The song was reasonably successful and is often credited as the source of the expression, but in reality simply went a long way towards popularising it. In any event, nine years after the release of Mommie Dearest, the country singer Vern Gosdin released a song simply titled “This Ain’t My First Rodeo”. Of course, it’s now 34 years later, so it would be a wonder if they remembered the details accurately, or at all, concerning how that seemingly insignificant line was thought up or who they borrowed it from, if that’s the case. In reality, as far as documented evidence goes, the quote should either be credited to Faye Dunaway, who played Crawford, or one of the film’s writers, though which of them came up with the line and how has seemingly never been asked directly. However, it hasn’t stopped the quote from being attributed to Crawford time and time again. While it is certainly true that the real-life Crawford was on the board of directors for Pepsi after the untimely death of her husband, the then president of the company, Alfred Steele, and it also true that the board threatened to remove her, there is little evidence that Crawford ever uttered the line in real life. When a board member tries to reason with Crawford, she angrily yells: “Don’t fuck with me fellas! This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.” In response, Crawford verbally threatens everyone present by stating she will publicly slam the company and its product in an attempt to bring it down if they remove her from the board. The book was a somewhat controversial tell-all memoir written by Crawford’s deceased fourth husband’s daughter, Christina Crawford, where she portrays Joan Crawford as something of an especially wicked step-mother.Ī version of the phrase is uttered by the actress playing Crawford in a particularly well acted scene in which she is informed by the Pepsi board of directors that she is going to be forcibly removed from the board. The earliest known documented utterance of it was in the 1981 film, Mommie Dearest, a film adaptation of a book of the same name chronicling the life of famed actress and dancer Joan Crawford. The phrase is similar in inclination to the British idiom, “I didn’t come down with the last shower” (shower in this context referring to rain), or the expression, “I wasn’t born yesterday”.Īs to the origin of the expression, it would seem it isn’t nearly as old as you might think. It’s more often than not used derisively, usually in situations where a more experienced person is being given unwanted or unwarranted advice by someone else. asks: I was just wondering who came up with the expression “This ain’t my first rodeo”?įor the uninitiated, “This ain’t my first rodeo” is roughly equivalent to telling a person that you’re more than prepared for a given situation or that it offers little challenge to you.
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