Mommie Dearest and the Marmont

The unintentionally campy “Mommie Dearest” with Faye Dunaway began production January 1981. I solely mention Faye because if you’ve seen the movie, you know that she completely devours everyone else in the cast. Choppy, over-dramatic, and full of poorly written dialogue, I am still fascinated by this movie that tries to be too many things and in the end, fails at all of them. And yet, you can’t help but be entertained by it…for all the wrong reasons. The AFI website has lots of interesting details about the production. According to the Village Voice, Anne Bancroft was originally cast by November 1979 with Franco Zeffirelli as director. By September 1980, Variety announced Bancroft was out and Dunaway was in, with Frank Perry replacing the legendary Zeffirelli. 



Filmmakers toured Crawford’s Brentwood home at 426 North Bristol but found it “unsuitable” for filming.



Other film locations included Chadwick School in Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA, the administration building at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and Perino’s Restaurant (at 4101 Wilshire Boulevard, torn down a few years after filming). The beach scenes at the beginning of the movie were shot in Malibu.

Wait a minute…Anne Bancroft? I would be fascinated to have seen her version of “Mommie Dearest.” Something tells me she would have been more restrained and given a more nuanced performance than Faye. The book With Love, Mommie Dearest by A. Ashley Hoff gives some background as to why Bancroft left the project just before filming was to begin:

Bancroft had been discussing the project with [producer Frank] Yablans for over a year but would not commit herself to it until she saw a script she liked—and was sure the film would be directed by someone of whom she approved. When it was announced Yablans had signed Franco Zeffirelli to direct, Bancroft’s commitment followed. Production at the time featured a screenplay by James Kirkwood, and filming was slated for the following spring. Spring came and went. Columnists speculated Bancroft was getting cold feet at the notion of playing a beloved film icon in a negative light.…“Producer Frank Yablans is suddenly back to square one with his screen adaptation of ‘Mommie Dearest,’” gossip maven Marilyn Beck announced in her column in the spring of 1980. “Production on the controversial project was to have started this spring with Anne Bancroft playing that sorry Mommie, Joan Crawford. But now Yablans says that director Franco Zeffirellis is out and ‘all that I can tell you about Anne’s involvement at this point is that I think she’s still in.’”

“Along came ‘Mommie Dearest,’” began legendary comedy writer and raconteur Bruce Vilanch.…“This is what I know: Anne Bancroft was going to do the picture, and Paramount ran a trade ad with a picture of Anne, the Joan Crawford portrait in the frame, which they subsequently used with Faye [on the poster]. And they were ready to go with the movie. And the day the picture appeared in the trades, as I understand it, Anne Bancroft went to her husband Mel Brooks, who is a friend of mine, and asked, ‘Do I look like Joan Crawford?’ And he said, ‘You look like a woman in the home who thinks she looks like Joan Crawford, and has dressed up to look like Joan Crawford.’ And she said, ‘Should I not do this picture?’ And he said, ‘Look, we’ve all read the book. It’s one thing to picture Joan Crawford chopping down a tree in the backyard. It’s something else when you actually put on the makeup and the costume and do it. The audience’s reaction will be laughter because it won’t sync with their view of who it is, and it’s such an over-the-top conceit.’ So she quit, she backed out of it.…That alone makes him a genius, the fact he had that observation before anybody else did.

The book is an excellent account of the trials and tribulations of the making of “Mommie Dearest” along with the aftermath and how the film is evaluated in present day. If you want to view the script that Bancroft “approved” you can see it at The Concluding Chapter of Joan Crawford. It is an interesting look at what would have been a very different movie. Below is a shot of Joan with Bancroft in 1963 from the The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia website, when she gave Anne her Oscar for “The Miracle Worker.” This is the Oscar that Crawford famously swept by loser Bette Davis to accept on behalf of Bancroft.



For an insider’s look at the production itself, look no further than Rutanya Alda’s book, The Mommie Dearest Diary: Carol Ann Tells All.



