Joan Crawford vs. Christina Crawford
When Oscar-winning movie icon Joan Crawford died in 1977, she couldn't have known that just a year later, her adopted daughter Christina would publish Mommie Dearest, a memoir that recounted her abusive, militaristic, perfectionist tendencies as a mother. Because of the timing of the book's publication, some people doubted the veracity of Christina's claims — especially since Joan had taken great pains to appear publicly as the model parent. Furthering the distrust over Christina's claims was that she and her brother Christopher had been taken out of Joan's will, for reasons "well known to them" — giving Christina what seemed to be a perfect motivation to malign her mother's name. There were others in the Hollywood community, though, who supported Christina's account, saying they had witnessed Joan's abusiveness. When the film version was released in 1981, starring Faye Dunaway as Joan, it was poorly received, proving that although Joan had been dead for nearly five years, she still had friends in high places. Nevertheless, audiences still remember one of most recited movie lines in history: "No wire hangers — ever!"