Bette and Joan The Divine Feud (29 page)

"I am so afraid that Sherry is going to crash his plane and kill himself. He is so distraught at losing me," Bette told friends.

"He will not let her go," said Louella Parsons. "Bette tells me he wants the glitter and the attention he commands as her husband. Terrified and living on sedatives, she goes nowhere without a bodyguard."

"I fully intended to contest the divorce," Sherry stated. "I didn't want to give up my daughter. One day, when I went to visit her, Bette had two Marines posted at the door to her house in Los Angeles. They told me I couldn't see my daughter; I pushed them away. B.D. would visit me with Marian, her governess; then, when she went back to Bette, she would break out in hives. Bette and Merrill had already started fighting over other things, so it wasn't a happy time for B.D. My lawyer suggested that I get evidence that Bette was shacked up with Gary, but I didn't want to do that. I agreed to the divorce. Sometime later an old friend of hers told me it was a good thing I made that decision, because Bette had planned on having two men swear they had sex with me, that I was a homosexual. I couldn't believe this was the woman I had loved and married."

"My divorce from Sherry cost me a bundle," said Bette. "For the first time in my life, I had to pay alimony to a man."

"She owed me money," said Sherry. "She had closed down my studio and cleaned out our bank account. Her lawyers told me they couldn't make a cash settlement, because Bette was broke, that she would give me monthly payments. I refused, because I didn't want Bette to call that alimony. Her lawyers pleaded with me. Bette swore she would never say it was alimony, but that's exactly what she told the press. She also said that I had planned on kidnapping B.D., by running off with her governess, Marian. Well, Marian was the best thing that came out of the entire mess. When she visited with B.D. I used to watch her with my child. She was a beautiful caring girl, and after the divorce I asked her out, but she said no."

"He wasn't my type," Marian Richards said in 1988. "I was only twenty-two at the time, and he was thirty-six. I was still with Bette, although I wanted to quit as governess for over a year. 'Stay with me through one more picture,' she would make me promise. I loved B.D. but I wanted to get out and see something of the world. Then, after Bette divorced Grant, he asked me out again. We began to date. There was never an affair. And we never tried to steal B.D. When Grant proposed, I accepted. As I was packing to leave Bette's house, RD. put her little shoes in my case. I told her we couldn't take her with us. She was such a sweet child. It was a shame she was exposed to so much unhappiness, to so many angry people who weren't meant to be together. Grant and I then moved to Paris, where he studied art. We have been married all these years, with two children and three grandchildren, and he has never been the monster that Bette said he was. She wasn't so terrible either, not to me. She could be thoughtful and kind and very funny. But she was a star and she had to feed that ego constantly. She didn't want anyone to be stronger than she was. She had to be on top constantly. She had to always be able to say, 'Well, here I am, Bette Davis. Famous and powerful.' To be anything less than her image, to ever appear soft and forgiving—well, that was a weakness to her."

"Bill's thirty-two. He looks
thirty-two. He looked it five
years ago, he'll look it twenty
years from now.
I
hate men."

—MARGO CHANNING

In July 1950 Bette Davis and Gary Merrill were married in Juarez, Mexico. After driving cross-country in Bette's black Cadillac convertible, they honeymooned in a tent on Westport Island in Maine, where Bette cooked for her new husband over an oil heater.

That October
All About Eve
was released.

"The wittiest, the most devastating, the most adult and literate motion picture ever made," said the New York
Morning Telegraph.

"A thoroughly convincing theatrical first lady, given to spats, rages, and drunken maunderings," said
Time,
"she commands sympathy and admiration."

"Magnificent! For the first time in her unaccountable career she remembers her part, not her insincere, artificial thespian self," said the Dallas
Morning News.
"She remembers also, that other actors are in the show, not merely to feed her lines and hold her sables."

