Christina Crawford
Christina Crawford | |
|---|---|
| Spouse(s) | Harvey Medlinsky (1966-1968) David Koontz (1976-1982) Michael Brazzel[citation needed] |
Christina Crawford (born June 11, 1939) is an American actress and writer, best known as the author of Mommie Dearest, an exposé of the systematic child abuse committed by her mother, Joan Crawford.
Early Life/Education
Crawford was born in Los Angeles, California, to an unwed teenage mother; her father was in the Navy at the time. She was adopted out-of-state in 1940 by Joan Crawford, one of four adopted children of Crawford.[1]
After a miserable childhood, Crawford moved from California to the East Coast[1] to attend Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and then studied at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. She earned a B.A. degree, magna cum laude,[1] from UCLA and a Master's Degree in communications management from USC.[1]
Personal Life
Crawford, now single, has had three husbands: Harvey Medlinsky; David Koontz (married 1976-divorced 1982); and Michael Brazzel[citation needed].
Medlinsky was a Broadway stage manager that Crawford met while she went to acting school; they were married only briefly [1] She met her second husband, film producer, David Koontz, when she worked in public relations for Getty Oil.[1].
Acting Career
She appeared in summer stock, including a production of Splendor in the Grass, where she met her first husband. They were married for only a short time. She also did some Off-Broadway productions.
In 1961, Crawford appeared in a small role as Monica George in the 20th Century Fox movie Wild in the Country starring Elvis Presley, Hope Lange, and Tuesday Weld. That same year, she appeared in Force of Impulse starring Robert Alda. She was also in Faces (1968), which was directed by John Cassavetes and starred John Marley and Gena Rowlands.
In 1962, she appeared in the play The Complaisant Lover starring Reginald Gardiner in Santa Barbara, and the review read, "Christina Crawford makes an attractive self-possessed 19-year-old, eager to learn about life."
She played five character parts in Ben Hecht's controversial play Winkelberg, based on the life of the late Bohemian poet, Maxwell Bodenheim, at the Stage Society Theatre on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, where it had its West Coast premiere September 17, 1963.
Crawford created quite a stir in Chicago in October 1965 with her sensational hit in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park.[citation needed] She then mystified her Chicago friends when, in November, she left the play after getting all the notices.
She played Joan Borman Kane on the TV soap opera The Secret Storm in New York from 1968 to 1969. She blamed losing her job on the show on her mother, who at age 62 was a temporary replacement in the role of the 28-year-old Kane for four episodes while Christina was in the hospital for emergency surgery in October 1968.
When Joan Crawford was asked about her daughter by a reporter in 1970, she said, "On that soap opera, she played the best bitch I ever saw except for me in Queen Bee."
After leaving The Secret Storm, Christina Crawford moved back to California. She appeared in guest spots on the TV series Medical Center, Marcus Welby, M.D. and 1972's The Sixth Sense.
Career After Mother's Death
After Joan Crawford died in 1977, Christina learned that she and her brother Christopher were disinherited from her mother's USD$2 million estate. The will had the explanation "...for reasons which are well known to them."[2]
Crawford wrote the best-selling non-fiction book Mommie Dearest (1978), which characterized her mother as a cruel, overbearing, alcoholic who was more interested in her career than in her children. The book made child abuse a frontburner issue at a time when it had rarely been discussed [1].
In 1981, a movie version of the same title was released. She has also published books as sequel, Survivor and other books focusing on family violence, as well as novels. Crawford served for seven years as the President of Los Angeles' Inter-Agency Council on Abuse and Neglect Associates, while she campaigned for the reform of laws regarding child abuse [1].
After a near-fatal stroke in 1981, Crawford had five years of rehabilitation and decided to move to the Northwest.[1] She ran a bed and breakfast in Sanders, Idaho from 1994[1] to 1999 called Seven Springs Farms.
She formed Seven Springs Press in 1998 to publish the 20th Anniversary Edition of Mommie Dearest in paperback from the original manuscript, which included material left out of the first printing. She continues in the capacity of company publisher.
In 1999, Crawford began working as Special Events Manager at the Coeur d'Alene Casino in Idaho.
Books
- Mommie Dearest (1977) ISBN 0-9663369-0-9
- Black Widow: A Novel (1981) ISBN 0-425-05625-2
- Survivor (1988) ISBN 0-515-10299-7
- No Safe Place: The Legacy of Family Violence (1994) ISBN 0-88268-184-2
- Daughters Of The Inquisition: Medieval Madness: Origin and Aftermath (2003) ISBN 0-9663369-1-7