THE STORY BEHIND MOMMIE DEAREST

One of the most campiest of films, Mommie Dearest, made the leap from book to the silver screen in 1981. Surprisingly it came out only four years after Joan Crawford died. According to Faye Dunaway, producer Frank Yablans promised her in the casting process that he wished to portray Joan Crawford in a more moderate way than she was portrayed in Christina Crawford's book. In securing the rights to the book, Christina's husband David Koontz was given an executive producer credit, though he had no experience producing films. Dunaway likewise demanded that her own husband, photographer Terry O'Neill, be given a producer credit so he could advocate for her on set. According to Yablans, the two husbands jostled over Dunaway's portrayal of Crawford: “I had two husbands to deal with, David driving me crazy that Faye was trying to sanitize Joan, and Terry worried we were pushing Faye too far and creating a monster.”

 
In 2015, actress Rutanya Alda (Carol Ann) published a behind-the-scenes memoir, detailing the making of the film, "The Mommie Dearest Diary: Carol Ann Tells All." In it, she describes the difficulty of working with Dunaway, whose method approach to playing Joan seemed to absorb her and make her difficult to the cast and crew. In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Alda stated, "People despised Faye...because she was rude to people. Everyone was on pins and needles when she worked, and relaxed when she didn't."

 

Alda described the process of acting opposite Dunaway very unfavorably by claiming that she manipulated the director to deprive the other actors of screen time and required the members of the cast to turn their backs when not in the shot so she would have no audience. She also claimed that Dunaway was "out of control" while filming the scene where Joan attacks Christina in front of a reporter (Jocelyn Brando) and Carol Ann has to pull her off. Alda was hit hard in the chest and knocked over several times, while Jocelyn Brando, who was scripted to help Alda pull Dunaway off of Diana Scarwid, refused to get near her for fear of being injured.

For decades, Dunaway was famously reluctant to discuss "Mommie Dearest" in interviews. In her 1997 autobiography, she only briefly mentions the film by stating that she wished that director Frank Perry had had enough experience to see when actors needed to rein in their performances.

 
In 2016, Dunaway expressed regret over taking the part and blamed it for causing a decline in her Hollywood career. She also claimed that the performance took a heavy emotional toll on her, stating: “At night, I would go home to the house we had rented in Beverly Hills, and felt Crawford in the room with me, this tragic, haunted soul just hanging around.… It was as if she couldn’t rest.”

 
By coincidence, Joan once said in an interview in the early 1970s that of the current young actresses, only Faye Dunaway had "what it takes" to be a true star...