All About Joan Crawford’s Four Kids, and the Major Rift Between Them

Giovana GelhorenSun, October 11, 2026 at 7:20 PM UTC

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Christina, Joan and Christopher CrawfordCredit: Getty ImagesTensions escalated all the way to the courtroom.THE GIST -

Mildred Pierce star Joan Crawford was a mother to four children.

Her eldest children, Christina and Christopher Crawford, had a strained, volatile relationship with their mom from their youth, leading to Christina’s bestselling book Mommie Dearest.

Joan was also a mom to twins Cindy and Cathy, who always defended their mother from accusations.

When it comes to the Golden Age of Hollywood, actress Joan Crawford is one of the first names that come to mind. Among the iconic movies are Mildred Pierce (1945), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), and Humoresque (1946).

But while her natural charm and striking features will forever live on in her art, the actress was also a mom of four children. Joan first became a mom in 1939 when she adopted her first daughter, Christina Crawford. By 1943, she adopted her son, Christopher Crawford, before welcoming her youngest twins, Cindy and Cathy, in 1947.

Over the years, Joan’s relationship with Christina and Christopher became strained, with Joan cutting them out of her will entirely, and Christina publishing a memoir, Mommie Dearest just months after Joan died of a heart attack in May 1977. The memoir described the actress as physically and emotionally abusive, and claimed that her kids had no choice but to put their heads down and obey.

Before her passing, Joan knew about the book, but apparently refused to read it. “I think this book will be full of lies and twisted truths,” Crawford told a close friend, per Vanity Fair. “I don’t think my adopted daughter is writing this book just to hurt me. If her purpose were to hurt me, she has already accomplished it without going to the trouble of writing a book.”

Below, find everything there is to know about Joan Crawford’s four children.

Christina Crawford

Christina and Joan CrawfordCredit: Getty Images

Joan’s first daughter was Christina Crawford, born on June 11, 1939, and adopted by the actress shortly after her birth. Per People, because it was illegal for a single woman to adopt in California, Joan finalized the adoption in Nevada.

At a very young age, Joan encouraged Christina to follow in her footsteps and pursue acting. “She was literally wheeled onto the set of my pictures as an infant,” Joan told The New York Times in 1968. “She grew up surrounded by lights. I’ve introduced her to every actor and director I’ve ever worked with.” Some acting roles of Christina’s include the Broadway show Barefoot in the Park, the movie Wild in the Country, and the soap opera The Secret Storm.

Speaking of The Secret Storm, Christina had to undergo an unplanned surgery for an ovarian tumor in 1968, and her mother stepped in and took over the role. “I didn’t want them to give the part to someone else,” Crawford told The New York Times. Christina, on the other hand, had mixed feelings about the switch up. “I couldn’t exactly jump up and down in bed about it, but I do remember thinking that it was fantastic that she would care that much,” she said.

In 1978, just a few months after Joan’s death, Christina published her tell-all bestselling memoir, Mommie Dearest. In it, Christina made some major accusations against her mother, like child abuse, emotional abuse, and that Joan was an aggressive, volatile alcoholic.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Christina detailed in the book her mother’s “night raids,” in which she would wake her and her siblings up drunk and make them clean messes they hadn’t made for hours on end. In another instance, Christina remembered being choked out by Joan at just 13 years old. At the time, police were called, but without any child protection laws, there was nothing that could be done.

“[The officer] told me that there was nothing he could do because there were no laws to protect me,” Christina remembered to The Guardian. “He told me: ‘You have to try to live [here] until you are 18 and can go free. But, otherwise, if anyone calls me again on you, you’ll have to go to juvenile detention.’”

A few years after its release, Christina’s memoir was turned into a 1981 film, starring Faye Dunaway as Crawford. After that, Christina became an advocate for children of parents with alcoholism and those who have suffered abuse. She also produced the 2013 documentary Surviving Mommie Dearest.

Christina was once married to Harvey Medlinsky, but the pair later divorced.

