Christina wrote that when she was 15 years old, she was so depressed from her mother’s treatment towards her that she tried to kill herself at boarding school by overdosing on pills. Crawford attacked her daughter once more after that incident when she thought Christina was making a pass at her husband, Alfred Steele.ġ0. “That was the last time we had any physical violence, because I knew that if it happened again, I would do everything in my power to protect myself,” she later told Larry King.ĩ. When Christina was 13 years old, she supposedly suffered one final brutal beating from her mother, in which she thought she was going to be choked out. The kids then had to write thank you cards for each and every gift, and those cards were meticulously edited by Crawford.Ĩ. But they were only allowed to choose one thing to keep while the rest were given away to charity or saved to be re-gifted. At Christmas, the children were photographed as being gifted tons of items. Crawford supposedly kept Christopher tied up in bed in a “sleep safe” device and she also trussed Christina up in the shower at night.ħ. Christina says she was once starved for days when she refused to eat an undercooked steak that was still bloody, all in a bid for her mother to further control her.Ħ. Crawford was prone to what Christina called “night raids,” in which she would wake the children up drunk and make them clean messes they hadn’t necessarily made for hours on end.ĥ. Crawford then made Christina wear the dress for a week in order to humiliate her.Ĥ. Christina had a favorite dress until she provoked her mother into shredding it. In a scene that’s become synonymous with the film, she is said to have dragged her daughter by the hair yelling, “No wire hangers, no wire hangers!” while beating her with one until her “ears rang.”ģ. Crawford hated wire hangers, and reportedly once woke up her daughter in the middle of the night for using them. But after Crawford’s third marriage fell apart she renamed the children.Ģ.
and Phillip Terry Jr., (after his adoptive father). When Crawford first adopted Christina and Christopher, they were named Joan Jr. And of course there was the campy, almost satirical 1981 film of the same title starring Faye Dunaway.Īhead of the next installment of Feud: Bette and Joan, which is also fittingly titled “Mommie Dearest,” THR revisits 11 of the most shocking allegations from the original memoir and subsequent tour:ġ. Christina released updated editions to commemorate the 20th and 30th anniversaries, and other memoirs, including Not the Girl Next Door: Joan Crawford, a Personal Biography and Possessed, have stocked bookshelves to rebuke the claims. Since then the validity of the scenes described in the memoir have been debated and dissected at great length. 'Feud:' A Look at Joan Crawford's Many (Many) Leading Men