June/July 2013 8 Book Review Given the popularity of reality TV shows such as Dance Moms and Toddlers and Tiaras, stage moms have (no doubt happily) gone from controlling their kids backstage to taking center stage on television sets in living rooms across the U.S. and abroad. If Hansel and Gretel didn’t teach you a lesson about excess and gluttony, Melissa Francis’s memoir, Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter (Weinstein Books, 294 pages, $26.00), surely will. The former child actress (she’s Cassandra from Little House on the Prairie in the 1981-1982 seasons) and current Fox Business Network host takes the reader inside her working childhood and reveals the pressures of living with an ambitious stage mother obsessed with show business and controlling money. Francis, who went by Missy as a child, chronicles her life as a child star, and how she ultimately broke f ree of her overbearing (some might say crazy) mother to forge a life of her own. The memoir is a cautionary tale for families who havecaught theshowbizbugandwhoseaspirations have fallen on their children. Stage moms — and their children —should heed this warning. Francis’s mother first decided to get her two young daughters into show business when her oldest, Tiffany, was discovered at a carnival in West Hollywood, California. Missy got her start in 1973 when she was less than a year old, while Tiffany was shooting a Johnson & Johnson’s No More Tears baby shampoo commercial. When the director spotted Missy, he was eager to put her in the bathtub with her sister. So was Missy’s mother. And that’s how it all began. It was a fruitful beginning. Francis says of her mother: “She had established for both Tiffany and me thriving careers as child actors, and in that context her ambition for us — her unrelenting desire to see us succeed, and release our family from the banality of middle-class life — felt more like a warm rush of motherly support,” but that wouldn’t always be the case. While filming Little House On the Prairie, life on-set was full of love and valuable lessons, but at home, when the cameras weren’t rolling, Francis faced a mother who put constant pressure on her and her older sister to look perfect and work hard — and who mismanaged and squandered the money they earned. Her father put it best: “your mom’s addicted to showbiz,” and that addiction acted like poison, destroying their family and sending Tiffany into a fatal downward spiral. Francis throws the reader into the action from page one, when she recalls how her mother threw her out of the car when she was just eight years old and told her to find her own way home, “And another place to live while you’re at it.” The reader feels like part of the action again when Francis explains how, when she was a teen, she and her sister were arguing over a favorite shirt when their mother burst into the room, cut the shirt to shreds, and proceeded to drag Tiffany — clad in just pants and a bra—down the stairs and out of the house, locking the front door. When Missy tried to let Tiffany back inside, her mother pushed her down the stairs, head first. But her mother’s foul temper wasn’t just reserved for her and Tiffany. Francis recounts the fear she felt when she realized that her mother — seeking revenge on their neighbors — stole the neighbors’ elderly dog, Coco, from their yard, removed her collar, and brought her to a pound several miles away — somewhere the neighbors would never think to look. Terrified, the young Francis reflected, “Momhad effectivelymurdered our neighbors’ dog…[but] I was too frightened for myself to stop the consequences. I wanted to help Coco…But if I saved that poor helpless dog, and Mom found out I’d betrayed her, as she inevitably would, who would save me?” And yet, Francis recognizes that although her mother was demanding (and her moods unpredictable), she and her sister were not completely immersed in Hollywood life. “Tiffany and I didn’t support our family financially. The vast majority of kids in the business had parents who had also tried…to make a living as actors… But those families lived on the paycheck of whoever was working…It was an unusual life and one that I had only one foot in, I realized, by comparison.” In fact, after her first episode of Little House on the Prairie aired, Missy’s father explained to her in private, where her mother couldn’t hear, that she didn’t have to work if she didn’t want to, but Missy “loved it when [her] mom was proud” of her, and she got that feeling often enough while acting. Not only was it Francis’s understanding that she wasn’t supporting her family with her paychecks, but her parents also assured her that the money she earned was stored away safely in a bank account to pay for college. However, she was never allowed to know just howmuch money she was earning — until one day when her mom allowed her to see the balance. It was then, at age 14, that Francis began to suspect that not all of the money she earned was going into her account — or at least that it wasn’t all staying there. She writes, “Mom was controlling every dime that came in. She collected everything my father, Tiffany, or I made and doled it out as if it were hers. I’d seen her write checks out of the account that was supposed to be my trust fund…I began to worry that Mom saw herself as the family banker, and she didn’t seem like much of a longterm investor, or even fiscally responsible.” After being accepted into Harvard as an undergrad, Francis’s parents explained that the money she’d earned over the years was nearly gone — spent on private schools, horseback riding lessons, a sleek sports car and designer clothes for Missy, as well as purchases her mother made, including, later, a house they couldn’t afford — but knowing that her future depended on a good education, and understanding that Harvard “wasn’t frivolous; it wasn’t a pony,” Francis decided to attend the school anyway. In doing so, she distanced herself from her family — not just geographically — as she realized that acting wasn’t her only option, and she could be independent of her mother’s hopes and dreams. But in a final act of betrayal and greed, when the family was nearly broke and Tiffany was suffering from grave health problems, Francis’s mother disappeared with nearly every cent to their name, and that’s when “the magnitude of Mom’s pure, unfiltered greed” fully set in. After giving her mother the opportunity to return the money and give Tiffany the support she needed—a chance her mother ignored — Francis cut ties with her, and to this day does not knowwhat became of her. Yet, Francis balances the account by including her mother’s words, and the reader trusts that Francis represents her accurately. In her own defense, her mother proclaims: “I’ve devoted my entire life, selflessly, to taking you to interviewafter interview, callbacks…I’ve sat on set for hours, bored. To tears! Taught you a million lines. Driven hours in traffic, packed clothes, sacrificed all my time! The things I could have been doing for myself all that time! I could have gone back to college, improved myself like somanymoms. Selfishmoms. But insteadwhat have I done? I’vemadeyoua star. I’vemadeyourich. And that’s the thanks I get?” No doubt, being labeled a “stagemom” is a tough cross to bear, as Francis’s mother said, “You get all the fame and fortune and I’m just the hated stage mom. What do I get? Nothing,” but carrying that cross is something any parent should consider before exposing his or her child to Hollywood. Francis’s memoir serves many purposes. No doubt it was therapeutic (if not more than a bit upsetting) to lay out her family’s terrible truth on paper, where strangers could hopefully learn from the heartache. Yet, it’s also an inspirational story, because Francis was able to rise above a toxic situation and create a new and thriving life for herself. Not only is the book an intriguing, engaging and worthwhile read that you won’t want to put down, but the memoir also serves as a cautionary tale about stagemomswhomistreat their children and mismanage money and fame. SA One demanding, unpredictable, fiscally irresponsible mother searches for fame the wrong way Stage Moms, Beware
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