After shooting that sequence, Dunaway was so hoarse from screaming that she lost her voice. In the movie, which omits that bit of backstory, Joan actually beats Christina with one of the wire hangers. In the book, Christina says Joan beat her for having wire hangers in her closet, perhaps because, when Joan was a girl, her mother had to work at a dry cleaner's, and the star hated being reminded of her former poverty. The notorious wire hanger scene is even worse in the film than in the book. Alda quotes Sharaff as saying, "You can enter Faye Dunaway's dressing room, but first throw a raw steak in there to distract her."Ħ. Sharaff walked off the film, for the first time in her 45-year career, out of frustration. Alda claims Dunaway was a terror to nearly everyone on the set, even to veteran, multiple-Oscar-winning costume designer Irene Sharaff, who came out of retirement to swathe Dunaway in period glamour. She also says Dunaway held nothing back during the knock-down, drag-out sequence where Joan attacks Christina, Carol Ann, and a visiting journalist.ĥ. Rutanya Alda (above, right), who played Joan's long-suffering assistant, Carol Ann, came out with her own tell-all book last year about the production: "The Mommie Dearest Diary: Carol Ann Tells All." She has nothing but praise for Dunaway's performance, but she says the star would routinely upstage her. "This was a really happy set." No one else associated with the film seems to agree with him. "We all had a good time making it," Yablans said in 2006. Campaigning for the part, Dunaway showed up at producer/co-screenwriter Frank Yablans' house dressed and made up as Joan and nearly gave him a heart attack.ģ. Bancroft did win (for " The Miracle Worker"), and Crawford accepted the statuette on her behalf at the Hollywood awards ceremony.Ģ. Back in 1963, when Crawford failed to get the Oscar nomination she expected for " Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", she offered her services as a surrogate for the several East Coast-based women up for Best Actress, should any of them win. Anne Bancroft was initially cast as Joan, but she dropped out because she didn't like the screenplay.
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Today, it's acknowledged as a camp classic and we celebrate its 35th anniversary with these facts every movie fan should know. "Mommie Dearest" was actually a box office hit, though more for its over-the-top theatricality than its harrowing drama or truthfulness. And Dunaway's operatic performance, widely ridiculed when the film was released 35 years ago this week, tarnished not only Crawford's reputation but Dunaway's as well. But " Mommie Dearest" was certainly not the biopic she had in mind.īased on the 1978 memoir by Joan's daughter, Christina Crawford - a controversial best-seller - the 1981 film portrayed Joan as an alcoholic, a compulsive clean freak, and an abusive parent.
Before she died in 1977, Joan Crawford reportedly said that, if a movie were ever made from her life, Faye Dunaway was the only actress who could do the role justice.
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