The Unsettling Reality Of Joan Crawford's Relationship With Her Adopted Daughter
Joan Crawford was a very talented woman, but according to some, those talents didn’t extend to child-rearing. The way her adopted daughter Christina told it, behind closed doors the esteemed actress was an abusive bully. This story gained so much traction, it was made into a movie itself. But was it the whole truth? Was Crawford really that bad? Here’s all the evidence: make up your own mind.
Superstar
Joan was one of the biggest stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age: just about everyone in the developed world had heard of her. She was the epitome of beauty and glamor during her heyday.
And she was also a very good actress. She won an Academy Award in 1946 for her performance in Mildred Pierce — which is ironically a film about a mother navigating a difficult relationship with her daughter.
Feuds
But Joan was reportedly difficult to get along with, too. Her feud with fellow star Bette Davis is still legendary in Hollywood, and is one of the most famous “catfights” of all time.
It all started when she married the man Bette loved, Franchot Tone, and things simply got worse and worse from there. Movie producers were desperate to get the feuding stars in a film together, and they eventually succeeded with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
“A poke”
Some people think Joan actually had a crush on Bette but didn’t know how to process it. After all, she did actually have relationships with women at a time when such behavior was widely regarded as taboo.
According to her friend Jerry Asher, Joan had once said of her rival, “Franchot isn’t interested in Bette, but I wouldn’t mind giving her a poke if I was in the right mood.”
Disgrace
Plenty of other people hated Joan too. An anonymous director said in a 1955 edition of Private Lives, “Joan Crawford's power — her abuse of people who refuse to bow to her, her control of the casting, direction, and production of her pictures, is the disgrace of Hollywood."
And another actress, Mercedes McCambridge, said, “I am ashamed of myself because I have lacked the courage to tell the world what Joan Crawford really is, what she does to people in the studios.”