Diet Pepsi and Grey Goose

NOTE: The following is a fictionalized account of what would have happened if Joan Crawford, the ultimate female movie superstar of her time, had hit her peak and lost it in the early part of the 21st century.

Home of Miss Joan Crawford
426 North Bristol Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90049
5th October, 2007
8.30pm

A car pulls up in front of the Crawford mansion. Joan Crawford, the biggest movie star of her generation, is at the drivers' seat, fuming with fury. Despite this, her makeup is unscathed. Of course, it could be because being the movie star that she is, any trace of natural skin is trapped below layers of Cover Girl. Opposite her is the equally angry Christina Crawford, even madder. Her lips are pursed tighter than the blonde curls on her head.

Carol Ann, Joan's raven-haired assistant, rushes out. "Barbara Walters is here to see you, Joan," she says in her honeyed voice.

"I'm staying in here," Christina moans, looking out at the glowing moon in the sky. "I don't feel like coming in."

"You shall do no such thing!" Joan barks with the power of a thousand pit bulls.

"Why bother? Barbara never asks a decent interview question. She just regurgitates and rehashes."

"Tina," Joan says, taking the fifteenth swig from her flash in the past hour. "This interview could bring me back to superstardom. Now shut the fuck up, and come inside!"

Christina groans and reluctantly exits the car. Joan follows suit. Carol Ann greets the younger Crawford with a welcoming smile. Joan glares at her assistant, who promptly returns to her blank, neutral state.

The pre-eminent television personality, Miss Barbara Walters, emerges from the living room into the foyer. "Joan, how lovely to see you!" she says, as both Crawfords enter.

"Barbara, it's been so long," Joan replies. "This is my daughter, Christina."

"Hello, Miss Walters," Christina says unenthusiastically. "I shouldn't be in the way. I have a pound of Afghani heroin awaiting me on my bed."

If that does not snap Joan's rope any more than usual, nothing will. As Christina ascends the staircase to her room, Joan screams, "CHRISTINA!" The vibrations of the scream are enough to make an earthquake in Japan look like bumper cars. Everything shakes, from the chandeliers to the fragile objets d'art, placed just so on the mantlepiece, the coffee table, everywhere.

"What?" Christina turns toward her mother, exasperated.

"Living room. On the double!"

Christina lets out a curt sigh and walks down the staris. Joan follows her into the living room, just eager to beat the shit out of her. Barbara pays no mind, and engages herself with looking at some nearby sculptures.

In the living room, Christina sits down on the sofa, maintaining her unrepentant stance. Joan pours a combination of Diet Pepsi and Grey Goose from the drinks counter. She has been doing this for enough years to render it second nature. "I won't be long, Barbara!" she cheerily calls out to her guest in the waiting room. "I'm just having a heart-to-heart with Christina."

And then, she turns to her. This time, not even the makeup can conceal her burning red rage. "What the hell was that?!"

"Mommie, don't start with me," Christina replies. "I was well within my rights to make that comment. I've had a rough day."

"From what I heard at school, your so-called 'rough days' included WILD SEXATHONS in the auditiorium!"

"Wild sexathon my ass," Christina scoffs. "I only kissed and groped just one guy. Besides, the headmistress only sent me home for a week, as a precaution. I'll still be welcomed back and my grades won't be affected one goddamn iota."

"Oh, so everything is all hunky-dory, then?" Joan downs her vodka and cola combination in one fell swoop. "How DARE you embarrass me in front of a respected journalist?! My career is in the toilet, and I need everything that I can to just hang in there with the Angelina Jolies and the Reese Witherspoons and even the fucking Sophia Lorens!"

Christina stands up and walks toward her mother. "With all due respect... no, scratch that. You may be my mother, but you're not worthy of my respect."

Joan puts her glass down and takes a swipe at Christina. It would have worked years before, but not this time. Christina blocks her mother with her left arm. Another swipe. But again, Christina is up to the challenge and blocks that one.

"I've been taking self-defense classes," Christina says. "If I had known about them when I was younger, you wouldn't have hit me with those wire hangers."

Joan is clearly steamed.

"Miss Crawford?" Barbara calls from the foyer. "Is anything the matter? I can re-schedule for tomorrow and have Elisabeth Hasselbeck monitor the conversation on The View, even though she's as dumb as a box of rocks."

"Barbara, PLEASE!!!" Joan responds. "Give me five more minutes." She then turns to Christina. "You ungrateful little cunt," she mutters. "I have sacrificed for you. I have given you anything and everything in the fucking world, and you reward me with.. insolence. Insolence. IN-SO-FUCKING-LENCE!"

Christina returns to her seat on the sofa. She stares at her mother and shakes her head in disgust. "You just don't get it," she says." You gave me nothing. You have never given anyone who matters in your world a damn thing. Not your husbands, not your bosses, not Carol Ann, not your fans, and not your children."

"EXCUSE ME?!" Joan glares at Christina. "Jesus Christ on Ice, I am a goddamn movie star! I am Hollywood Royalty! I have been giving my all for everyone since I was a child!"

"No," Christina says, getting up and walking towards Joan. "You haven't given the world a goddamn thing, because you're not giving it as yourself. You've been giving it as Joan fucking Crawford, 24-7, 365! You're not authentic, you're not real. You've immersed yourself into being Joan Crawford, the biggest movie star in the history of the world! Not just on screen, not just on television, but everywhere! I bet that you're still Joan Crawford when you take a shit in the bathroom!"

