Christina Crawford

Christina Crawford was born on June 11, 1939, in Los Angeles to an unmarried teenage girl. She was later on adopted by actress Joan Crawford who also adopted other kids namely, Christopher, Catherine, and Cynthia. At age ten, she was sent to the Chadwick School. However, she was removed from the school later on by her mother because of her alleged "misbehaviour” with many male students. Then Crawford was admitted to the Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy. After graduating from there, she attended Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and the Neighborhood Playhouse in Manhattan.

Then she obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Crawford, in her book ‘Mommie Dearest,’ has described her mother as a cruel, neglectful, violent, and manipulative narcissistic parent. Due to this nature of her mother, she had to suffer both physical and emotional abuse.

Talking about the author’s love life, she married her first husband Harvey Medlinsky in 1966. A few years later, after getting divorced from him, Crawford went on to marry her second husband David Koontz in 1976. Unfortunately, she broke up with him too and married Michael Brazzel in 1994. Five years later, she got divorced from him as well.

Christina Crawford began her acting career on the stage and worked in the play ‘Splendor in the Grass’. She then did the plays ‘In Color on Sundays’, ‘At Chrismastime’, ‘Dark of the Moon’ and ‘The Moon Is Blue’. In 1960, she was cast in the flick ‘Force of Impulse’. The following year, she appeared in the film ‘Wild in the Country’. After this, the American actress appeared in the plays ‘The Complaisant Lover’ and ‘Winkelberg’. She then guest starred in the drama ‘The Verdict is Yours’.

In the year 1965, Crawford did the play ‘Barefoot in the Park’ along with actress Myrna Loy. Soon after this, she had a role in the movie ‘Faces’, which also starred Gena Rowlands and John Marley. Then from 1968 to 1969, the actress portrayed the role of Joan Borman Kane in the T.V. drama ‘The Secret Storm’. Besides these TV projects, Crawford also did TV programs like ‘The Verdict is Yours’, ‘Medical Center’, ‘Matt Lincoln’, ‘M.D.’, ‘Ironside’, ‘Marcus Welby’ and ‘The Sixth Sense’.

Christina Crawford wrote the book titled ‘Mommie Dearest’ which was released in 1978. Three years later, her book ‘Black Widow: A Novel’ was released. Then in 1988, her book named ‘Survivor’ came out. After this, Crawford released the books ‘No Safe Place: The Legacy of Family Violence’ and ‘Daughters Of The Inquisition: Medieval Madness: Origin and Aftermath’ in 1994 and 2003 respectively.

From 1994 to 1999, Crawford ran a bed and breakfast named Seven Springs Farms in Idaho. After that, she began working for Coeur d'Alene Casino as their director of marketing. In the year 2009, she was appointed as the county commissioner in Benewah County by the Governor Butch Otter. However, she lost the bid for election the following year. Then in 2011, the author cum actress founded Benewah Human Rights Coalition, a non-profit organization. Two years later, she made the documentary ‘Surviving Mommie Dearest’.