“No wire hangers, ever!”
There may be no more iconic utterance in the history of on-screen parenting, but actress Faye Dunaway could barely bring herself to film the scene.
Dunaway, 83, famously portrayed silver-screen icon Joan Crawford in the 1981 cult classic “Mommie Dearest.”
Directed by Frank Perry, “Mommie Dearest” is based on the tell-all memoir of the same name written by Crawford’s adopted daughter Christina, played in the film by Mara Hobel. The book exposed — and the movie brought to vivid life — the alleged childhood abuse Christina suffered at the hands of her controlling, alcoholic mother.
A new book by Hollywood historian A. Ashley Hoff, “With Love, Mommie Dearest: The Making of an Unintentional Camp Classic,” reveals the difficulty Dunaway experienced filming the movie’s most infamous scene.
In an excerpt from the book obtained by People, Hoff includes gossip columnist Liz Smith’s record of filming.
“In the ‘wire coat hanger’ scene where Crawford goes crazy and mercilessly beats the young Christina, actress Dunaway balked. She couldn’t bring herself to carry through on the physical violence and rage. Every time Perry tried to film the scene, Faye drew back from thrashing the little girl.”
Smith continued, “Finally, the desperate director [Frank Perry] had a form of Mara Hobel’s body made and dressed it in her pajamas. He called in Faye’s stand-in and had her beat the dummy while Mara cried and sobbed off-screen. Perry was nervous about showing Faye the final result … but the star left the screening room in a thoughtful mood.”
“She said at last, ‘Frank, you were absolutely right. I was wrong. The scene had to be like that!’ “
Dunaway’s trepidation for filming the abusive scene was less about her fear of traumatizing Hobel and more about her fear of demonizing Crawford.
In the book, technical advisor Jonathan Zimbert remembers, “Faye understood very well that that character would be seen, a hundred percent, as a monster if she were aggressively to do what was scripted. And so she held back. It was more comical [on the set] than it exists [on-screen]. And she wouldn’t do it, despite encouraging and encouraging and some more encouraging. Eventually, after she was done, there were some inserts done which look kind of hokey because the angles are a little off, but some of it’s in the movie.”
Years later, Dunaway herself was accused of verbal abuse by her staff, including personal assistants and stylists, and in 2019 was fired from the Broadway-bound play “Tea at Five” for allegedly creating a “hostile” and “dangerous” work environment that left production members fearing for their safety.
Crawford’s career got another onscreen treatment with Ryan Murphy’s “Feud: Bette and Joan” in 2017. Jessica Lange portrayed the Hollywood icon opposite Susan Sarandon’s Bette Davis. The FX anthology series focused on Crawford and Davis’ infamous rival while starring in the 1962 Academy Award-nominated horror thriller “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”
“With Love, Mommie Dearest: The Making of an Unintentional Camp Classic” hits shelves on May 7.