Less than a second later, Joan delivers a quick and potent bitch-slap that sends Christina flying back onto the sofa. As Christina clutches her cheek, tears pour down her face. Try as she might, her attempt at resilience has met with disaster. Joan looks at her with a wicked satisfaction, as if she is a gaucha on the pampas, having just branded a bull, now ready for castration and slaughter.

"Obviously you missed a class," Joan says. "For your information, I have a right to be Joan Crawford around-the-clock. The public demands it. Hollywood demands it. I demand it. You have to live with it."

There is a sound of steps rushing to the door, and then that of the front door slamming closed. Miss Barbara Walters has left the house.

"You just scared off the interview of a lifetime!" Joan exclaims. "That does it. For the next week, you are on LOCKDOWN, Missy! If you every so much as put one toenail out of this house... you'll be deader than any prospect of a Legend of Billie Jean DVD release!"

Christina stands up and walks past her mother, who is now on auto-pilot. "Don't you dare leave while I'm talking to you!" Joan says.

The younger Crawford pauses, takes a few deep breaths, and turns around. "We have never talked. By the by, why in the name of God did you adopt me?"

Joan never saw that question coming. In response, she turns to her drinks counter and puts her hand on the bottle of Grey Goose.

"I don't care if it's five o'clock somewhere. Put down the goddamn bottle." Christina says calmly.

Joan reluctantly lets go. She looks at Christina stoically, mustering as much strength as she can. "I adopted you," she says," because there was something missing in my life. I had all the success in the world, but what I wanted was a child."

Christina is unmoved. "Did you really adopt me out of love, or did you do it for the publicity?" she asks.

"It was never for publicity!" Joan screams. She takes a few breaths. "Okay... in the back of my mind, I wanted a little publicity. I was coming off a failed marriage, and the last movie I starred in at the time, stunk at the box office. I remember, Gene Siskel said that my performance lacked 'conviction' and 'gravitas'."

Christina takes a few steps down. "Mother," she says, "I may not have been the perfect daughter, but I am a good person. So, I made out with some guy. Big deal. So, a few of my clothes are on wire hangers. That's not exactly TMZ material, you know." She sighs, and walks toward the sofa. "I deserve better."

"You had every advantage and privilege and existence."

Christina turns around. "Yeah, right. I never had advantages and privileges. I expected to have a loving, caring, nurturing, and supportive parent. What did I get instead? JOAN CRAWFORD!"

Joan walks up to her daughter. They glare at each other. It's a diva face-off at the Crawford corall. Neither one of them is willing to give an inch. And then, Joan raises her hands and grabs Christina by the neck. Christina struggles to break free, but Joan has summoned the strength of a lion and throws her toward the wall like a ball. Christina screams in pain on contact. It's a blood-curl\dling scream, one that you usually hear in the movies. Joan picks her up and throws her and herself onto the gorund, knocking down a lamp and some chairs in the process.

"MOMMIE!!" Christina screams over and over.

Joan slaps her daughter, and knees her in the groin over and over. "You filthy disgrace! You are not my daughter!"

The front doors burst open. A SWAT team has arrived, guns at the ready. Joan turns around. She freezes in absolute horror. It's not just the guns. Behind them are bright, bold, white lights shining at her from behind the SWAT team. It's a camera crew.

Christina crawls away, and vomits a torrent of blood and guts onto the carpet. Her visage is a mess. Her eyes are redder than the blood that she's projected. She lets out a loud cry and collapses, head first, right into the carpet mess.

"What the hell is going on?" Joan screams.

"Joan Crawford, you are under arrest for child endangerment!" An authorative voice comes out of nowhere. Joan can't see him or her because the lights are too bright. But it doesn't matter. Moments later, they handcuff Joan and lead her out of the mansion.

The first thing that Joan sees is a throng of reporters and camerapersons, congregating outside the mansion's front door. Local TV news, CNN, NBC, FOX, ABC, Telemundo, Univision, radio news, TMZ.com, they're all there. They bombard her with question after question after question.

"Joan, are you a child abuser?"

"Joan, where's Christina?"

"Joan, is this the end of your career?"

One would think that Joan, being the grand movie star celebrity that she is, would whip out a statement citing her innocence and how she'll be back on top again. But, it's not on. She shakes her head, tears coming from her eyes.

In the living room, paramedics attend to Christina. She has passed out, and her alabaster skin has become brusied and bloated, with a patina of her own blood and vomit. They raise her onto a stretcher, and wheel her out. In the meantime, police tear through the Crawford mansion, a few hours earlier a shining Hollywood landmark.

As they wheel Christina into the ambulance, Joan spots her from the comfort of the backseat of a police car. "Tina!" she yells. "TINA!"

Carol Ann, absent for a while, rushes toward the car.

"Carol Ann!" Joan exclaims. "Oh, Carol Ann. What's going on?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Crawford," Carol Ann says, rather unemotionally. She heads back toward the mansion. Joan screams in pain and agony. A few camera bulbs flash her way. As the police car begins to head out, Carol Ann turns toward Joan one more time. On her face is a wicked smile, one that seems to say, "That's what you get, bitch."