You might recall that Alda played Crawford’s frumpy and mousy assistant, Carol Ann. The character and the performance given by the actress inform the audience that this person lives only for Joan. Carol Ann is based on a medley of people in Crawford’s life, including her real-life assistant, Betty Barker (left $35k in Crawford’s will) as well as secretaries/assistants Florence Walsh and Anna Marie Brinke, according to Hoff’s book. In it, he also adds “As far as Christina Crawford’s book was concerned, Barker denied having ever seen or heard of Joan Crawford abusing her children. Christina, on the other hand, told Rutanya Alda she and Christopher loathed Betty, saying ‘She lied about us and was always making trouble.’”



Regardless of who is telling the truth or not, the Carol Ann character doesn’t add much to the film other than to show an example of the fawning adoration that Crawford fans possessed. No matter what behavior she witnessed, Carol Ann continued to suck up to Joan in the film. Back to Rutanya’s book. It’s a short and breezy read that is nowhere near as lurid as the cover art and title imply. The photo on the back shows a very glamorized Alda; this is a look that is so far from Carol Ann that at first glimpse it is hard to believe the two are one and the same.



This is a constant theme throughout the book about the filming; any time that Alda looked too pretty, Dunaway would talk to the crew and made sure that either Alda was made frumpier or in the worst case scenario, the scene was cut. For the scene where Joan marries Pepsi Cola magnate Al Steele, Alda recalls:

I have my middle age makeup on and a beautiful gray taffeta wedding party dress. This is the dress Ms. [Irene] Sharaff mentioned was by a famous French designer when we were having wardrobe fittings at the beginning of the film. It is gorgeous and fits me perfectly. I have a cute hat on and I look so good. Faye is in a beautiful pink satin dress that buttons down the front with an orchid corsage. Harry Goz was there as Al Steele, as well as about twenty-five extras. One lady comments that I have the smallest waist. Faye overhears this and gives me a look.…Frank P. comes by and and says they will not use me in the wedding scene. What! How can you not have Carol Ann at the wedding? “You look too good, Rutanya,” Frank says. “I told you this at the beginning, you can’t look good. I have no control over this.” “But Frank,” I stammer, “This costume was approved in the test shots, I mean I can justify Christina not being there, if she is in school or in New York, although I think she should have been there too. But Carol Ann! She should be making sure the photographers get really good shots, and she could be giving last-minute photos to sign, as Joan was always signing her eight-by-tens, and she should be making sure Joan looks good. There are twenty-five strangers there who have never been seen in the film. They don’t mean anything.” “It’s out of my hands, Faye doesn’t want it,” Frank says, and quickly. leaves. Incredible! Frank is so afraid of Faye. He’s afraid of being fired by her!

Was Carol Ann really necessary for this brief scene? Not really, especially when you look at a press photo from the actual event. I don’t seen anyone buzzing around Alfred and Joan, do you? What you see in the finished movie is mainly Al and Joan, intercut with VERY brief clips of guests/photographers/columnists asking questions and taking photos. For a movie already pressed for time to tell a complicated story, why would you add extraneous bits about signing autographs and futzing with Joan’s makeup and outfit? These are the type of tales in Alda’s book that inform me that she really didn’t have a grasp of what the overall movie was about. While she did a more than capable job as Carol Ann, the success of the film did not ride on Alda’s shoulders or her character’s.



Alda kept a diary during the production of “Mommie Dearest,” so despite the book being written more than thirty years after the film’s release, the details she gives are very specific. The reason I bought the book was to see what she had to say about the Chateau Marmont, which is where she stayed during filming.

I am booked to live at the famous Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles for the indefinite duration of the film. I had driven by that place so many times when I lived in L.A. I’ve always wanted to stay there, but it’s been beyond my budget. At last, months at the Marmont. It’s wonderful.…[actor] Richard [Bright, Alda’s husband] will come later, after he’s made arrangements to bring our cat, Kukums, with us. (He was a black and white beauty who found me one day during a huge rainstorm in New York and followed me home. He had been very sick and recovered sleeping on my bed for a solid week. He was the smartest, most fearless cat I’ve ever had, and we made quite an entrance at the Marmont’s gardens and pool, as I put the leash on him and he went out for his daily constitutional.)…The lobby of the Chateau Marmont is beautifully decorated and the Christmas tree that greets me is spectacular. I am checked into room thirty-five, a one-bedroom suite.



