That Time Agatha Christie Was a Deplorable Hack (Or — The Authoress Suck’d)

It’s tough to take a dig at Agatha Christie, seeing how her name is synonymous with an entire genre of literature even today, 36 years after she went the way of so many of Miss Marple’s casual acquaintances. On top of that, her wraith gets to brag on about being the most financially successful novelist of all time, and on top of that she gets to taunt the likes of Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steel with the fact that she’s actually quite a good writer: Say what you will about the denouement of Murder on the Orient Express, but Christie reveals it ingeniously.

However, I do have a major criticism of her work, and fans be forewarned, it makes Agatha Christie sound like a cheap, opportunistic, exploitative monster that would have made Harvey Levin proud.

note the mr. burns-like hand posture

Understand that in order to continue with this, I need to spoil the ending of Christie’s novel The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side. Trust me that this is okay, as Mirror doesn’t rank among Christie’s best mysteries. In the novel, insipid partygoer Heather Badcock winds up dead after consuming a poisoned cocktail that was seemingly intended for the fete’s guest of honor, the feisty, tormented film actress Marina Gregg. And while most attendees conclude that the most famous person at the party had to be the target, omnipresent spinster Miss Marple deduces that this was not the case. In fact, Heather, who died immediately after relating a story about getting Marina’s autograph even though she had rubella and was under quarantine, was the actual, intended victim after all. After hearing Heather’s story, Marina poisoned her because exposure to rubella caused Marina’s child to be born severely handicapped. Before Marina can be arrested, she fatally overdoses.

elizabeth taylor as marina, shower cap as formal hat

This, I suppose, might be a particularly surprising whodunit were it not for the fact that I watch a lot of TCM and have a thorough command of old Hollywood. Years before I watched The Mirror Crack’d — and yes, I watched the film version with Elizabeth Taylor as Marina in lieu of reading the novel — I watched a TCM screening of Laura, the 1944 film noir that starred Gene Tierney and which inspired David Lynch to create Twin Peaks. (Laura, by the way, also stars Clifton Webb, the original Mr. Belvedere.) For many reasons, Tierney’s story is a sad one, especially because it ends with her dying of emphysema after a lifetime of smoking, which she took up after being told by studio execs that she needed to lower her voice. But perhaps Tierney’s greatest tragedy lies in her thwarted attempts at enjoying a happy motherhood.

(Yes, you can see where this is going.)

Though Tierney eventually raised one healthy daughter, she suffered a major hardship with her first child, who was born deaf and severely mentally disabled. In her 1979 autobiography Self-Portrait, Tierney confirmed a longstanding rumor that for years had been repeated in Hollywood circles: that her daughter’s condition resulted from Tierney being exposed to rubella while she was pregnant. In fact, Tierney eventually learned exactly who exposed her when a fan approached her and gushed about being so enamored with Tierney’s celebrity that she once snuck out of quarantine to meet her at Hollywood Canteen, precisely during the time Tierney was with child. Wikipedia explains Tierney’s reaction to this story in a manner I can’t top: “Tierney related that after the woman had recounted her story, she just stared at her silently, then turned and walked away. She wrote, ‘After that I didn't care whether ever again I was anyone's favorite actress.’”

gene tierney

Please, stop and consider that statement — “I didn’t care whether ever again I was anyone’s favorite actress” — with everything you know and suspect about Hollywood actresses. That is just a little heartbreaking.

Now let’s jump back to the suddenly trite and silly world that Agatha Christie created in The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side. Here is how Christie describes Marina’s reaction to the revelation made by that idiot, Heather Badcock:

‘Very interesting,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I’ve had descriptions, you know, of what this look was on her face. A frozen look. Yes, that describes it quite well. A look of doom. I’m not really so sure about that. It’s more of a kind of paralysis of feeling that apprehension of doom. Don’t you think so? I wouldn’t say it was actually fear, would you, although fear of course might take you that way.’

The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side was published in 1962. Tierney’s daughter was born in 1943. The most high-profile movie version — The Mirror Crack’d, with the role of Marina going to Elizabeth Taylor, an actress who found more success and less tragedy than did Gene Tierney — came out in 1980. It would have been next to impossible for Tierney not to know about this fictionalized version of her most personal torment, to say nothing of the indignity of being reimagined as a murderer. There’s never been any mention of Christie asking permission to use Tierney’s story in a book.

The takeaway: Agatha Christie is just unforgivably tacky.

Now That’s Interesting!, previously:

• Gila Golan, a woman more interesting than any of us can hope to be
• Joe Carstairs, the most interesting woman you’ve never heard of
• Victoria Vetri, a Rosemary’s Baby runner-up
• Shi Pei Pu, a real-life Madame Butterfly
• France Gall, accidental sex puppet