Xander Berkeley Survived 'Mommie Dearest' & Hasn't Stopped Acting Since

You may not know his name, but you would likely recognize Xander Berkeley from many of his roles in films and television over his 40-year career. He's been seen as George Mason on "24," Sheriff ThomasMcAllister�on�"The Mentalist," and Gregory on "The Walking Dead" for three seasons. More recently he has done guest spots on such shows as "Supergirl" and "Bull." He's also appeared in nearly 90 films, including "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," "Candyman," "Heat," "Armistad," and "Gattaca." He had the lead role in 2018 biopic "The Maestro," in which he played the influential Hollywood composer "Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco," and the upcoming pandemic thriller "The Lockdown," due out later this year.

"As an evocative glance back at Hollywood in the mid-1940s, 'The Maestro' succeeds on several levels, not the least of which is a superb turn by one of acting's best utility players,�Xander Berkeley�(TV's '24,' 'The Walking Dead')," wrote the LA Times Gary Goldstein in reviewing the film.

Berkeley got his start some 40 years ago when he played the older Christopher Crawford in "Mommie Dearest," the iconic camp classic that was recently released on Blu-ray in a special anniversary edition. In a recent Zoom conversation from Maine, where he lives, Berkeley recalled how he was a New York stage actor when he got a call to go to Hollywood and audition for the film.

"I was fortunate that I had the agent that brought me up from the East Coast. He said, 'You're going to start to work and you won't stop,' " he recalled. "I've been lucky to keep working ever since and have a great life."

Berkeley recalled that when Hollywood beckoned, he put his New York stage career behind him. "I just gave that up overnight when the guy whisked me out to California and told me to change my round trip to one way, and I did - and I never really looked back." Once in Hollywood, Berkeley's agent started getting him roles on television - mostly villains, which didn't bother him one bit because he felt he the chops to manipulate his emotions into different characters to suit the needs of the characters. Though being pegged a bad guy had its drawback. "My mother always used to say, 'I see you as such a sweet boy that they just have you paid for (being) a weirdo out there.' "

Both the 1978 book and 1981 film "Mommie Dearest" told the story of Christina Crawford's complicated and abusive relationship with her adopted mother, Hollywood legend Joan Crawford. Berkeley played her younger brother, adopted three years after Christina, in 1943. But while the book was meant as a serious look at parental abuse, when it made it to the screen, with Faye Dunaway playing the fire-breathing Crawford, it became an instant camp classic. It didn't help matters that a month after the film's release Paramount launched a new ad campaign with the phrase,"No wire hangers, ever!" They also depicted a wire hanger dangling from the movie's title. And they had a new slogan: "Meet the biggest mother of them all."

"Christina Crawford wrote it so that everybody would take very seriously the abuses and suffering that she experienced as a child in the hands of manga maniacal narcissistic movie star," Berkeley said.

Though, once on screen, it was no longer was Christina's story, but that of Joan's. "Faye so channeled that kind of take-no-prisoners character that she embodied it, and became it. And the film itself was strangely her movie.... She (Christina) kind of got run over in the process of making the movie... it was really all about Faye. It was the Faye show."

Berkeley also expressed a certain satisfaction that he made his screen debut with "Mommie Dearest," because being part of such a famous cult film has given him "carte blanche to have a culty, kind of strange offbeat career." This has included making four films each with two leading British independent directors: Alex Cox ("Sid and Nancy") and Mike Figgis ("Leaving Las Vegas.") "I've gotten to play some great roles in smaller independent movies that maybe not so many people saw."

Still acting after all these years, Berkeley has pushed headfirst in his latest project, creating a creatively-friendly enclave in Maine that benefits both the filmmakers and the state. With the help of his wife, Sarah Clarke, he says they are "setting up a little dream world here where people can get off the grid for a little bit, think outside the box and try and, you know, stretch themselves to do things they haven't done yet that they've always wanted to do, and make a safe haven for people, filmmakers and friends to come try out new things."