Recently, I was able to check room 35 off my Chateau Marmont bucket list. Here’s what the interior looks like now:



The kitchen (below), where according to Alda “…the too loud, too sensitive fire alarm goes off twice from cooking on the stove in my room at the Marmont. Scares me like crazy.”



The bathroom:



The bedroom:



A great view of the pool and Sunset Boulevard from 35:



One of my favorite stories in Alda’s book is about do-gooder Jane Fonda:

Met Gita Breslin at the Writers Guild for screening of film “9 to 5.” It was fun going with her, as Gita had worked as being a stand in for Jane Fonda on many of her films and was also her personal masseuse. She told me they had broken their relationship when Gita had somehow gotten injured on Jane Fonda’s film set and filed for disability insurance and Jane had gotten very angry at Gita for doing that. Jane never hired Gita again.

I never believed for a minute that Jane Fonda was as much of a champion for the underdog as she publicly portrays herself to be.



From Sunday, January 18th:

I take Kukums [shown above in room 35] for a walk around the pool. He can’t wait to get out for a walk every day. He still waits for me with the leash. Everyone thinks it’s so strange to see a cat out for a walk. He loves to eat grass. We walk and sit for a while. Go shopping at Quinn’s health food store for dinner. Make chicken at the Marmont.

Quinn’s Health Food store (once called Quinn’s Nutrition Center) was a popular local store just off Melrose Avenue at 226 North Larchmont Boulevard. Of course it no longer exists.

Wednesday, January 31st:

Joanna [wife of Michael McClure, also staying at the Marmont] got up early for a conference in Pasadena. I met Richard and Michael at Schwab’s at 10:30 for breakfast. (Schwab’s was a famous drug store and coffee shop where a lot of actors hung out there and Lana Turner was rumored to have been discovered. I once had lunch at the counter and Jerry Brown, who was then the young governor of California, sat right next to me without any bodyguards and we chatted like we knew each other. It was that kind of place.) Back to the Marmont and run into the wonderful actress, Cathleen Nesbitt. She looks fabulous at ninety-two.

You might recall Nesbitt (below right) from her role as the snooty grandmother in Disney’s “The Parent Trap” (1961) with Maureen O’Hara and Hayley Mills.



Wednesday, February 4th:

Take Kukums for daily walk around the pool—we save little Billy’s life, a two-year-old English boy who falls in. There is no one else around, no parents watching. Richard hears me yell and jumps across some tables and we both bend over the deep end and grab his arms and hoist him up. He doesn’t cry—he doesn’t realize how serious this was. No, actually, he does start crying, because his green lollipop is still in the pool. Richard rescues his green lolly with the big pool scoop and he stops crying. His parents finally show up and we tell them what happened and they don’t seem concerned at all. This should have at least quivered their stiff upper lip. Lucky for them we were there. Do they know that?



Below is a photo from Alda’s book taken at the Marmont with Joanna McClure, Michael McClure, and Richard Bright. The McClures were prominent figures in the San Francisco Beat poetry movement back in the 1950s. Michael died in 2020; Joanna appears to still be alive.



This was a hard match for me; possibly it is showing poolside cottage 89 on the second floor  at right behind them. Below is a contemporary shot from a different angle of where I believe Alda’s photo was taken. Cottage 89 is above the ping pong table.



The best part of Alda’s very short book is the story of her early years in Latvia and glossed over all too quickly. The hardships she endured and overcame would make a very interesting movie. Instead, more time is spent on Faye’s poor treatment of the cast and crew of “Mommie Dearest.” It’s enough to make your eyes cross.



On the recent blu ray of the film, Producer/Screenwriter Frank Yablans had this to say about Faye’s performance:



Maybe it turned out to be more of a caricature than a character, but when you’re dealing with something that’s bigger than life, you have to present it bigger than life, and so we did, and I’m very proud of where we went with it. There were a couple of times I guess we could have toned her down a little bit, particularly when she attacks the rose bushes, which is considered one of the rare moments on film. I take a little bit of the blame, because I should have asked Frank [Perry] to pull her back a little bit on that scene, but you’re watching this thing and you’re watching her go and you’re watching where she’s going with it and I got swept up in the moment of this absolute rage, “Hollywood Royalty!” This woman has just been given a death sentence in Hollywood and so she has all this rage in her, so it probably went over the top. Maybe in another lifetime I’ll bring it down a little bit! Ha!