On November 9 a gala invitational screening was held at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The word-of-mouth on the film's harsh depiction of actresses had spread through the town, and every female star of stature had requested an invitation to the showing. Attending were Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Joan Fontaine, Jane Wyman, Susan Hayward, and Anne Baxter. Bette Davis posed for photographs in the forecourt of the theater, but wouldn't enter the theater. "My husband, Gary Merrill, is in Germany," she explained, "and I promised him I would not see the picture until he returned."

For the postperformance party at Ciro's nightclub, the star arrived with her mother, Ruthie. "It was Bette's night of triumph," said Louella Parsons. "It was heartwarming to see the great and the near-great of Hollywood line up to pay her tribute."

Sitting in a front banquette of the club, with Clifton Webb and Jane Wyman at her feet, Bette felt a curious sense of
déjà
vu
as a commotion erupted at the front entrance. She looked up in time to catch the late arrival of another female competitor. Framed in the doorway, wearing a red brocaded gown under a full-length white mink coat, stood Joan Crawford, posing for pictures. As she made her regal way toward the main banquette, Bette muttered an "Oh, Christ!" under her breath. It wasn't Joan's attendance or tardiness that upset the
All About Eve
headliner; it was her rival's choice of escort. On Joan's arm was Vincent Sherman, the man who had directed Bette in
Mr. Skeffington
and spurned her offer of marriage. He was now professionally and sexually involved with the glamorous Crawford.

"I met Joan in the spring of 1949, when I came back from London after making
The
Hasty Heart,"
said Sherman. "I was assigned to direct her in a picture called
The
Damned Don't Cry."

During the preproduction meetings on
The
Damned Don't Cry,
Joan began to come on to the cultivated, virile director. "On day one I looked at her and said to myself, 'No way am I getting involved with this one.' She looked like a lot of trouble," said Sherman.

On location in Palm Springs, Crawford had her director placed in the motel room next to hers. "I was put off by that," he said. "She came on too strong ... almost whorish."

Joan then transmitted her patented charm and generosity.

"She was very hard to resist," said Sherman. "Even my wife, who met Joan at a party at her house, liked Joan. Unlike Bette, who tended to ignore or confront women, Joan went out of her way to be nice to my wife. She took a real interest in her. On the way home the night of that party, my wife remarked, 'There's something there. Underneath the movie-star facade there's a human being that I could probably like.' Then she turned to me and said, 'Vincent, are you having an affair with her?' 'Yes,' I answered. 'Just be careful,' my wife said."

Sherman directed Joan in two consecutive
movies—The
Damned Don't Cry
and
Harriet Craig.
Their affair continued, and reached the open ears of Bette Davis. "I was told that Bette was furious when she heard I was seeing Joan. 'How could he have anything to do with that woman?' she said. I knew nothing about the animosity between the two stars," said Sherman, "although later I wondered if Joan hadn't deliberately pursued me, to get what Bette couldn't."

"Crawford always looked up to Davis as 'someone who was superior,' " said the director, "but in terms of ability and, I guess, in terms of background. Well, the truth was, there wasn't any great difference. Bette didn't come from any highfalutin family either. In my opinion, they were sisters under the skin."

In December 1950 both Davis' and Crawford's names appeared on many of the year's Best Actress lists. Bette led all the honors for her magnificent romp as Margo Channing in
All About Eve,
while Joan was cited for one or both of her Vincent Sherman films,
The Damned Don't Cry
and
Harriet Craig.
In January 1951 both were voted Most Popular Actress by
Photoplay,
and each agreed to attend the Gold Medal ceremonies in February. On the morning of the
Photoplay
awards party, the Oscar nominations were released.
All About Eve
received an unprecedented total of fourteen nominations, with Bette Davis and Anne Baxter cited as Best Actress. Joan Crawford, who had expected a nomination, was not mentioned. That afternoon she became ill and canceled her appearance at the
Photoplay
awards dinner that night.

