For years, Christina Crawford remained tight-lipped about the infamous 1981 film adaptation of her memoir Mommie Dearest.
To say that audiences had an unexpected reaction to the film, which at times depicts the physical, verbal and emotional abuse Christina maintains she suffered at the hands of her movie star mother, Joan Crawford (played in the film by Faye Dunaway), is an understatement. Christina was shocked at how the film, which she hoped would shed some much-needed light on the topic of child abuse, became an instant camp classic, with costumed audience members and talk-backs to the screen, instead. It was immediately embraced by LGBTQ+ audiences.
But Christina eventually made her peace with the film. She first appeared in public in conjunction with the cinematic Mommie Dearest at a Mothers Day screening at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago in 1998. As she waited in the lobby for the movie to end, she began to chat with an audience member, A. Ashley Hoff, and discussed the emotional toll the film took on her.
“We ended up having a lovely discussion, talking about the movie and the fact that, even though she doesn’t like the film, she recognizes its continued popularity,” Hoff recalled. “…She admitted that it was the first time she’d seen [any part of] the film, in [nearly] 20 years at the point.”
Years later, Hoff, now based in Los Angeles, has completed his own book, With Love, Mommie Dearest: The Making of an Unintentional Camp Classic, about the production of and reaction to the movie. On June 4, Hoff returns to the Music Box for another Mommie Dearest screening. This time, he’s the one speaking about both his book and the film in an onstage conversation with Chicago entertainment journalist Richard Knight, Jr.
Hoff approached Mommie Dearest’s production history seriously; he sympathized with the production personnel involved, many of whom were left with what he called “a black mark” on their careers.
“I didn’t want to just make fun of the endeavor,” Hoff explained. “I mean, I can’t ignore the camp elements, but I wanted to be sympathetic and kind. All the actors and actresses, the production staff, the crew members…put months of their lives into the crafting of this major motion picture. Nobody sets out to make a critical failure.”
Hoff worked on the book for about three years, mainly during the COVID lockdown. He joked, “I should become a private investigator.”
Hoff studied the film’s production files from the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles, which was closed to the public because of the pandemic. He said that he was in constant “relays” of email and phone calls with the librarians there as he conducted his research virtually.
“I was very lucky—I was able to access the original production schedules and the original production staff and crew lists,” Hoff said. “I was able to track down a lot of people who were not credited either onscreen or on IMDB. I was able to reach…the stuntwomen who performed the stunt where Joan and Christina are crashing through the coffee table. … They gave me their insights on working on that very tense set on that particular day.”
He also spoke with Mara Hobel, who portrayed Christina as a youngster.
“She said Faye was very respectful of her, recognizing that they were doing this violent stuff—the haircutting scene was scary [for example],” Hoff explained. “Mara was about nine when she shot all of this, so Faye was very—to her credit—considerate of that fact. She would say, ‘I’m going to pull your arm this way’—there was choreography involved that she was very attentive to.”
Dunaway—then a poster-child for “New Hollywood” after electrifying performances in films like Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown and Network—bore the brunt of Mommie Dearest’s negative critical and audience reactions. She unsurprisingly did not participate in Hoff’s book.
“[Dunaway] was a Method-trained, serious actor who put her heart and soul into this movie, and she really cared about it,” Hoff said. “When the movie was released and it got laughter, it was something that left her completely shell-shocked. She was very personally hurt. She felt her performance had been trivialized [and] the subject matter trivialized. Joan Crawford’s career had been trivialized. She felt it was a very painful exercise [in criticism] … She feels that this movie in particular has been the albatross around her neck.”
Hoff said that watching Mommie Dearest now can be an almost “cathartic and therapeutic exercise” for people who are bullied and feel like psychological underdogs, which he speculated is one reason the LGBTQ+ community has embraced it.
“Gay men in the audience were conscious of the child abuse situation, but nonetheless they were still getting worked up and identifying with either Joan or Christina, and reciting the lines and getting into it,” he explained.
With Love, Mommie Dearest is Hoff’s third book. His first was a comprehensive history of the ‘70s game show Match Game, followed by a book about Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hoff used to work for talent agencies in Chicago and Los Angeles, but has now made writing his full-time job.
Charo, whom Hoff met through work, was the person who convinced him to finally make that professional leap while they were at a bar in Branson, Missouri.
“Over wine and conversation, we were talking about following one’s passion,” Hoff recalled. “…I was talking about getting burnt out in the office, and what I really wanted to focus on was the writing. We talked about that, and she really urged me to find what my true passion was.”
He’s working on a new book about a certain “cult classic film,” but isn’t ready yet to say what that is. “My running theme thus far seems to be taking relatively shallow subject matter—a ‘70s TV game show, Mommie Dearest—and finding the depth,” Hoff said.
Mommie Dearest shows at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4. Following the film, Hoff will speak with Richard Knight, Jr., then sign books in the lobby. For more information and tickets, click here.