Elated by her Spanish reception, she then set off for Paris, accompanied by faithful companion Kathy Sermak. During the journey, people who saw her felt she was still shaking up busily the dimming embers of what had been a fiery, furnacelike eighty-one years. Old age, as she had often declared, was not for sissies. But when she reached Paris, her strength completely failed her, and Kathy rushed her to the American Hospital.
For some time she lingered. Liz Smith and other columnists in the know kept her condition a secret. What she had to do she wanted to do alone, without reporters and other intruders.
“Accommodation to life’s inescapable realities is not surrender,” she had said, at twenty-eight, in London fifty-three years before, when she realized she would have to go back to fulfill her Warner contract after the hard-fought court battle that she had lost. And late on the night of Friday, October 6, 1989, in Paris—three thousand miles away from the city in Massachusetts where she was born eighty-one years before, six thousand miles away from the Hollywood of her triumphs—Bette Davis, feisty and realistic to the end, accommodated.
When the news broke the next day, the press accorded her a send-off that would have made her very proud. She was front-page news, and the encomiums were deservedly lavish.
Harold Schiff and Michael Merrill made arrangements to ship her body back to Hollywood, where her funeral was held on October 12 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, with the Reverend Robert M. Bock of the First Christian Church in North Hollywood officiating. The private service was attended by no more than twenty-five family members and close friends. The marble sarcophagus, marked DAVIS and bearing a statue of a woman that B.D. claimed was modeled after her (B.D.’s) face and figure, had now seen three interments. Bette, Ruthie, and Bobby were at last reunited.
Kathryn Sermak, Robert Wagner, George Schaefer (who directed her in Right of Way), and others later organized a public memorial service at a sound stage on the Warner Brothers lot attended by all the people in Hollywood who knew and loved Davis. The devoted Robert Osborne commented, “It’s no accident that [Bette] chose as her final resting place a plot of Forest Lawn that overlooks the Burbank Studios and all those soundstages where she churned out the good work for eighteen years.”
A month after her death, Davis’s will was published. Daughter B.D. was totally cut out of it, as was Margot. B.D.’s sons were also snubbed. The estate, valued at between $600,000 and a million, was divided equally between Kathryn Sermak and Michael Merrill. Some small bequests were made to her niece Faye Forbes, childhood friend Robin Brown, and Mrs. Michael Merrill. The general assumption regarding the unfortunate Margot was that Davis had arranged for Michael to assume her expenses. (Gary Merrill, Michael’s father, by then in his seventies, had paid Margot’s fees for years.)
Attempting to explain why Davis didn’t include B.D.’s sons in her will, Harold Schiff said, “Unfortunately their mother chose to have them follow her rather than their hearts. Twenty years from now they’ll say, ‘That was our grandmother; why didn’t we know her?’”
B.D., who was given until December 5 to contest the will, told reporters on November 7 that she had no intention of challenging it. Now living in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she trains Arabian horses, Davis’s only natural child scornfully said, “I would be shocked if [the will] mentioned me.” She added with a chuckle, still referring to her mother in the present tense, “That’s the way she is with everyone. Either she owns them or they’re the enemy.” B.D. had often described her mother as “a totally destructive force in my children’s life and my life.” Told that Davis’s maid would have prevented B.D. from attending the funeral, she laughingly declared she had had no intention of going anyway.
No shrinking violet, B.D. went on Connie Chung’s TV talk show to say that as far as she was concerned her mother had died years earlier for her, that she was a great star, yes, but a star in private as well as in public, and that she, B.D., had done her thing and her mother had done hers.
One fan wrote in to say of all this, “Nobody expected a movie queen to be an exemplary wife and mother—that was not her destiny. Great artists live by their own rules. Bette Davis would have been far happier if she had never married and never had children. She belonged to the world. Her gifts were meant for the world, and to the world she gave with ultimate generosity.”
“She will never really die,” another admirer wrote in. And it is true. Bette Davis’s vivid and individual mystique will keep her firmly ensconced among the eternally creative living thanks to the magic of film.
A Bette Davis Film Listing
(With Stage Roles and Some TV Films)
The year noted is the film’s formal release date. Those films marked with an asterisk (*) were never formally released in the United States.
