BBC Two - Feud: Bette and Joan

Mommie Dearest is a memoir and exposé written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of actress Joan Crawford. Published in 1978, it described her upbringing by an unbalanced alcoholic mother, whom she judged unfit to raise children. The book attracted much controversy regarding child abuse and child trafficking, with many family friends denouncing it as fiction, but others claiming that it was a broadly accurate, if exaggerated, account of Christina’s troubled childhood. It was turned into a film starring Faye Dunaway.