Broadway, hide your wire coat hangers. Joan Crawford's daughter, Christina Crawford, is developing a one-woman show where she not only plans to reveal new secrets about her life with Mommie Dearest, Joan Crawford, but also show never-before-seen home movies of the screen legend in the nude.
"I began my career as an actress and I've always loved the theater," Crawford tells me. "The play is based on two of my books, the 30th Anniversary Edition of 'Mommie Dearest' and my third book, 'Survivor' -- both of which were bestsellers. It covers a long period of time and a much more complete story.”
Additionally, Christina reveals that she has discovered Joan's (she never refers to her as her "mother") blue movies -- naked home videos that she cannot believe the controlling star never destroyed.
“I never knew that they existed before a year ago and never saw them before a month ago,” Crawford says. “I remembered her telling me about her married lover, Charles McCabe; however, I never saw photos of him till the home movies, when they were hunting, fishing and canoeing in the Poconos.”
Christina says the most shocking thing she discovered during her research was Joan's quiet desperation in her later years. But she still cannot forgive her mother for the childhood she had to survive, which included being beaten by wire hangers.
“Forgiveness is a two-way street and she never took responsibility for her behavior,” Christina tells me. Which is why she has chosen to call her show, which she hopes to take on the road before Broadway, "Surviving Mommie Dearest."