Does anyone really care?

Back in 2005, a book review about a recent publication on the life of Tallulah Bankhead graced the pages of The New Yorker. The critic, Robert Gottlieb wrote that there'd been seven biographies written about dear Tallu since her death in 1968. In this piece, Gottlieb covered all the important bases, Bankhead's early years, her time in Hollywood, her successes and failures. The article was peppered with delightful snippets from the pantheon that was Bankhead...."There were the usual sexual escapades, including an encounter with Johnny Weissmuller in the Garden of Allah pool, about which she reported that she had been a very satisfied Jane.'"  By the end of the piece, the writer sums her up as a, "Humphrey Bogart in silk panties,"  this "most thoroughgoing libertine and free-swinging flapper of the age"?  The Little Foxes, to theatre buffs; Lifeboat,  to film buffs; a faint memory of a rowdy life and a purring drawl of a voice......Surely now it's time to let her rest."

Well, I kind of had to agree with him. I'd read most of the bios available on Tallulah and couldn't imagine there being much more to report on. I certainly didn't feel compelled to run out and buy the book that prompted his article and I don't feel compelled to buy this new book, Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford , by Donald Spoto. 

This new book, (reviewed in the January 3, 2011 issue of The New Yorker) professes a revisionist take on our favorite square-shouldered dame. In "Escape Artist...The Case for Joan Crawford", David Denby, seems to be in agreement with Mr. Spoto regarding, Mommie Dearest, the scathing squibb by spurned daughter number one. Denby calls Christina, "a failed actress" and says that her younger twin sisters claimed that Crawford was, "strict but loving."

I believe Christina. Why? For me, all I had to do is read, Joan Crawford, My Way of Life to know that this movie star was the strictest of task masters. She'd spent her life working like a dog at "being" Joan Crawford and dammit, you'd better work too!  Whether it's simply attrition or possibly the changing of a parents outlook, younger children usually have it easier than their older siblings. Parents relax, don't take things quite so seriously. Of course, Joan never really relaxed. She was certainly that MGM invention until her last breath, but I imagine she was easier on those two younger girls. And if that is the case, it isn't surprising that they would rise to her defense, which is fine. I'm happy that they weren't strung up in the nursery or sent off to hellish prison-like schools. When it comes to nature versus nurture, I've always fallen on the side of nature. With the Crawford family, my leanings remain the same. Cindy & Cathy had a nature better equipped to deal with their driven mother. The first two adopted children did not.

Whether or not  "no wire hangers" was ever uttered by ol' melon mouth will always be up for dissection, as well as the landscaping in the rose garden, Christina's impromptu haircut and all the other swell happenings on North Bristol Avenue. Do I think this latest try at silencing Christina will work? Nope. Crawford's name will forever be linked to the tell-all-book. Of course, I was completely shocked to turn the page of this magazine and see an article about J.C.! She isn't going quietly into that good night, not yet anyway. We may have enough Tallulah tomes, but it may not quite be time to close that forever fascinating, book of Joan.