Rutanya was also interviewed for the featurette and gave this amusing anecdote:

I gotta’ tell you a story; when I was in Christina Crawford’s house, I took a look in her closet. There’s a lot of wire hangers!



I will end this post with another insightful quote from Yablans:

Aren’t we all in some way villains, and aren’t we all in some way angels? That’s what makes an interesting subject. Joan Crawford, she was who she was before she ever got to Hollywood or she wouldn’t have become what she became. Hollywood doesn’t destroy people; people destroy themselves. This is an industry that you’re going to have high highs and low lows. You learn early on to deal with rejection and you learn not to take your success too seriously because it’s going to be fleeting, and if you don’t learn those things, I don’t care whether you’re in Hollywood or in Peoria, Illinois, you’re going to get destroyed because you’re not true to yourself.



And so ends today’s post about “Mommie Dearest” and the Chateau Marmont.

See more Chateau Marmont photos at my main website.

Toilet Paper at the Chateau

Another reminder that I have an obsession with the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood occurred when I saw an ad on Instagram and INSTANTLY recognized the bathroom as being the one in room 32. Stephen Dorff is the celebrity hawking healthy toilet paper. Please read that again.



The same guy who encouraged everyone to vape is now worrying about UTIs, hemorrhoids, and cancer of the a** because of toilet paper. He calls your “normal” roll of toilet paper “a nightmare for your body.”

Dorff became associated with the Chateau Marmont as a result of the 2010 Sofia Coppola film, “Somewhere.” For the film, Dorff’s character was filmed staying in room 59.



The color of the vintage bathroom tile is the same in both 59 and 32, but the layout of 32’s bathroom is slightly different. Below is a shot I took recently when I stayed in 32. A perfect match!



The bathroom from 59; not a perfect match:



There is already buzz out on the net about Dorff’s ad. This article popped up and is fairly hilarious:

I still remember where I was, kinda sorta, the day I saw Stephen Dorff shilling for Blu e-cigs. Certainly he was paid to do the ad, but something about his leathery skin, cement-truck voice, and popped suit collar just screamed “I have indeed sampled many electronic cigarettes.” He sold the hell out of that thing. To the point that I think I immediately texted my father, who is still a smoker despite being nearly 80, to ask if he’d ever tried an e-cig. “Vaping” wasn’t a word yet and what little I knew about it made it seem like it might be a slightly healthier alternative to cigarettes (probably still is, but we don’t need to get into a whole thing about it). My father never brought himself to switch to vaping, but I don’t blame that on Stephen Dorff. In fact I’m still grateful to the Blade star for giving me the idea. Why was I inspired to share with you such a memory? Well, because today I discovered (aka my old editor Brett sent to me) this new Instagram ad starring Stephen Dorff, in an arguably even better pitch than Blu e-cigs. These days, he’s hawking “100% toxin free” toilet paper. “I know a thing or two about assholes,” rasps a bathrobe-clad Dorff, sitting in a tiled, baby blue bathroom. “They're more sensitive than you may think. And your normal roll of toilet paper is contributing to your risk of cancer.” So you’re saying that it’s toilet paper… and it doesn’t have… poison? You have my attention. The ad goes on to claim that the bleach and formaldehyde used to process your toilet paper are “forever chemicals,” linked to a whole slew of maladies, from “inflammation,” to UTIs, to hemorrhoids. The causal link smells a little vague to me, and calling bleach a “forever chemical” seems like some kind of nominative overreach, but I do wipe my butt and also sometimes experience medical issues, so who am I to say? Being a human in the modern world means nothing if not cautiously believing in magic whenever convenient. Is that why I’m tired in the afternoon and I can’t drink the way I used to? Is it the toxins? All I know is that when you give Stephen Dorff a product to pitch, that man sells the shit out of it. I haven’t seen a commercial performance this committed since Michael Imperioli told me my tequila was gay (or possibly not gay enough?). He finishes things off telling us that his new poison-free toilet paper will cost only $15 more dollars per year. “That’s two damn moccachinos,” Dorff says, in the no nonsense tone of a cowboy who has just sidled up to you in a saloon and correctly surmised that you enjoy moccachinos. Can you not spare a couple moccachinos, pardner? Think of your asshole! In conclusion, God bless Stephen Dorff for bringing his A-game no matter the product, and also I would love to interview Stephen Dorff’s agent some time to see what gigs he has turned down. I also wouldn’t be surprised if eight out of ten of Stephen Dorff’s friends were electronic cigarette and poison-free toilet paper entrepreneurs.

