Barry Zee is totally unprepared...knows ZERO about the movie, if he had taken any time at all to research, he would not have had to interruot her on the constant!!! WORST...INTERVIEWER..EVER ! Rutanya Alda is a lovely woman and deserved a better interview than that! Barry Zee - do some research!
SADLY, both of these people are CLUELESS, you'd think that neither of them ever read the book, the "boys and the booze" comment for instance, was in the book.
Was Barry Z drinking? He's a rude interviewer, constantly interrupting her in order to draw attention to himself. How many times can he say, "WOW". It's a poor interview, You can clearly see Rutanya Alda is hiding being irritated by him and his desperate need for attention.
Omg this guy is a terrible interviewer!! He’s totally in the dark on top of “ is he even listening” I don’t think he even cares. I couldn’t sit and even allow him to continue if I was the person he’s interviewing. Wow!!! You?!! WOW!! Wow!! REALLY?! WOW
this guy is so freaking irritating i cant watch this interview. Im sorry Rutanya had to go thru this. what a missed opporunity to interview someone who seems funny and had a lot to share on her experience filming Mommie Dearest. God HE is AWFUL.
God.... Barry Zee is a bad interviewer, hope he stuck around to watch the movie, couldn't be more clear that he'd never seen it before. When he kept repeating "Didn't it paint her in a bad light, didn't it make her BOX OFFICE POISON!!!!???" Uhmmm... Joan was labeled that in the 30's, ya know... when her movies were still in theatres, not ten years after she died. And he kept asking her questions as if she was really Joan's secretary and if the lines were real........... Mess.
"All the wonderful directors in the seventies I 'worked' with", translation: "All the wonderful directors I slept with!", but, after all, a girl's gotta make a living, right? ;)
Dude needs to get the quotes right and do some studying. Read the book! He's reading too much realism into the movie. Some of the quotes were not what Joan actually said but it drove a point home. The movie was nothing like the book but a quote like, "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the dirt" captured her fanaticism about cleanliness in one sentence where it's more detailed in the book. You know where the boys and the booze are. Yes, she did actually say something to that effect and is in the book. Don't fuck with me fellows. Joan had a mouth on her when she needed to use it but by that time she was well versed in winning battles with corporations by dealing with the movie business. I don't believe she would have been that guttural. I think she could get her point across without having to shout that out. But it was a way in the movie to show how her survival tactics were. She was a fighter and a survivor. The big scare for her was that she owed Pepsi hundreds of thousands of dollars for the mammoth remodeling of the New York apartment. Al Steele had borrowed against future salaries and against life insurance policies. She was astonished when he died and she found out there was no money and that she was in debt and she paid her debts. She continued to work for Pepsi and she did some movies to help pay it all back.
"I'm bigger and faster and will always beat you." I don't remember that particular line being in the book or that there was a skirmish over swimming. "Take that dress off!" That's not the line in the movie at all. The whole thing was that Christina had a grass stain on her dress right before the press were going to take pictures. Joan told her it would never show but the photographer said, "Actually Miss Crawford, it might read." So it was showing how the make believe Hollywood life was presented to the press. Something as silly as a grass stain could make negative headlines. "Your dolls are uncaring and thoughtless and that's why I gave them away." That's not even what was said in the movie. And that scenario was not in the book either. Again, it was just to show the relationship strains and to give camp to the movie.
It wasn't about the dolls waking up Joan. That's not what happened in the movie or in the book. As years went by Christina finally figured some things out but as a child she didn't know. Joan slept late. Sometimes until noon and then had aspirin and coffee sent up to her room. The house was literally to walk on tip toe and to whisper so as not to wake her up. She was hungover! And if the kids were out in the yard playing and laughing like they were in the movie there was hell to pay for it. So in the movie just to show that punishments were severe and not always right for the crime, Joan catches Christina chastising her baby dolls and telling them what spoiled, thoughtless children they were. Christina comes into her room later in the day and all the dolls are gone. She goes to Joan to say all her dolls were gone and Joan told her good. Now they won't wake YOU up when you need your rest. Get you where it hurts. Drive the point home. You inconvenienced Joan and she was going to get even in a much bigger way. That was the focus of the book.
Wire hangers. That was true. And the scene was relatively true. It was a bit different in the book but pretty close. He didn't know about the "twins?" Lord. Cindy and Cathy came into the household after Christina was in boarding school. The book is based on Christina's years. She wasn't associated with Cindy and Cathy that much. She was older and she didn't spend any time with them. Cindy and Cathy had a much different experience with Joan than Christina and Christopher.
About Faye. Whether she owns up to that role, it was almost dead on! Frightfully so! She WAS Joan Crawford! She had her mannerisms, her voice was very much like Joan's. I saw it in the theater when it first came out and there's that long sequence in the beginning of her getting out of bed and the ice cubes and all that. You never see her face. She's in the car studying "Ice Follies" lines. Then it cuts to her dressing room and they say, "They're ready for you Miss Crawford." Faye spins around in that chair and the entire audience took such a huge gasp it almost sucked the screen off the rod! It - was - spooky. She looked just LIKE her! Immediately there was all kinds of chatter in the theater for a few moments. It took everybody by surprise.
First rule of interviewing - listen to what your subject is saying. This guy is too busy thinking about his next question and next smart comment. What a wasted opportunity. I gave up after 10 minutes. Poor Rutanya to be subjected to this.
I couldn't stand the character Carol Ann.... she allows Joan to act like a lunatic all the time says nothing so the characters to me was just frustrating... I kept waiting for her to help the children, and say Joan that's enough! but it never happened
