Christina Crawford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christina Crawford (born June 11, 1939) is an American actress and writer, best known as the author of Mommie Dearest, an expose of the systematic child abuse committed by her mother, Joan Crawford.
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[edit] Early life and 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.
She attended Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and studied at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. She has received a B.A. degree from UCLA and a Master's Degree in communications management from USC.
[edit] 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. 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 The Sixth Sense.
When she went back to school, she met her second husband, David Koontz.
[edit] 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 should be well known to them."
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. 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.
After a stroke in 1981, Crawford had eight years rehabilitation. She ran a bed and breakfast in Idaho from 1994 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.
[edit] Private life
Crawford, now single, has had three husbands: Harvey Medlinsky; David Koontz (married 1976-divorced 1982); and Michael Brazzel.
[edit] 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
