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 writer and actress, best known as the author of Mommie Dearest, an exposé of the systematic child abuse allegedly committed by her mother, actress Joan Crawford.
Early Life/Education
She was born in Los Angeles, California in 1939 to unwed teenage parents (her father was in the Navy at the time) and adopted out-of-state in 1940 by Joan Crawford, one of four children adopted by the actress.[1]
Sent to a California boarding school as a child, Crawford later 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
Now unmarried, she has been married three times: to Harvey Medlinsky; David Koontz (married 1976-divorced 1982); and Michael Brazzel[citation needed].
Medlinsky was a Broadway stage manager she met while attending acting school and 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
Crawford has appeared in summer stock, including a production of Splendor in the Grass. She has also acted in a number of 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 had a part in Force of Impulse starring Robert Alda. She also had a role in the film Faces (1968), directed by John Cassavetes and starring 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 decided to leave the play.
She played "Joan Borman Kane" on the TV soap opera The Secret Storm in New York from 1968 until 1969. She reportedly lost her job on the show after her mother was brought in, in October, 1968, as a temporary replacement in the role of the 28-year-old Kane for four episodes while Christina was in the hospital recovering from major surgery. The implausibility of Crawford (then 63) playing a 28-year-old was coupled by her apparent state of intoxication on the live telecast and Christina was let go from the series, maintaining that her mother's behaviour had contributed to her being fired. (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 where she appeared in guest spots on the TV series Medical Center, Marcus Welby, M.D. and in 1972's The Sixth Sense.
Career After Mother's Death
After Joan Crawford died in 1977, Christina and her brother Christopher learned that they had been disinherited by their mother in her USD $2 million will ( "...for reasons which are well known to them").[2]
In 1978 Crawford wrote the best-selling non-fiction book Mommie Dearest which described in detail the physical and emotional abuse to which she maintains that she and her brother were subjected, and in which her mother was described as a cruel, overbearing alcoholic who was more interested in her career as a movie star than in the children she had adopted (allegedly for publicity reasons). The book (whose account was supported by Christopher) made child abuse a frontburner issue at a time when it was rarely discussed [1].
In 1981, a movie version of the same title was released, starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford and Diana Scarwid as Christina (teen and adult). Christina has also published subsequent books including Survivor, and other books/novels which focus on the subject of child abuse. For seven years she served as President of Los Angeles' Inter-Agency Council on Abuse and Neglect Associates, during which time she campaigned for the reform of laws regarding child abuse [1].
After a near-fatal stroke in 1981, Crawford spent five years in rehabilitation before moving to the Northwest[1] where she ran a bed and breakfast called "Seven Springs Farms" in Tensed, Idaho between 1994[1] to 1999.
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 (1978) 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
References
External links
- Please use a more specific IMDb template. See the documentation for available templates.
- Station Hill Authors
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