Alicia Silverstone, of “Clueless” fame, is also promoting the same product. Unlike Dorff though, she doesn’t rate a Chateau Marmont restroom. Instead, she gets a regular bathroom stall and also has the added bonus of talking about “vulvoginitis.”



You’ll be happy to know that this product is approved by Dorff’s a**.



If you haven’t seen the ad yet, here it is:



See more pop culture photos at my main website.

Perkins at the Piano

This 1954 image shows actor Anthony Perkins (best known as Norman Bates in “Psycho”) tinkling the ivories at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood.



There is still a piano in the lobby restaurant at the hotel, in approximately the same spot.



This detailed shot reveals that it could actually be the very same piano; the ledge was added more recently, but the piano itself seems to have the same styling.



Sohmer & Company was founded in New York City in 1872, creating the first modern baby grand pianos.



The Sohmer family sold off the company in 1982 to Pratt, Read & Co., the largest American manufacturer of piano actions and keyboards, and moved to their facilities in Ivoryton, Connecticut. It appears that the company folded/went bankrupt some time in the 1980s/1990s. Samick Music Corporation, a Korean based piano manufacturer, now holds the rights to the Sohmer name, but no longer produces Sohmer-branded pianos.

UPDATE: The Chateau tells me it is not the same piano. Sigh…

See Chateau Marmont more photos at my main website.

Marmont Monday: Anthony Perkins in 21, circa 1954

This batch of vintage shots from the Chateau Marmont with actor Anthony Perkins in residence was advertised as being from 1955. Judging by the balcony out the window, it would appear that this is room 21 facing the balcony of room 29. The same balcony from August 2006:



I went back and forth as to whether it was the balcony from 59, but that one is narrower and doesn’t match the wide one in the Perkins photo. Room 59 from December 2002:



The bedroom of 21, circa August 2013:



I wanted to see if I could confirm or deny the 1955 date of the trio of shots I purchased. On the floor was a Newsweek magazine and Daily Variety.



It took a bit of digging, but I found it! From February 22, 1954.



Daily Variety was a lot tougher, and although I was able to find one from the same week (below), it doesn’t match the one in the Perkins photo, which has the headline of “No Election [?] for local TV.”



I sure hope Perkins tipped housekeeping well. What a mess! See the cord that goes from the floor out the window? For all you youngsters, this 1954 photo was BEFORE cell phones. Gasp!



I wonder if he was calling Mother?



Apparently Perkins could multitask; ping-pong AND talking on the phone.



A detailed view of the champagne bucket and the vintage phone:



Also as a note of importance: room 21 was the first Chateau Marmont room where Willis took up residence:



The staff made sure to properly celebrate his arrival:



See more Chateau Marmont hotel photos at my main website.

Marmont Monday: Dominick Dunne and Room 38

Dominick Dunne first hit my radar with the 1987 TV movie, “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles.” The Claudette Colbert/Ann-Margret movie was based on Dunne’s best-selling novel which heavily borrowed from a true-crime event that occurred in 1955. Dunne was famous for covering many high-profile celebrity crime cases for Vanity Fair. His obsession with these court cases began after the verdict for his daughter’s murder resulted in an acquittal for the second-degree murder charge, but resulted in a guilty verdict for the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. This changed the writer’s life forever and gave him a new purpose.



