She was born in Los Angeles, California in 1939 to unmarried parents.

According to Christina Crawford's interview with Larry King her father was married to another woman, and her mother unmarried. Her father was in the Navy at the time. Christina Crawford was adopted out-of-state in 1940. Subsequent documentation showed that the adoption was handled by Georgia Tann through Tann's infamous Tennessee Children's Home Society. Christina was one of four children adopted by Joan Crawford.

Christina Crawford has stated that her childhood was affected by her adopted mother's violent mood swings. At the age of ten she was sent to the Chadwick School, in Palos Verdes, California. However, she was removed from Chadwick by her mother because of her "misbehavior" with one of the male students. Joan Crawford then placed her in the boarding school known as Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy in La Canada, California and forbade Christina any form of outside contact until her graduation. Crawford later moved from California to the East Coast to attend Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and then studied at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. She holds a B.A. degree, magna cum laude, from UCLA and a Master's Degree in Communications Management from USC.

Personal life

Christina Crawford has been married three times: to Harvey Medlinsky; David Koontz; and Michael Brazzel. As of 2010 she is not married.

Medlinsky was a Broadway stage manager she met while attending acting school and they were married only briefly She met her second husband, film producer David Koontz, when she worked in public relations for Getty Oil.

Crawford appeared in summer stock, including a production of Splendor in the Grass. She has also acted in a number of Off-Broadway productions.

In 1961, Crawford appeared in a small role in Wild in the Country starring Elvis Presley. She also had a role in Faces (1968), directed by John Cassavetes and starring John Marley and Gena Rowlands. In 1962, she appeared in the play The Complaisant Lover. She played five character parts in Ben Hecht's controversial play Winkelberg. In October 1965 she appeared in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park, opposite film legend (and friend of her mother's) Myrna Loy.

She played "Joan Borman Kane" on the TV soap opera The Secret Storm in New York from 1968 until 1969. When Christina went on sick leave in October 1968, Joan Crawford, then over 60 years old, was the temporary replacement in the role of the 24-year-old character, appearing in four episodes. Christina was let go from the series, and claimed her mother's behaviour had contributed to her being fired. The producers had provided the explanation that the character and her storyline had simply run its course.

Christina Crawford also appeared on the TV series Medical Center, Marcus Welby, M.D., Matt Lincoln, Ironside and The Sixth Sense.

After Joan Crawford died in 1977, Christina and her brother Christopher learned that they had been disinherited by their mother in her USD $2 million will "for reasons which are well known to them".

In 1978 Crawford wrote the best-selling book Mommie Dearest which described the alleged abuse to which she maintains she and her brother were subjected, and in which her mother was depicted as a cruel, overbearing alcoholic who was more interested in her career as a movie star than in the children she had adopted. The book made child abuse a frontburner issue at a time when it was rarely discussed.

In 1981, a movie version of the same title was released, starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford and Diana Scarwid as Christina (teen and adult). Christina has also published subsequent books including Survivor, and other books/novels which focus on the subject of child abuse. For seven years she served as President of Los Angeles' Inter-Agency Council on Abuse and Neglect Associates, during which time she campaigned for the reform of laws regarding child abuse.

After a near-fatal stroke in 1981, Crawford spent five years in rehabilitation before moving to the Northwest where she ran a bed and breakfast called "Seven Springs Farms" in Tensed, Idaho, between 1994 and 1999.

She formed Seven Springs Press in 1998 to publish the 20th Anniversary Edition of Mommie Dearest in paperback from the original manuscript. Also included in this edition was material omitted from the first printing. This primarily concerns the years following her graduation from high school. Christina Crawford continues in the capacity of company publisher.

In 1999, Crawford began working as Special Events Manager at the Coeur d'Alene Casino in Idaho.

Crawford is currently a county commissioner in Benewah County, Idaho.