Did You Know?

The central role of Joan Crawford was originally to have been played by Anne Bancroft, who left the project once the screenplay was completed. Bancroft quit over creative differences about the script prior to principal photography. The part had been previously turned down by many actresses in Hollywood for being "too unsympathetic".

It was reported that in an interview that Joan Crawford said only Faye Dunaway had the talent and guts to be a true star.

Little love was lost between costume designer Irene Sharaff and Faye Dunaway. "Yes, you may enter Miss Dunaway's dressing room," Sharaff once said, "but first you most throw a raw steak in - to divert her attention."

The lobby cards issued for the film contain scenes from several sequences that were deleted from the final cut of the film, including: - Joan driving through the MGM lot in her car, apparently just before she visits L.B. Mayer & finds out she's fired. - Joan talking to young Christina on the beach. - Adult Christina talking to Joan while wearing the same dress she wears to the awards ceremony at the film's conclusion.

A scene was filmed in which Joan and young Christina build a campfire on the beach and Joan initiates a soul-baring conversation with the girl. Dunaway mentions this in her autobiography, and reveals that it was one of the first scenes they were required to shoot. She felt the scene was crucial because it made an attempt to explain some of Crawford's erratic behavior, and she was dismayed that the production required them to shoot such an emotional scene before any of the necessary history had been established between the actors. She took it as a warning sign that the production's priorities were in the wrong place, and ultimately the scene was cut from the film altogether.

According to Christina Crawford, there were several scenes in which the script had to make alterations for real-life events. For example, for the famous rose bush cutting scene Christina said that those manic occasions happened periodically due to no real cause. The producers wanted to use the scenes but had to write in that it was brought on by Joan being fired by MGM executive Louis B. Mayer. Also in reference to Joan helping the maid scrub the floor, Christina stated that Joan never cleaned floors that she could remember. Joan would make Christina or Christopher clean the floors while she supervised.

The movie's line "No wire hangers, ever!" was voted as the #72 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

Franco Zeffirelli was approached to direct the film, but Christina Crawford disliked his vision of Joan as a glamorous Hollywood martyr.

In a second, far less successful book about her tumultuous life, Christina Crawford writes that Faye Dunaway "auditioned" for the part of Joan by dressing herself up as the movie star and showing up unannounced on director Frank Perry's doorstep. Christina also says that when the film opened, she hesitantly went to see it one afternoon by herself at a theater in Los Angeles. She was the only one in the audience.

Faye Dunaway truly felt she would win an Oscar for her performance as Joan Crawford. When the film was released to poor reviews and Paramount's promotion of the film as a camp classic she was furious. To this day she refuses to talk about the film. In fact, when she is interviewed she submits a list of topics that are off-limits to the interviewer, one of which is Mommie Dearest. She has been known to stop interviews if asked about the film.

The picture is only briefly mentioned in Faye Dunaway's auto-biography. Dunaway maintains that she wished director Frank Perry had had more experience to assess when it was necessary to rein in their performances. The movie is a cult classic with a reputation for over-acting by Dunaway.

Reportedly, when the Paramount Pictures studio changed their marketing plan for the movie from drama to comedy, producer Frank Yablans sued as he had made the picture as a serious drama.

Final cinema movie of actress Jocelyn Brando (Marlon Brando's sister).