Mia Farrow Recalls Walking Out of 56-Year-Old Joan Crawford’s Apartment as a Teen: ‘I Was Scared’
In a new interview in Interview with actor Cole Escola, Mia Farrow flashed back to some classic Hollywood memories of her youth — including numerous interactions with legendary actress Joan Crawford that young Farrow found “scary.”
After Escola expressed his fondness for Crawford’s film Dancing Daughters, Farrow noted “She’s scary. And she was scary in person as well.” Shen then recalled meeting Crawford on the Fox lot, where a teenage Farrow was shooting the TV adaptation of Peyton Place. Crawford — who was 39 years Farrow’s senior, and married to Alfred Steele, president of Pepsi-Cola and her fourth husband — began to engage in some odd behavior around Farrow.
“For whatever reason,” Farrow remembered, “[Crawford] started sending a whole refrigerator of Pepsi Cola for my trailer ’cause I was in a TV series called Peyton Place. I don’t particularly like Pepsi Cola, but a lot of Pepsi Cola kept coming to my trailer, more than anyone would ever want.”
American actress Mia Farrow, 9th November 1964. (Photo by Harry Benson/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
After the Pepsi gifts, Farrow says, Crawford “came over to see me and I got a strange vibe from her.”
But the odd interactions didn’t end once Farrow’s time in California came to a close; once she returned to her family home in New York City, Crawford’s bizarre overtures continued, and included Farrow’s mother, Tarzan actress Maureen O’Sullivan.
“So I’m back in New York, and she knew my mother,” Farrow said; . “I hung up people’s coats for my mom when they came into the house. And I hung her coat and out falls a flask of alcohol. She grabbed it like that, and she put it in her handbag. She drank quite a lot.”
Courtesy Everett Collection
But her unusual interactions with Crawford would peak soon after, following an invitation to the Crawford home. “Then she invited me to her apartment,” Farrow recalled. “I thought it was a party, but I arrived, and I was the only one there … I was 17, and everything was green in her apartment. It just had very low lighting. And there were no other guests, just Ms. Crawford and me. And I just wasn’t very comfortable.”
The uncomfortable Farrow then “made up a lie that I wasn’t feeling very well and I didn’t want to give her any diseases. I think I said the word ‘diseases’ as I walked out of the room. I was scared of Ms. Crawford.”
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