But Bette attended. Wearing a black cocktail dress and a flowered hat, she showed up at the party with Gary Merrill. Happily quaffing champagne, she accepted kisses and congratulations from former costar Ronald Reagan and his new wife, Nancy; and from Jane Wyman and her new beau, attorney Greg Bautzer. At one point in the evening's proceedings, waving her cigarette in the direction of an adjoining table, Davis asked, "Who
is
that little boy seated between Ann Blyth and Elizabeth Taylor? He keeps staring in my
face?"

That was Joan Crawford's nine-year-old son, Christopher, she was told. He was accepting the award that night for his mother.

"How
sweet,"
said Bette, "and
where
is Joan?"

"At home, ill," the answer came.

"Oh," said Bette, "something
fatal,
I hope."

The Fabulous Fifties

"It was a terrible decade for
Hollywood. The old studio
system as we knew it began to
crumble. Actors with long-term
contracts were let go. They
worked in independent films, on
television, or they went out of
their minds."

—BETTE DAVIS

"I was never questioned because
I was never involved. Franchot
swore to that when he took the
stand. He was deeply involved
and was questioned for months
by
all committees. Now does
that answer your 'duped'
question? I need no retraction—
want no retraction or
involvement in this whole messy,
uprooting filth on people's
pasts."

—JOAN CRAWFORD

I
n 1951, in the wake of strikes, riots, and the destruction of lives and careers by the McCarthy witch hunts, the power and autonomy of the major Hollywood studios was eroded further by severe economic sanctions and structural changes. Ordered by the Justice Department to divest themselves of their large theater-chains, M-G-M, Warner Bros., Fox, and the other studios could no longer book their own pictures into their own theaters. Exhibitors were now free to purchase their features from independent distributors, or from the growing European market, where film production had boomed during the postwar period.

Another serious encroachment on box-office revenues was from a new form of domestic entertainment—television. As the purchase of TV sets quadrupled in two years, with "a box in one out of every 5 homes," the attendance at movie theaters dropped drastically. To recoup their losses and save on overhead, the studios radically trimmed their employee ranks. The rosters of talent were examined, then slashed. The contracts of many actors, writers, directors, and producers were either broken or not renewed. Scores of talented personnel were discharged and dumped on the open market.

Bette Davis was one of the first to feel the economic pinch. In March 1951, when
All About Eve
failed to provide her with a third Oscar (Judy Holliday won for
Born Yesterday)
and no other scripts materialized, she went to England to work in a film entitled
Another
Man's Poison.
The job came via Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., actor-producer-ex-husband of Joan Crawford.

"I had a production company with a man called Daniel Angel," Fairbanks said in 1988. "We made one picture, in which I appeared, the name of which I can't remember. When this second script came along, my partner said, 'You must know Bette Davis from your Hollywood days. Could you possibly ask her if she's interested?' Well, of course, I did know Bette, but not very well. She was never at the house when I was married to Joan, but we worked at the same studio in the early 1930s, and we made one picture together
[Parachute Jumper],
which I have conveniently forgotten most of. I do remember that she was very professional, if not always agreeable. She always did as she pleased, and she was very good at her job. So, when the script of
Another Man's Poison
came along, I approached her. She apparently liked the story and wanted to know if her husband, Gary Merrill, could play the male lead. I said yes, because he is a very good actor and the part seemed right for him."

Bette asked to be directed by Irving Rapper. "That was a dirty trick that was played on me by Bette's agent, Lew Wasserman," said Rapper. "He sent me the script, and after I read twenty pages I called Wasserman and said, 'This is terrible.' He said, 'Well, Bette Davis doesn't think so. It's going to be her next picture, and it's going to be a great box-office hit.' So he got me to agree to do it, but eventually I learned this was just an excuse for Bette and Merrill to get a free honeymoon in England."

On arriving in Great Britain with Gary Merrill, her personal maid, a secretary, a nurse for their two children (including newly adopted daughter Margot), Bette got piqued at the Fleet Street press when they called her husband "Mr. Davis" and described her as "a middle-aged matron." "She threatened to catch the next boat back," said reporter David Marlow. "She made dark hints about 'putting a stop to this kind of treatment of American stars by the British Press.'"

