Bette and Joan The Divine Feud (19 page)

The Death of a Husband

"Farney and I had a good life
together. Classically European
in tradition. I believe it would
have gone on forever. I will
always miss him."

—BETTE DAVIS

Bette's marriage to Arthur Farnsworth, her second husband, was by all outward accounts a serene and compatible union. He was, like her, a New Englander, a member of one of "Vermont's best families." His father was a doctor; he was educated at the best Eastern schools; and someday, said Bette, he would "inherit a lot of money."

Sharing many of the same interests—a love of the outdoors, an appreciation of good music (he played the violin)—they lived part of the year in California, while she was working, and the rest of their time was spent on their farm in New Hampshire. Bette was reported to be at her happiest there, "planting trees, walking in the freshly mown fields, with her sturdy and adoring young husband by her side."

Bette Davis and Arthur Farnsworth

In Los Angeles, after the war broke out, Farnsworth, an expert flier, was hired as the West Coast representative for Honeywell in Minneapolis. Socially, clad in a tuxedo or a tailored tweed suit, he was also a very compatible companion for his star-wife at the many Hollywood functions she was on call to attend. "He was very handsome, well built, seemingly well educated and articulate, although most of the time I recall Bette did all the talking," said Sheilah Graham. From time to time, notably in the spring of 1943, there were also rumors that the couple were fighting and that the marriage was in trouble. "No truth to that at all," said Bette. "We are
divinely
happy."

In May 1943, after the completion of
Old Acquaintance,
Bette was supposed to go to New Hampshire with her husband, but he went alone, and she traveled south of the border to Mexico. She extended her stay in Mexico, then, in June, went east, to rejoin Farney. Early in August, after two months on the farm, the couple returned to California, where Bette was scheduled to start work on her new film,
Mr. Skeffington.
Stopped by a reporter at this time, Bette said she was "very anxious to get back to work. Inactivity at times can drive me
mad."

On the afternoon of August 23, Bette said she remained at home while Arthur Farnsworth had lunch with her lawyer, Dudley Furse. They discussed a real-estate venture and signed some papers.

After lunch, walking to his car, Farnsworth suddenly screamed and fell backward on the sidewalk at 6249 Hollywood Boulevard. He fractured his skull and was rushed to Hollywood Receiving Hospital.

When Bette was called, at 4:15
P.M.
, she immediately alerted her doctor, Dr. Paul Moore, who arranged to have Farnsworth transferred to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, where X-rays and more comprehensive tests could be made. On arriving at the hospital, Bette visited the unconscious man and, after conferring with the doctors, decided not to alert his parents. "If his condition was serious, his famous daughter-in-law would communicate with him," a reporter for the Rutland
Herald
in Vermont said. "Two years ago when Arthur was seriously ill with pneumonia, she telephoned or wired every day," said the injured man's father.

"All that night, Monday, and through the next night, Tuesday, Bette sat beside her husband, as he lay there, blond, handsome and motionless in the hospital,"
Modern Screen
reported. "When he moaned she tried to send her voice across the plains of unconsciousness to recall him. Wednesday, without regaining consciousness, Farney died."

The initial stories said the cause of death was a fractured skull, suffered when Farnsworth stumbled on Hollywood Boulevard. A routine autopsy would be performed, the Los Angeles
Herald
reported on Thursday, with funeral services to be conducted on Saturday at Forest Lawn.

On Thursday evening, in her home, with Farnsworth's flier buddies from The Quiet Birdmen (the group that owned the only copy of Joan Crawford's "blue" movie,
The Plumber),
Bette toasted her late husband with champagne, "because that's the way Arthur would have wanted it." As the toasts were being made, they were joined by some somber mourners—the dead man's mother and brother from Vermont, who arrived too late to see Arthur alive. With them was Bette's lawyer, and an investigator from the district attorney's office. There was possible foul play involved in the death of her husband, Bette was told. The autopsy revealed that he had not died from the fall on Hollywood Boulevard, but from a previous head injury.

"Farnsworth had a blood clot on the right side of his skull, which apparently caused a pressure that made him dizzy and precipitated the fall," said the Los Angeles
Times.

"The blow must have been caused by the butt of a gun or some other blunt instrument," Dr. Keyes, one of the examiners, reported.

Arthur's mother, Mrs. Lucille Farnsworth, told Bette that she wanted an inquest to be held. "My mother requested the inquest because Arthur was involved in secret war work. He was carrying papers in his briefcase, which had something to do with the North Bomb site," said Mrs. Roger Briggs, sister of the deceased.

The chief coroner, Frank Vance, "vacationing in the mountains, was reached by telephone." He said the case warranted a full investigation, and he would return to hold an inquest on Tuesday of the following week.

This news upset Bette greatly. "It was sheer agony, not knowing what could have caused this terrible tragedy," she said.

Her agony, it was speculated, was compounded by the guilt she felt. Bette was
not
the devoted wife the Warner's press office presented at the time. Her marriage to Farnsworth was apparently in trouble. She had requested a divorce, and it was also said that she had been involved, albeit accidentally, in her husband's fatal fall.

