My Cringe-Worthy Moment With Faye Dunaway

There were many moments that stood out at this year's Oscars. Two of the most moving, in my opinion: 

The "Hidden Figures" cast introducing real-life NASA hero Katherine Johnson, who received a much-deserved and long-overdue standing ovation.

Viola Davis' amazing, touching acceptance speech, during which she offered the poignant insight, "There's one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered... the graveyard."

But, of course, the one moment that everyone is still buzzing about is the one that is being described as "the biggest flub in Oscar history": living legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway wrongly announcing "La La Land" as the Best Picture winner before the error was corrected and "Moonlight" was crowned the real champ.

Accounting firm PwC, which tabulates the Oscar votes, has taken full responsibility for the mistake and issued apologies to the Academy, the cast and crew of both "Moonlight and "La La Land," Beatty and Dunaway. But the moment will live on in infamy as one of the most cringe-worthy in television history.

I had my own cringe-worthy moment with Faye Dunaway 20 years ago. And like her Oscars flub with Warren Beatty, it all resulted from an innocent mistake.

It was 1997 and Dunaway was starring in a touring production of Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning Broadway play "Master Class," based on the life of opera diva Maria Callas. I was a young writer at the time and aspired to one day become a playwright, so I felt it was important to see top-notch theatrical productions when they came through town. 

Seeing "Master Class" was, well, a master class ‒ pun intended. I enjoyed the show when it played the Palace Theatre in my home base of Columbus, Ohio. After Dunaway's curtain call, I waited outside the stage door for her to come out and sign my Playbill.

Dunaway's legend wasn't lost on me. As a Gen X latchkey kid, cable TV was my babysitter and I grew up watching endless showings of "Mommie Dearest" on HBO. I was an avid fan of the biopic in which Dunaway portrays silver-screen queen Joan Crawford, as told from the perspective of Crawford's daughter Christina.

I think the reason I related so much to "Mommie Dearest" was that Crawford reminded me of my father figure, my maternal grandfather whom I called "Daddy Bob." It may seem odd to compare a working-class African-American man to a glamorous Caucasian female movie star. But there were some definite similarities. 

Crawford and my grandfather were from the same generation. Both were demanding and had grandiose personalities that ensured they were always the center of attention. Both could be temperamental and unpredictable ‒ sweet and nurturing one minute, ranting and raving the next. And both had impossibly high standards for their children ‒ though my grandfather's over-the-top antics certainly never rose to the level of abuse like Crawford.

For example, a scene in "Mommie Dearest" that hit home for me was the one in which Crawford wakes up Christina and her brother in the middle of the night and makes the children chop down rose bushes. There was a similar incident one summer when my grandfather pulled me away from my favorite TV show to make me trim hedges that were already perfectly manicured because doing chores was the way I was supposed to express my love and devotion to him. 

I want to reiterate that I'm not equating my grandfather's arbitrary rules with Crawford's outright abuse. But as a child, I could relate to Christina Crawford's exasperation over her mother's insistence on making her do a pointless chore.

So when Dunaway emerged from the stage door that night in '97 at the Palace Theatre, I shyly asked her to sign my Playbill and she couldn't have been more friendly and accessible. But the moment turned cringe-worthy when I naively informed her, "'Mommie Dearest' is one of my favorite movies of all time." She actually winced.

At the time, I wasn't sophisticated enough to know that "Mommie Dearest" is considered one of the most disastrous movies ever made. Upon its release in 1981, the movie won multiple Golden Razzies, which recognize the worst in film and serve as a counterpoint to the Oscars. I didn't know that critics had savaged Dunaway's performance as going way too far in chewing the scenery.

But "Mommie Dearest" has become a camp classic over the years and developed a loyal cult following, myself included.

Despite my faux pas in bringing up "Mommie Dearest," Dunaway was polite (after I made her wince), dutifully gave me her autograph and wished me well.  No, she didn't beat me with a wire hanger :-) (You'd have to have seen the movie to get the joke.)

(Chris Bournea is the co-author, with Raymond Lambert, of the book "All Jokes Aside: Standup Comedy Is a Phunny Business." Bournea is also the writer and director of the forthcoming documentary "Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring.")