EP209 Author of Mommie Dearest Diary Rutanya Alda Joins Kori on the Back Porch

With a career spanning nearly 50 years in show business and over a hundred roles, Alda might be best known for her performances in The Deer Hunter as Steven's wife, Angela, as well as for the cult classic Mommie Dearest, as loyal Crawford housekeeper Carol Ann, and Amityville II: The Possession, having been nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award two years in succession (1982 and 1983) for the latter roles. She has also won a Clio and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Alda has appeared on numerous television programs, such as Cold Case, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and as a featured character on the Ron Perlman/Linda Hamilton TV series, Beauty and the Beast. 

Her book THE MOMMIE DEAREST DIARY: Carol Ann Tells All is causing quite a stir. Here's the blurb: In this very private diary, Rutanya Alda ("Carol Ann") delves into the art, the business, and the wild milieu of American cinema by taking you behind the scenes of Mommie Dearest to tell her story of drama and disarray on and off the set. Rutanya frames her diary with anecdotes of Robert Altman, Joan Crawford, Brian De Palma, Bob Dylan, Elia Kazan, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Lee Strasberg, Barbra Streisand, and John Wayne, among others—a rich cast of her life's characters, who in turn entertain, illuminate, and ultimately weave Rutanya's life into Carol Ann's, setting the stage for you to vicariously live through the making of this cult classic, from her audition in the living room of director Frank Perry to the wrap party on the last day of shooting.