In the 2008 documentary, “Dominick Dunne: After the Party,” Dunne gave interviews from his room at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood and his Central Park apartment. At the beginning of the documentary, Dunne calls attention to the helicopters that have been flying overhead since 5am because of the Paris Hilton trial that was going on at the time for violating her probation from an alcohol-related reckless driving case. “This is a great story,” the writer tells the cameras. “She’s one of the most famous women in the world for going to parties. It’s a great story.…I only cover the trials of the rich, powerful, and famous because it is different for them than for other people, because they’ve got the bucks to spend on the million dollar lawyers, and they’ve got the bucks to bring in the expert witnesses. Jurors fall for those expert witnesses every time. I call them the whores of the court, because they can be bought by either side.…I started out at Vanity Fair magazine with the trial of the man with the Hollywood murder trial, the man who killed my daughter, and I think I’m going to end it with the Phil Spector trial.” The opening shots of Dunne in his bedroom watching television revealed to me that he was staying in Room 38.



I stayed in the same room in September 2022, approximately fifteen years after Dunne did. Obviously, the headboard has changed, but many of the other furnishings (and the drapes which I love!) remained the same.



Dunne stayed at the Chateau frequently. “The nice thing about the Chateau Marmont is that it’s not just a room,” he stated while giving a tour of his room. “…and it’s not like a suite, it’s like a little apartment here, which I really like. And I don’t know how to cook, but I love having the place to make coffee if I want to make coffee, which I don’t even know how to make.”

The author continued into the dining room area, opening a door that revealed a tiny balcony. “There’s a little terrace here, which I sometimes sit out at and smoke a joint…heh heh heh.”



My shot from 2022 lines up!



In this screenshot from the documentary, you can see that Dunne has taped his notes and photos from the trial to the wall.



Below, you can see a long shot of the living room area where Dunne was being interviewed.



The same desk:



Dunne sits in the comfortably overstuffed living room chair:



Not surprisingly, it has been recovered with a different fabric. The lamp and end table are the same.



Sitting at the dining room table:



The same table:



Dunne strolls into the living room, about to sit on the couch to continue his interview:



The furnishings and art on the wall have changed a bit. The Dali print above the couch is the same, though.



Sitting at his desk, we have a better view of the living room:



Which pretty much matches up with my 2022 photo:



This shot from the documentary was achieved by walking up the winding street behind the Chateau:



In a case of serendipity, I was able to get virtually the same shot back in 2013 when there was construction of a new home going on. This view would be almost impossible to duplicate now.



Dunne’s story is a somewhat sad one that occurs all too often. “I just never felt that I belonged anywhere. Even in my family, I was an outsider of the six kids.…There was something about me that drove [my father] crazy. He beat me with a riding crop. I had welts on my ass and my thighs. He mimicked me. He called me a sissy. Sissy is a tough word; it may not sound tough, but it’s a word that hurts terribly and lingers. It can linger for a lifetime, that kind of hurt. It may seem like nothing now, but it’s awful to hurt a child. It’s a terrible thing. I still haven’t totally eliminated all that hurt. My opinion of myself was nothing. I believed that I was everything that he said. I got to a point where I thought, ‘I will never let him make me cry again, no matter what. I’ll never cry.’”



Oddly enough, it was Humphrey Bogart who changed things for Dunne. Employed as a floor manager for “Robert Montgomery Presents” in New York City, Dunne was able to meet a wide variety of celebrities, including the legendary Bogie. “Bogart got a kick out of me, and I really just worshipped him. So I said to him once, ‘God, I love to look at movie stars!’ And he said, ‘What are you doing Friday? Come to dinner!’ Sinatra sang, Judy Garland sang, and Lana Turner lived next door. Lana Turner was so fantastic at that time. And Spencer Tracy was there that night, and David Niven was there that night, and Hank Fonda was there that night. And it went on and on…I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. And they just sort of took me in and accepted me, like I was one of them. I was so up there was no way I was going to go to sleep. I called Lenny [his wife] and said, ‘We’ve got to move to Hollywood! It’s incredible, you won’t believe it!’ It was everything I wanted.”

And so they did. In this frame from a Dunne home movie, Rock Hudson is shown, but you can also clearly see Judy Garland lighting up a cig. For Dunne, this was the acceptance he had failed to achieve from his father and it consumed him. The tragic death of his daughter shifted his focus but still kept him in the celebrity spotlight, which he craved.



See more Chateau Marmont photos at my main website.