"You must remember that most of England was still destitute after the war," said Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. "They did not have the means or the inclination to indulge anyone."

"We tried everything, foul means and fair, to win her confidence," said screenwriter Val Guest.

"Miss Davis is not winning any new friends or admirers during her dinner breaks at the Walton-on-Thames film studios," a writer for
Picture Show
magazine stated. "While the rest of the cast and crew make do with soup or fish and chips, the American star dines on sirloin steak, which is flown over daily from the States for the film star's consumption."

"Yes, that was an unfortunate occurrence," said Fairbanks, Jr. "She did have her own food flown in, but once it was brought to Bette's attention that meat was still rationed in England, she took her meals alone in her dressing room."

One evening the Merrills dined at John Gielgud's house, arriving as Ralph Richardson was departing. "He's been a favorite of mine for years," said Merrill, scrambling out of his car to meet him. "Why
didn't
you bring your autograph book?" said Bette. Another weekend, they visited Vivien Leigh and Larry Olivier, at their old monastery estate. When the Oliviers, hung over from the night before, made their late appearance, they "bounded in with Peter Finch and Noel Coward and headed straight for the bar." Later, resting on the patio of the abbey house, when Miss Leigh drifted by, wearing a large hat and carrying a basket of flowers, Noel Coward dryly explained, "She's doing her gardening bit."

Bette Davis could be jolly, with "a toilet sense of humor," said Britisher Val Guest. She was frequently loud and boisterous, especially during the long cocktail hour she and Merrill shared in their hotel suite. The manager of the sedate hotel in which they were staying had frequent complaints from other guests about the nocturnal fights between the couple. "It was very embarrassing when I had to explain to her why we were moving them to another hotel," said Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

"This is the weirdest, most unrelieved, and at times the hammiest bit of goings on this side of a wake," said a reviewer when
Another Man's Poison
was released, in January 1952. "They were so
right.
It was a lousy, less-than-B picture," said director Rapper, who had hoped to make amends with another film with Bette Davis. "Hal Wallis visited me in England and told me he purchased the rights to
Come Back, Little Sheba,"
the director recalled. "He also mentioned that he wanted me to direct the film. Back in Los Angeles I was told that Daniel Mann, who directed the Broadway version with Shirley Booth, was signed. That was all right. Things change. Words are said, then forgotten. But then I got a call from Hal Wallis' assistant, Paul Nathan, who said, 'Hal wants you to make a test of Bette Davis for
Come Back, Little Sheba.'
I was confused. Where was Danny Mann? I called up the boys at MCA and they confirmed that Mann was about to be signed, but he had never worked with Bette before, so I was being asked to go behind his back and test her for the role. I said no. The next morning Bette called me. She never said hello. 'So you don't think I could do the part?' she began. I tried to explain the situation, and told her it had nothing to do with whether she could play the part. 'You could do anything,' I said. She persisted. I said, 'Well, I don't see you playing a defeated woman....' 'Go to hell!' she said and hung up. When Hal Wallis gave the part to Shirley Booth, whom he wanted in the first place, Bette blamed me again for her loss. She never forgot it either. With time her rage grew stronger. Some thirty years later she went on the Johnny Carson television show and tore my reputation apart. She said I never did anything for her. She remembered the loss of
The Glass Menagerie
and
Come Back, Little Sheba,
which were
never
really hers in the first place, and she preferred to forget that I directed her in one of the most romantic films of her career,
Now Voyager."

"My idea of a movie star is Joan
Crawford, who can chew up two
directors and three producers
before lunch."

—SHELLEY WINTERS

"I saw Shelley Winters in
A Place in the Sun.
She gave a
very moving performance,
which surprised me, because
Shelley is not a sensitive girl
socially."

—JOAN CRAWFORD

By 1952 the Hollywood studios were preparing to launch their first defense against the competition of television. To combat the lure of the small box, each major studio announced plans to make bigger and better films, to be photographed in 3-D, CinemaScope, VistaVision, and Todd-AO, with stereophonic sound. At Warner's,
House of Wax,
a horror film, shot in 3-D "by a one-eyed director" (André De Toth), became a top grosser, but the new medium did not impress durable star Joan Crawford. "I like people coming out of the screen, but I prefer they do it with their talents and not special effects," she said.