Christopher Crawford

Joan Crawford with her children Christopher and ChristinaCredit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Joan’s first son, Christopher, was born in 1943 and adopted by the actress and her third husband, Philip Terry. Christoper was initially named Phillip Terry Jr., but after Joan and Terry divorced, he was renamed Christopher Crawford.

While little is known about Christopher’s personal life over the years, The New York Times states he served in the U.S. Army after high school and was stationed in Vietnam when he was 25.

Per Christina for The Guardian, Christopher was “wholly supportive” of her speaking out, publishing her book and becoming an advocate for child abuse.

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In Not the Girl Next Door, published in Vanity Fair, Crawford’s longtime friend John Springer revealed that when Christopher was discharged from the Army, he went to visit Crawford with his wife and child, but his mother turned him away. “I remember most clearly,” Crawford told Springer, “when a teenaged Christopher spat in my face. He said, ‘I hate you.’ It’s pretty hard to overlook that. I couldn’t.”

In her will, Joan deliberately removed both Christina and Christopher. “It is my intention to make no provision herein for my son Christopher or my daughter Christina for reasons which are well known to them,” she wrote in it.

“You know the troubles I’ve had with my two older children,” Joan told Springer about her two oldest kids. “I can’t understand why it turned out so badly. I tried to give them everything. I loved them and tried to keep them near me, even when they didn’t return my love. Well, I couldn’t make them love me, but they could have shown some respect. I couldn’t insist on love, but I could insist on respect.”

After the actor’s 1977 death, Christina and Christopher challenged the will and ended up splitting $55,000, worth about $300,000 today, according to a 1979 article inThe New York Times.

Christopher died in 2006 at age 63.

Cathy Crawford

Joan Crawford, and her children, Christine, Cathy, Cindy and ChristopherCredit: Getty Images

In 1947, Joan adopted fraternal twin girls Cathy and Cindy, who were born on January 13, 1947. According to Vanity Fair, the twins’ birth mother died less than a week after they were born.

When she was 21 years old, Cathy wed Naval seaman Jerome LaLonde in a gown she designed and sewed herself, according to The New York Times. During their marriage, which lasted until 1984, they had two children, Carla and Casey LaLonde.

While she carried out a private life, Cathy has openly refuted Christina’s version of their mother. “We lived in the same house as Christina, but we didn’t live in the same home, because she had her own reality,” she told Vanity Fair. “Cindy and I had a different reality—the opposite. I don’t know where she got her ideas. Our Mommie was the best mother anyone ever had.”

In 2008, Christina responded to the claims. “Cathy has been very vocal about her experience, and that’s her privilege, but there was eight years’ difference between us,” she told The Guardian. “She was two when I was sent to boarding school. She couldn’t have known anything about my or Chris’s experience — zip, nothing. She wasn’t there—she wasn’t even born when I was adopted.”

In 1998, Cathy sued Christina for defamation for telling people while on tour that their mother lied about Cathy and Cindy being twins. “They were raised as twins. [Joan] called them twins,” Christina had said, per Morning Call. “Her career needed a boost, and one child alone wasn’t going to get her the publicity she wanted, so she got two girls who both had brown hair and brown eyes.” Cathy won the suit in mediation and was awarded $5,000 plus court costs.

In 2020, Cathy died of lung cancer. She was 72.

Cindy Crawford

Joan Crawford, daughter Cindy and Caesar RomeroCredit: Getty Images

Speaking of her twin, Cindy Crawford was also born on January 13, 1947, and adopted by Joan.

Much like her twin sister, Cindy also defended her mother. “My worst punishment was eating cold dinner for breakfast,” she told The Vancouver Sun. “Also, I never saw my mother drunk.”

In A&E’s Always the Star documentary, Cindy said that Joan was tough, but never abusive. “She was a disciplinarian,” she said. “She wanted us to grow up independently. She wasn’t that kind of person that my sister Christina had said,” Cindy said. “She was very caring and loving.”

Cindy passed away in 2007. She was 60.

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