Mommie Dearest

Quite an amazing look into the life of Joan Crawford collecting kids via adoption and treating them like serfs while floating on a lake of 100-proof vodka, serial marriage, violent outbursts and "Lesbian proclivities". Of course the "no wire hangers" leapt into popular consciousness from the screen and is here in one of the earliest chapters about alcohol-fueled "night raid" on her children's' closets. However, the entire arc of the memoir is one of neglect and of Joan pushing her children far away, physically, financially, and emotionally as the grew away from babes and into adulthood. The final slap from the grave being written out of the will...

100% believable based on other Crawford biographies I have read. The children were merely PR props to further her career. Seriously consider her borderline sadistic personality disorder.

This book fascinated me as a kid. Can you imagine growing up the child of a slightly insane Hollywood icon? Christina tells a tale of madness, rebellion, narcissism, sabotage, alienation, luxury and deprivation. This book reads like candy.

This is a terrifying story and it's very real. Whether you're reading it because you are curious about Crawford's life or have a "Mommie Dearest" of you own, this book with strike a cord. On another note, there were so many typos--sometimes several a page.

Joan Crawford is one of thos old actresses I don't know much about and haven't seen many of her films, so it was sometimes hard to picture her when I read about her in this book written by her daughter.

Sometimes a hard book to read. Christina (or Tina) had a strange love/hate relationship with her mother. She portrayed herself as the perfect child, always trying to please her mother and not succeeding only because of her mother's unrealistic expectations and drunkenness. But you've got to wonder if she really could have been such the "Perfect" child she described. I don't doubt that it was hard to be the daughter of a movie star and a movie star that sounded as though she had some sort of self-worth issues.

Some of the book sounded a show more bit too much like whining: "I had such a hard life..." That's what you get with autobiographies though! show less

I read this years ago, but a lot of details have stayed with me. It's the story about the various abuses that Christina and her brother suffered at the hands of their famous mother. It was an interesting read, and I don't disbelieve what she wrote, but at times the way she wrote things caused me to be slightly less sympathetic. Still, it is what appears to be an honest account of a dreadful "poor little rich girl" childhood.

Oh the joys of not only being famous but being bat nuts crazy. Sad and unfortunate that children who are born into this world reap the whirlwind their parents created.