proud of her white Kuan-Yin porcelains, which she'd collected over the years, and had made sure that they were included in some of the photographs. She was upset that the only full-page picture was a close-up of Michaele Vollbracht's portrait of her, which actually hid behind a tree in the bedroom, and that they had singled out a picture of the Salamunich bronze bust of her which was, I knew, barely visible behind some greenery in the living room. What bothered her was that the inclusion of these self-images made the apartment look like an ego-trip, and it was not.

[quote]"Anyway," she finally admitted to me, "it looks like I live in some nouveau-riche efficiency apartment in Queens, or some goddam place and I feel like throwing everything out and starting over!" She was near tears. "I can just hear what those people in California are going to say when they see it: 'Jesus Christ, is that the way she has to live now?'"...

[quote]In fact, no one could accuse Joan Crawford of having superb decorating taste, but it is also true that the apartment was much more comfortable and welcoming than the pictures indicated. Yes, she did put plastic covers on the overstuffed furniture, but not all the time, and no, you did not have to remove your shoes to protect the white carpeting, because she'd done away with all that years ago and preferred polished parquet. The furniture, a mix of sleek Parsons tables, vaguely Oriental knickknacks and occasional pieces, with large dollops of "Hollywood Moderne," would horrify Bloomingdale's generation, but I always thought that it suited her. Joan Crawford was Hollywood Moderne. Both of the apartments she lived in on Sixty-ninth Street were bright and airy, and I always felt comfortable in them. The paintings wouldn't win any awards, either, whether they were garishly colored Jamaican primitives, or those bug-eyed portraits by Margaret Keane, but Joan honestly defended them. She used to say that each had a particular meaning to her, whether she'd had them since the 1930s, or because she and Alfred Steele had purchased them on one of the many business trips they took for Pepsi in the 1950s. "You don't have to live with them; I do," she would state flatly, "and they make me happy."

I think Joan was abusive to Christina and Christopher, had mellowed out when she later adopted Cathy and Cynthia (I think those are their names), and that Christina has major issues stemming from her upbringing (and possibly genetics) that make her quite unlikeable.

I still love watching Joan's films, but I'm sick to death of Christina's pity party.

Where the twins were from, quite possibly also Christina and Christopher.

Wow, if I was Joan, I'd be pissed at those photos, too. That was HORRIBLE. Where was Billy Haines when she needed him??

Christopher is actually the second Christopher, and was originally named Phillip Terry Jr, after the boy's adoptive father. The first Christopher was returned to the orphanage, C.O.D.

After Joan and Phillip Sr divorced, she re-christened the boy Christopher. I guess she liked the name so much, she used it twice.

Joan adopted Christina and Christopher when her career was in the shitter, and she was grappling with the fact that she was no longer in good standing at MGM, having been tossed aside for younger bitches. Her confidence was shaken and she likely was not in a good place mentally when those two needed her most. By the time she adopted the twins, she had won an Oscar, scored two more nominations, and had established herself as an enduring star. She was probably more confident in herself at this point and didn't sweat the small stuff.

In abusive households it is common for there to be a scapegoat child and a golden child and that is why children in the same family have different experiences and recollections. Clearly Christina/Christopher were the scapegoats and their mother's stress, raging anger and frustrations were taken out on them. The twins were the golden children and also benefited from the mellowing of age. I believe them both.

Certainly there were embellishments in the book as there are in all autobiographies to sell books otherwise the entire book would only be 25 pages.

[quote]Certainly there were embellishments in the book as there are in all autobiographies to sell books otherwise the entire book would only be 25 pages.

But that damned book is one of the two things that Joan is most remembered for. That's why so many eldergays had problems with Feud, because Joan wasn't presented as a caricature, but as a complex woman with many demons. It doesn't excuse child abuse, but Christina wasn't trying to shed light on abuse in that book, she was trying to destroy a woman and her legacy.

Joan Crawford was a demented woman. Anyone who sided with that has mental problems themselves.

R82 never read the book.

[quote]Remember when Bette Davis's daughter tried to ape her shtick? She's terrible too.

No - she’s a million times worse than Christina because of all her fundie Christian shit.

And Bette was never abusive to BD, actually it was quite the opposite. She spoiled BD rotten, handed her whatever she wanted, and continued to financially support BD and her useless husband for many years. BD and her husband never liked to work, Bette just kept handing them money so they could live at an upper-middle class level and then BD turned around and wrote that book. She is a rancid cunt.

