Motherhood: You Know That is What You Are Thinking

Not the Girl Next Door: Joan Crawford, A Personal Biography

By Charlotte Chandler

Before we get to the question of Motherhood which will always be asked about Joan Crawford (what would she think? To always be associated with one of the holy trinities of womanhood. She did want to be a mother, of a certain kind.). I want to think about what a “Personal Biography” means. Are there “Impersonal Biographies”? And if so, what are they? Biographies not about “Persons” but about institutions? Societies? Groups of Hastily Assembled persons?

In this case, I think that the “Personal” part of the biography concerns the form of the book. It is written as a narrative, complete with the “I” of the first person narrative. The speaker appears to be talking personally and confidentially to the reader, but Miss Chandler transcribed the narratives from tapes or notes of conversations that she had with the narrator. Or perhaps, Miss Chandler did her research and then just made it up or wrote the script for her characters. Miss Chandler does not explain her methodology in the book.

Miss Crawford speaks, Mr. Fairbanks, Jr. speaks (he was the first husband of Miss Crawford’s), and Miss Myrna Loy speaks (she was a good friend of Miss Crawford’s) among others. Miss Chandler only occasionally speaks, as herself or the general narrator.

Miss Chandler met and began to interview Miss Crawford and her friends before the publication of that great paean to Motherhood, Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford, Miss Crawford’s oldest adopted daughter. According to Miss Chandler, Miss Crawford knew about the book and her characterization in it. Miss Chandler implies that Miss Crawford was attempting in her interviews with Miss Chandler to respond and rebut the book. The Mommie Dearest book came out after Miss Crawford's death.

Unfortunately, Miss Crawford’s idea of a rebuttal was to characterize her oldest daughter and her son, Christopher, as unfeeling, uncaring, and basically evil children. Christopher, in particular, comes off as a headstrong, stubborn little boy who was much more interested in his “uncles”, Miss Crawford’s boyfriends, than in Miss Crawford’s decidedly feminine household and company. This appeared only to be a problem or unusual in Miss Crawford’s eyes. Any little boy is going to be interested in male company; he wants to learn how to be a man. He wants a man around to teach him. Miss Crawford had her blind spots and her son, Christopher, was one of them. Christopher may have been difficult for Miss Crawford, but he was not Damien of The Omen, the Devil’s spawn.

Later in the book, Miss Crawford (or Miss Chandler) tells an incident about a fifth birthday party for Christina, where Christina had to carefully open each of her birthday gifts, fold the paper prettily, and take the gift around to each of her guests for display and then thank the giver. Christina received a lot of gifts at this party and had a lot of guests. Miss Crawford was severely disappointed in Christina’s inability to appreciate her gifts and do the right thing (in Miss Crawford’s eyes) to acknowledge them. That Miss Crawford would even expect this sort of behavior from a five year old shows another of her blind spots. The fact that Christina lost interest in her party and her gifts was told as a tale of Christina’s ingratitude, not as an example of the short attention span and lack of patience characteristic of a five year old.

It’s really quite sad. Miss Crawford wanted so desperately to be a mother, many miscarriages are hinted at and some are indicated in the book. Miss Crawford felt that her own mother favored her brother and never showed much affection for Miss Crawford. Miss Crawford wanted to remedy that with her own children. Hence the elaborate birthday parties and pubic displays of a privileged childhood for them, but Miss Crawford’s own affections appeared to be stinted at times, and in private, she had a definite lack of empathy or understanding of her children or any children.

The two older children did manage to break her in as a mother. Miss Crawford had a much better and more affectionate relationship with her younger adopted twin daughters. But even there, there are odd glimpses of an over-demanding and controlling mother and an erratic affection. And for what it is worth (and that might not be much), an internet gossip site that I occasionally visit, has a user who grew up with one of Miss Crawford’s twin daughter’s children, and who claims that Miss Crawford’s daughter was a neglectful mother who allowed her children to run wild in the neighborhood. Again, no one wants to repeat the mistakes of one’s mother, but one can always find one’s own and opposite mistakes to make.

But the children are not the focus of the book. Miss Crawford’s career and rivalry with Miss Bette Davis are the main focus. Miss Crawford knew how to manage her career even if her personal relationships were much more troublesome and problematic.

Miss Crawford’s first husband, Mr. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., was alive to be interviewed and he discussed his marriage with Miss Crawford---Great Sex! He also discussed the long rumored cinematic pornography that Miss Crawford supposedly made very early in her career. He seemed sure that she made the porno film (but whether it was soft or hard or petrified, was uncertain), but he claimed never to have seen a copy. He wished that he did. Even in his nineties, he assures the reader that he and we would appreciate it.

Miss Crawford’s ex-husbands and friends speak well of her. Miss Loy proved a faithful friend who managed to get Christina Crawford fired from a production of Barefoot in the Park that they appeared in together. In Miss Loy’s opinion, Christina appeared to be unappreciative of her mother and her mother’s friend. Oh those sharp toothed serpent’s ungrateful children!

Miss Crawford should be admired for her career. She started in silent porno (if you believe, Mr. Fairbanks, Jr.), then moved on to legitimate silent cinema, and from there managed to move into talkies and dancies and singies and make an even bigger and better career. What other silent cinema star can say that her career kept improving with time and technology? Miss Crawford was at her career height in her forties and fifties. That is when most actresses falter.

And Miss Crawford was directed by one of the major seventies American film boys, Steven Spielberg, when he was beginning in television. All those career girls that Miss Crawford played were very close to home. And when home was a movie set, Miss Crawford was a very good frau.