MOTHER'S DAY MOM PICKS

Yup, you guessed it. It's time for another top five pick list...just in time for Mother's Day. How's that, you ask? Well, I thought it would be fun to share with you my top five picks for most interesting pop culture moms. Movie moms, TV moms, and music moms. They're all here. Take a gander...and enjoy! But remember..."interesting" doesn't necessarily mean "good."

No more wire hangers...ever! Was there ever a mother who was more of a mother than Miss Joan Crawford, star of stage and screen and diva beyond compare? Born Lucille Faye LeSueur on March 23, 1905, Crawford began her career as a dancer on Broadway, and was soon snapped up by the movie industry, which revamped her as a 1920s flapper for a series of silent films. When talkies took over, Crawford made the shift as well, perfecting a "rags-to-riches" persona which made her one of the most popular movie actresses of the time, along with fellow screen legends Norma Sheara and Greta Garbo. However, by the 1930s, her popularity started to wane, and she was labeled "box office poison", a fall from grace which drove her into the arms of Alfred Steele, the CEO of the Pepsi-Cola company. Unsatisfied with life as the wife of a high-powered soda pop company exec, Crawford returned to film in 1945, after a two year absence, winning an Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mildred Pierce, a film which has been lauded as one of the top 100 best film noirs of all time by the American Film Institute. Following her husband's death in 1955, Crawford replaced him on the Pepsi Cola board of directors, a position she held until she was "forcibly retired" in 1973. By then, her career had once again hit the skids, although she continued to act sporadically in film and on TV. But, of course, these days, the former movie queen is best known as "Mommie Dearest", as she was called by her adopted daughter Christina in the "tell-all" expose of the same name, which Christina wrote in the late 1970s and which wass made into a movie, starring Faye Dunaway, in 1981. As portrayed by Dunaway, Crawford came off as a perfectionist from hell, whose greatest pleasure seemed to come from haranguing Christina and her four other adopted children whenever they fell short of her expectations. Discovering that Christina has used wire coat hangers to hang up clothes in her bedroom closet, Dunaway, as Crawford, utters one of the most oft-quoted movie lines ever. "No wire hangers...ever!" But that's nothing compared to the scene in which she walks in on Christina as she is applying make-up in an attempt to imitate her mother, and incensed (for what reason, we really never know), hacks off all of the little girl's hair. As mothers go, Joan Crawford might not be eligible for any awards for "sweetness", but when it comes to "memorable", she has my vote hands down.

"A boy's best friend is his mother," Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) tells Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) when she stumbles into the office of the Bates Motel late on a rainy Saturday night after fleeing from her job as a secretary with $40,000 of her employer's money. The rest is movie history. For a mother who has been dead for a number of years, Mrs. Bates definitely has a solid hold on her son, who not only pretends that she is still alive for the benefit of his motel customers, but, in one of the most iconic movie scenes ever, dons the old lady's dressing gown and gray wig before stabbing the unfortunate Marion Crane to death as she takes a shower in her motel room. Sadly, we never really learn much about the late Mrs. Bates, even after Norman commits his violent act, but she was clearly quite the influential woman, not only as far as her son is concerned, but as a continuing force in pop culture. The 1960 film, Psycho, which was written and directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, remains one of the most revered "horror" films of all time, a testament not only to the talent of its director and stars, but to the concept of motherhood...even though, in the case of Mrs. Bates, that concept is decidedly skewered.

By the time she took the role of "Victoria Barkley" in the 1960s TV western "The Big Valley", Barbara Stanwyck had already enjoyed a long career in film, receiving four Academy Award nominations for her work in films such as Double Indemnity and Sorry, Wrong Number. Listed as the 11th greatest film actress of all time by the American Film Institute, Stanwyck played the role of Barkley family matriarch Victoria Barkley from 1965 to 1969, creating a great deal of controversy because of her refusal to succumb to studio execs' pleas to tone down the character's independent attitude. Originally conceived as the somewhat fragile widow of California rancher Thomas Barkley, as portrayed by Stanwyck, the character came off as nothing short of a 19th century powerhouse. But what else could we expect from an actress who had made her name playing tough broads who, no matter how tough they were, couldn't begin to compete with the steel pinnings that made up the inner frame of the woman who played them? Born Catherine Ruby Stevens on July 16, 1907 in Brooklyn, New York, Stanwyck lost her mother at the age of four, and her father a few years later, only to go on to pursue a career on Broadway which led, after a few starts and stops, to her storied career in film. Her portrayal of Victoria Barkley was in keeping with that legacy, making her one of the most interesting pop culture moms of all time, one who shifted effortlessly from "lady of the manor" to "cowgirl in jeans", and looked damned good doing it.

As Lorelai Gilmore, the character she played on the WB's Gilmore Girls from 2000 to 2007, Lauren Graham blazed a new path for TV moms, alternating between the role of "best friend" to her daughter Rorie (Alexis Bledel) and traditional mother worried about her daughter's grades, dating habits, and all of the other things that "normal" mothers worry about when their daughters come of age. But what made her interesting was her unrelenting quirkiness and refusal to succumb to "the script" that so many single mothers embrace when it comes to raising their kids. No matter how difficult things got, or how outrageously Rorie behaved, Lorelai never forgot who she was, and never once sacrificed her sense of individuality for the sake of "fitting in." Yes, it was a TV show, and "it's not always like that in real life", but for the seven years that the Gilmore Girls chronicled the adventures of television's coolest mother and daughter duo, Lorelai Gilmore was a joy to watch, and an inspiration to those of us who struggled with the same issues of not being quite right shape to accommodate the cookie cutters perpetually poised above us.

Singer Kristy MacColl scored hits with songs like "They Don't Know" and "Terry" in the 1980s, while, at the same time, working with husband, record producer Steve Lilywhite, as a back-up vocalist on recordings for The Smiths and The Pogues. Sadly, MacColl's career came to a screeching halt in 2000 when she, her husband, and their two sons went on holiday in Conzumel, Mexico. MacColl and the boys were diving in a watercraft-restricted area near the beach when MacColl surfaced to see a powerboat speeding toward her sons. Making the ultimate sacrifice for motherhood, MacColl pushed her son Jamie out of the way, taking the brunt of the crash, which killed her instantly. The driver of the boat was convicted of culpable homicide and fined $90 in American dollars in lieu of a prison sentence. MacColl's ashes were transported back to England. Since her death, a number of memorial concerts have been performed in her honor. A biography, Kristy MacColl: The One and Only, by Karen O'Brien was published in 2004.

Well, that's it for our top five "most interesting mom" picks. Hope you liked them. Skol. xoxoxxoxxoxoxxo