Glamour, cruelty and spite

Press, 30 May 1987, Page 19

Glamour, cruelty and spite

Adapted from the bestselling biography of the same name, written by her adopted daughter in 1978, “Mommie Dearest” tells the inside story of life with one of Hollywood’s most glamorous movie stars.

Joan Crawford is portrayed as a cruel, manipulative mother, whose final act of spite was to cut her two adopted children out of her will. Crawford was born Lucille Fay Le Sueur in

Texas in 1904 and worked as a laundress, waitress and shopgirl before embarking on a modest dancing career after winning a Charleston contest. Her fairytale climb to stardom began when she was plucked from the obscurity of a Broadway chorus line by M.G.M. executives and, after a nation-wide publicity contest to find her a new name, launched as “Joan Crawford.” She rose to fame in the

flapper era of the twenties and was to dominate Hollywood for an amazing five decades, surviving through hard work, driving ambition and adaptability. Three of her husbands were actors: Douglas Fairbanks, jun., Franchot Tone and Philip Terry. The fourth was Alfred Steele, board chairman of the giant Pepsi-Cola company. On his death she became active on the board of the company and as its publicity executive. She wrote two volumes of memoirs, “A Portrait of

Joan” and “My Way of Life,” but it was her daughter’s potrayal of her that was to prove the most sensational and controversial.

In “Mommie Dearest” she is played by Faye Dunaway, with Mara Hobel playing Christina as a child and Diana Scarwid playing the adult role. Also featuring are Steve Forrest as lawyer Greg Savitt, Howard Da Silva as L. B. Mayer and Harry Goz as Al Steele. “Mommie Dearest” screens on Two tonight (Saturday) at 9.