"Anyone who appears on TV is a traitor," Crawford stated when Bette Davis made her three-minute debut on Jimmy Durante's TV comedy show. Joan had her own way of combating the new medium. As the movie screens became larger, so did the Crawford features. "The mouth got bigger, the eyebrows got thicker, her face began to resemble that of a man, her father," said one writer. Her roles became equally macho. In
This Woman Is Dangerous,
she played the tough mistress of a killer and the mastermind of his holdup gang. The story inspired novice TV comedy writer Neil Simon to offer this synopsis as audition material: "Joan Crawford plays the mistress of a murderer. He gets caught and is fried in the electric chair. She promises to wait for him."

This Woman Is Dangerous
would be the last of three Crawford pictures directed by Vincent Sherman. When it ended, so did their romantic relationship. "That was stormy, to say the least," said Sherman. "Joan threw me out of her house many times, for various reasons. After one battle, she called my wife and said, 'Hello, dear, I am sending your husband home to you.' My wife said, 'Thank you, Joan.' And we remained good friends."

In February 1952 Crawford asked that her contract with Warner Brothers be terminated. "They were grooming Doris Day to take over the top spot," she said. "Jack Warner asked me to play her sister in one picture
[Storm Warning].
I said, 'Come
on,
Jack. No one could ever believe that I would have Doris Day for a sister.'"

Warner gave that part to Ginger Rogers, and Crawford went to RKO Pictures to make her first independent film—a first-rate thriller entitled
Sudden Fear.
Offered two hundred thousand dollars as salary, she agreed to put the entire sum in escrow in exchange for 40 percent of the profits and coproducer status. The latter title ensured her approval of her leading man. To play the young actor who marries then plots the murder of his older, playwright wife, Joan wanted Marlon Brando.

A year before, Crawford had been at Warner's when Brando arrived to make
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Her first impression of the newcomer matched that of her good friend, Vivien Leigh. Both agreed that Brando was an ill-mannered slob. But after attending the premiere of
Streetcar,
and watching Brando in animal action as Stanley Kowalski, Joan dropped her reserve and hopped on board the caravan of feverish Hollywood women who were openly lusting for the mumbling, muscled, T-shirted genius. The morning after the premiere, Joan sent Marlon a telegram, praising his performance and inviting him to park his motorbike on her front lawn sometime in the near future. He ignored the telegram. When she signed on for
Sudden Fear,
she sent another telegram, followed by phone messages to his service, but again Brando did not respond. Joan the coproducer then went through the regular channels, submitting the script to his agent. The agent passed it to Brando, who sent back word to Joan that he wasn't interested "in doing any mother-and-son pictures at the present time."

After that crass rejection, Marlon made it all the way to the top of Joan's "active shit list," and another newcomer, Jack Palance, was signed to costar in
Sudden Fear.
But his working relationship with Joan was also stormy. She argued that Palance wasn't handsome enough for a star of her glamorous stature. Also, like Brando, he was a method actor, and she objected to their style of realism. In one kissing scene she was shocked when Jack shoved his tongue down her throat. "He kisses me like I'm his wife," she complained to the director. But the chemistry between the two worked on the screen. At the first preview of the picture, Joan's special guest, Louella Parsons, predicted that
Sudden Fear
"would be a big money-maker and bring another Oscar for Joan."

Other columnists agreed with Parson's prognosis. In a piece devoted to the widespread unemployment and paranoia sweeping through Hollywood, Walter Winchell reported: "While many female stars in Tinseltown are scrambling to find work in movies or television, Joan Crawford, with the smell of a new hit movie,
Sudden Fear,
on her hands, is lining up jobs for the next three years. She's putting all offers right next to the requests for dates, from every eligible male on both coasts."