There's nothing scandalous in BD's book, it just random arguments and disagreements that were just normal family stuff. Bette could be overbearing, overly involved in her children's lives and she drank too much, but nobody would ever call that abuse.

It's believed that BD wrote the book because she thought her mother was going to die after the strokes and of course there couldn't be any more leeching. That's why she it.

That's why she DID it.

Telling the truth infuriates people. Christina is asked how her life growing up as JC daughter was and the truth is she, along with her brother were physically, emotionally and psychologically abused by Joan. Joan's problems were an open secret in her industry .

"female on the beach', 'queen been', 'the women', jc is excellent in all. Fierce with crazed eyes but a true star.

[quote]Telling the truth infuriates people.

Also, CC did it at a time when you didn't air your family's dirty laundry in public. Today, we're so used to seeing warts and all family disclosures on tv talkshows, reality tv, and supermarket tabloids, but back then, what Christina did was shocking. JC's friends were upset not so much by the revelations of abuse, but by Christina's lack of family loyalty.

[quote]It's believed that BD wrote the book because she thought her mother was going to die after the strokes and of course there couldn't be any more leeching

But she would have expected some kind of financial gain from Bette's will, wouldn't she? If she had just waited till after Bette died to write her book, she could have had it all.

R89 "Possessed" 1931, "Grand Hotel", "Rain", "Dance, Fools, Dance", "Paid", "Sadie McKee", "Dancing Lady"; she was beautiful and radiant and fascinating in all of them. By the time of "The Women", she was learning the actual craft of acting and ironically, her waning years at MGM saw more complex and interesting performances: "Strange Cargo", "Susan and God", and the great "A Woman's Face". Warner Bros. knew better what to do with her and her dark, moodiness which was always under the surface that MGM was always afraid of showcasing (they were terrified of giving her the role of Crystal in "The Women"). WB's insight paid off with noir-style classics such as "Mildred Pierce", "Humoresque", "Possessed" 1947, "Flamingo Road". Even when she left Warner's she knew her potential and found good material for herself such as the brilliant "Sudden Fear". She was much more than shoulder pads, wire hangers and crazy eyes.

r91 Bette didn't have that much money. Certainly not enough for BD to be comfortable for the rest of her life.

Has anyone read B. D. Hyman's book "My Mother's Keeper?" It's hilarious, and I don't think it's meant to be. And after reading it anyone could see that something is very wrong with B. D. Hyman.

"My Mother's Keeper" had the opposite effect that BD intended - you felt sorry for Davis because she had such a smug, sanctimonious cunt of a daughter.

Joan Crawford is on TCM as we speak, appearing the in the movie "Trog."

Once she got rid of Phil Terry, she wasn't about to have a namesake around the house to remind her of yet another failed marriage. Hence Christopher: Mark 2.

I haven't read most of the posts on this thread, but I've given it a lot of thought and I find it hard to believe that Joan really abused Christine the way she said that she did. I've watched many of Joan's films and I think if she was a child abuser that would come across on screen. As many people have attested she wasn't a good actress and I think she would have difficulty keeping that side of herself from being transparent. I might just have sixth sense about this kind of thing. I always knew there was something funny about Bill Cosby, when I would watch Cosby show and he would be playing with the kids I would think to myself I bet he likes to drug woman and have sex with them while their are unconscious. I remember one of the first dates I went on with my now ex-husband whom I left after he married another woman we went to see Ghost Dad and I had to get up and leave before it ended...though that was just because it was an awful movie LOL!!! But I regress, I have these feelings about quite a few actors and actresses (don't even get my started on the things I suspect Mary Joy Catlett from Diffrent Strokes was up to, LOL!) but I never got the 'sense' with Joan that she abused children. Trog was on the other night and although it was a terrible movie, she came off wonderfully in it and though it's corny because it was just a man in a puppet suit, the way she treated him showed that she could never hurt a child. Just my 2 sense, LOL!!!

MARY!!!

I don't see any problem with that schedule, R100.

It's what any parent would have their kids do on a daily basis, except that Joan typed it out.

You're just trying to be a cunt.

For someone who was so uneducated, Joan had perfect spelling and punctuation.

"Christina must be on potty to do duty before going to school." What is Christina was unable to "do duty" to Joan's satisfaction? Was she punished for it? I tend to think she was.