Whatever happened to Joan Crawford?

LIKE MANY an impressionable young gay boy, I've lately become fascinated by Joan Crawford, "the ultimate movie star".

It started with the film Mommie Dearest (the 1981 biopic, of sorts, in which Joan is played with scenery-chewing relish by Faye Dunaway), and progressed with Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962), Joan's last great picture, in which she starred alongside her nemesis, Bette Davis.

I've seen (or should that be "endured"?) Mommie Dearest several times now, and as entertaining as it is, it always leaves me feeling like I've heard just a Chinese whisper of the truth. From a great distance. With a motorcycle revving in the background. Who was Joan Crawford, really? How did this huge movie star become the laughing stock she is today? Is it all the fault of Mommie Dearest?

Much of the damage to Joan's reputation occurred towards the end of her career, beginning, perhaps, with some of the cheesy, B-movie publicity for Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, and subsequent pictures like Berserk (1967). That her final appearance on the big screen was Trog (1970) doesn't help. But perhaps the greatest blow to the woman who was once Hollywood's biggest star is adopted daughter Christina's damning book Mommie Dearest, and worse, the film version of that book; Christina accuses Joan of mental and physical child abuse. Even those who don't know who Joan Crawford is can recite, "No more wire hangers!"

No one can really know for sure what went on in Joan Crawford's house - Christina and Christopher both hate her, whilst the other two flatly deny the allegations their older sibling has made - but the bottom line is there's no dignity or honour in Christina's bitter, lifelong campaign to destroy her mother. I wonder if she's ever really wondered what life would have been like had Joan not adopted her? I suspect it's the lack of material remuneration that lies at the heart of Christina's mission (Joan left nothing for her, or Christopher, in her will, writing "It is my intention to make no provision herein for my son Christopher or my daughter Christina for reasons which are well known to them.")

It's said that the Paramount film Mommie Dearest finished Faye Dunaway's hitherto stellar career. If that's true, then there's a certain justice there. Call it just deserts for her involvement in that devastating assault.

My fascination with Joan has extended to tracking down - YouTube, thank you! - those now-poignant dying gasps of Miss Crawford's career. There can be found what purports to be the last footage of her before she withdrew from the public eye, and her performance in The Sixth Sense, an execrable TV show. These clips are there for us to jeer and giggle at, or at least pity the poor cow. But here is a woman - more than that, the ultimate movie star - swallowing her pride and getting on with it, still giving her best despite the reduced circumstances she has found herself in, and working to the bitter end. That's not something to pity, or laugh at. That's strength.

So why is Joan Crawford so ridiculed now? Yes, Mommie Dearest plays a big part, but more so, I think, is the ageism our society is steeped in, and Hollywood revels in. Even more than that, is the unabashed, naked misogyny in jeering at a beautiful woman who dared to get older, who did swallow her pride and take the scraps the industry threw to her.

There's nothing shameful about her last appearances in awful TV shows and movies like Trog. What is shameful is the industry's treatment of her, and the public's talent for delighting in humiliation. And we should all be ashamed of the manner in which women are treated - from cradle to grave - and in Joan Crawford's case, those close to her who still seek to punish her ought to be especially ashamed.

In a recent interview, Christina Crawford was asked if she ever watched any of her mother's movies. "No," she replied. The irony is that Mommie Dearest has launched me - and no doubt many others - on a journey of discovery, one that takes in all of Joan Crawford's long career. It is her films that cinephiles will remember, long after Mommie Dearest is forgotten.