Although Martha Stewart prides herself on keeping things neat, tidy and organized, there reportedly are piles of dirty laundry lurking in her family home, at least according to daughter Alexis.
Set for an October 18 release date, “Whateverland: Learning to Live Here” is reported to be a scathing, tell-all book about Martha Stewart. In one published excerpt, Alexis Stewart writes that “I grew up with a glue gun pointed to my head.”
The young Ms. Stewart isn’t the first child to lash out angrily at a famous parent through the printed page, however.
In 1978, Christina Crawford took her famous adoptive mother, Joan Crawford, to task in “Mommie Dearest.” Crawford wrote of having the same raw meat served to her over multiple meals; her mother refused to serve her anything else until she finished that plate of congealed meat.
“Saturday Night Live” had a field day with this tell-all memoir. At the height of her popularity, Gilda Radner played a dazed Christina Crawford in one outrageous sketch. Christina received gifts of raw meat on her birthday thanks to her mother, who told all her celebrity friends that Christina just adored raw chuck.
The film adaptation of “Mommie Dearest” even became a cult classic, thanks in no small part to Crawford’s aversion to wire coat hangers. Audiences at the time came to the theater and, in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” fashion, brandished wire coat hangers in that now infamous scene with a $300 dress on the wrong hanger.
When it comes to tell-all books about stars from Hollywood’s golden age, Christina Crawford set the standard.
In 1983, Gary Crosby, son of the late Bing Crosby, released “Going My Own Way,” a jab at the elder’s Crosby’s popular film “Going My Way.” The excerpts released at the time are horrifying, with Gary Crosby talking of belt beatings from his father that didn’t end until the first drop of blood appeared.
Critics referred to Crosby’s book as “Daddy Dearest” and once again, “Saturday Night Live” used the book as a reference for a sketch called “The Crosby Show.”
Guest host Malcolm Jamal-Warner from “The Cosby Show” played Theo Huxtable in the sketch. Theo dreamed he was part of the Crosby family where discipline and orange juice were the order of the day. The sketch also showed Gary Crosby being led away to the library by a belt-toting Bing.
“Whateverland: Learning to Live Here” also seems ripe for the “Saturday Night Live” treatment. Ana Gasteyer used to do a wicked Martha Stewart impression during her heyday on “SNL” and it would be great if the producers could coax her back to skewer Stewart one more time.
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