"I was not violently in love with Farney," the actress admitted later. "I loved his loving me, and our mutual love of the New England way of life was the tie that finally bound." In California, apparently, the tie became loose a year after their marriage. Although he was strong and visibly robust, Farney, it was stated, was no match for the tempestuous Bette. She complained that he didn't have the guts to stand up to her. She needed a man to challenge her. "Like Julie in
Jezebel,"
she said, "I had to remain in charge, and when the man allowed it, I lost all respect for him. I certainly made it impossible."

In April 1942, the year before his death, Bette was rumored to be romantically inclined toward a man she had met at the Hollywood Canteen. He may have been the orchestra leader she mentioned in her memoirs. Their affair was discreet but memorable. He wrote a song for her, and fulfilled her favorite sexual fantasy, to be made love to in a bed full of gardenias. "When the hotel maids were tidying up the next day, what did they think of a wastebasket filled with very wilted gardenias," she wondered. The affair was "of limited duration," she said, "because we both were married."

That fall, while making
Old Acquaintance,
unnerved by the treachery of costar Miriam Hopkins, Bette's old demons surfaced again. "I never yelled at Miriam," she said. "Instead, I held my anger in until I got home and then I screamed at everyone in sight." Farney, of course, like his predecessor, the placid Ham Nelson, was of little comfort to Bette. "He didn't care to understand the pressures I was under at the studio, preferring instead to escape my torments by flying off into the wide blue yonder with his pilot-pals." So, like that other much-misunderstood and tormented star Joan Crawford, Bette was compelled to look outside her marriage for comfort and romantic solace. She eventually found both in Vincent Sherman, the director of
Old Acquaintance.

"I was not aware of her interest in me during the filming," Sherman recalled in 1987. "I had enough trouble trying to get her and Miriam [Hopkins] to behave. On the last day of shooting, a Saturday night, I asked Bette if she would stay late, to do some final overdubbing. She agreed—if I would drive her to her mother's house afterwards. It was after ten o'clock, and we stopped at a drive-in restaurant and spoke about the picture. I told her I thought we had something good, that it looked as if we might have a hit picture. I also mentioned how much I enjoyed working with her."

"I love you, Vincent," said Bette.

"I love you too," said Sherman, thinking they were exchanging the usual Hollywood endearments.

"No," said Bette, taking his hand, "I
truly
love you."

"I looked at her," said the director, recalling the night some forty years later, "and I felt chills. You must remember
who
Bette Davis was at this time. She was very attractive, a great actress, and a powerful star. I was a young, impressionable director. I had a wife and young baby at home, but the circumstances, and the intimacy of what she was saying, was a very heady thing to ignore."

Nothing happened on that night, said Sherman. He and Bette spoke for hours. She said that her physical relationship with her husband was over. Farney was a drinker, which made him impotent. She asked the director about his feelings. He confessed he was strongly attracted to her. "Filming was over," he said, "so I figured everything would die down."

But Bette followed through. While he was editing
Old Acquaintance,
she called Vincent and the two had dinner. But again, although romance was in the air, the two remained chaste. "If I made a pass at her, it would have offended her New England sense of values," he said. "Also, it had to be
her
idea."

At Warner's one day Bette went looking for Sherman and told him that she was taking a vacation, in Mexico later that month, alone, without her husband. She asked the director to join her there. He agreed.

In Mexico that April, four months before the death of Farney, Bette prepared for the arrival of her future lover. She rested, bought new clothes, and confided in her Acapulco hostess, Countess Dorothy Di Frasso, who, as legend tells it, was herself somewhat of a crack at subversive affairs. American by birth, a countess by marriage, and Dottie to her friends, the rich Di Frasso had a checkered reputation. "She was a rough sort of woman," said the genteel Helen Hayes. "Dahling, she gave the most divine parties," said Tallulah Bankhead. The men in Di Frasso's life included Gary Cooper, gangster Bugsy Siegel, and Benito Mussolini. Because of the latter connection, the countess was under surveillance by the FBI as "a fascist agent" at the same time Bette was staying in her house in Mexico. Under those closely watched circumstances, it was just as well that Bette's planned liaison with Vincent Sherman did not take place.

"At the last minute I decided it wasn't wise to go to Mexico," said Sherman.

"To my chagrin I waited and waited," said Bette. "He never came. He stood me up."

Frustrated but not defeated, the actress knew she would soon see the stalwart young director again. She had already arranged for him to direct her next picture,
Mr. Skeffington,
which was scheduled to begin production that July. But Sherman was busy, directing Ida Lupino in
In Our Time,
Davis was told when she returned to Los Angeles that June. "I'll wait," she said, firmly stipulating that without Sherman there would be no Fanny Skeffington in the studio's future.

With the delay in production, Bette decided to go to New Hampshire, to rejoin her husband on the farm. She said their relationship at that point was "sister and brother," although it was clear to some the platonic arrangement did not please her spouse. It was at the farm that Farnsworth suffered a fall which precipitated his final injury. According to Bette, he was going downstairs to answer the phone when he slipped and fell on the stairs.

"There was a stairs to a loft in the farmhouse," said Mrs. Roger Briggs. "They were upstairs when the phone rang downstairs. He had wool socks on and he fell down and hit the back of his head. Bette was there. He seemed to be all right. We didn't know about it because we didn't see him. This was about two months before the fatal fall."