Bad Sister 1931
Seed 1931
Waterloo Bridge 1931
Way Back Home 1932
The Menace 1932
Hell’s House 1932
The Man Who Played God 1932
So Big 1932
The Rich Are Always With Us 1932
The Dark Horse 1932
Cabin in the Cotton 1932
Three on a Match 1932
20,000 Years in Sing Sing 1933
Parachute Jumper 1933
The Working Man 1933
Ex-Lady 1933
Bureau of Missing Persons 1933
Fashions of 1934 1934
The Big Shakedown 1934
Jimmy the Gent 1934
Fog Over Frisco 1934
Of Human Bondage 1934
Housewife 1934
Bordertown 1935
The Girl From 10th Avenue 1935
Front Page Woman 1935
Special Agent 1935
Dangerous 1935
The Petrified Forest 1936
The Golden Arrow 1936
Satan Met a Lady 1936
Marked Woman 1937
Kid Galahad 1937
That Certain Woman 1937
It’s Love I’m After 1937
Jezebel 1938
The Sisters 1938
Dark Victory 1939
Juarez 1939
The Old Maid 1939
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex 1939
All This and Heaven Too 1940
The Letter 1940
The Great Lie 1941
The Bride Came C.O.D. 1941
The Little Foxes 1941
The Man Who Came to Dinner 1941
In This Our Life 1942
Now, Voyager 1942
Watch on the Rhine 1943
Thank Your Lucky Stars 1943
Old Acquaintance 1943
Mr. Skeffington 1944
Hollywood Canteen 1944
The Corn Is Green 1945
A Stolen Life 1946
Deception 1946
Winter Meeting 1948
June Bride 1948
Beyond the Forest 1949
All About Eve 1950
Payment on Demand 1951
Another Man’s Poison 1951
Phone Call from a Stranger 1952
The Star 1952
The Virgin Queen 1955
Storm Center 1956
The Catered Affair 1956
John Paul Jones 1959
The Scapegoat 1959
Pocketful of Miracles 1961
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962
Dead Ringer 1964
The Empty Canvas 1964
Where Love Has Gone 1964
Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1965
The Nanny 1965
The Anniversary 1968
Connecting Rooms 1969*
Bunny O’Hare 1971
The Scientific Cardplayer 1972*
Burnt Offerings 1976
Return From Witch Mountain 1978
Death on the Nile 1978
Watcher in the Woods 1980
The Whales of August 1987
Wicked Stepmother 1989
A Selective List of
Bette Davis TV Films
Madame Sin 1972
Scream, Pretty Peggy 1973
The Disappearance of Aimee 1976
The Dark Secret of Harvest Home 1978
Strangers 1979
White Mama 1980
Skyward 1980
Family Reunion 1981
A Piano for Mrs. Cimino 1982
Little Gloria, Happy at Last 1982
Right of Way 1983
Murder With Mirrors 1985
As Summers Die 1986
Stage Appearances
The Earth Between 1929
The Wild Duck 1929
The Lady From the Sea 1929
Broken Dishes 1929
The Solid South 1930
Two’s Company 1952
The World of Carl Sandburg 1959
The Night of the Iguana 1961
Bette Davis on Film and in Person 1973
Miss Moffat 1974
Acknowledgments
FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS: The Passionate Life of Bette Davis, is based on the research of forty-three years, and my interviews over that period with those living and dead, those named throughout this book, and others who requested not to be named, all of whom generously shared their memories of Bette Davis with me, as well as their thoughts and opinions regarding her life and career. Since the beginning of my career, Bette Davis has led the list of film stars on whom I assiduously collected all sorts of material, with a view to one day writing her biography.
My deep appreciation to Doug McClelland for the interviews he contributed, as well as clippings and other memorabilia. To Douglas Whitney, who lent me many fascinating photographs of Bette Davis. To William Schoell, for his helpful suggestions and advice and for sharing his revisionist theories on certain Bette Davis films, as well as a younger generation’s attitude toward her. Also to Mike Ritzer and Arthur Tower for research and many other forms of help, and to Albert B. Manski and Donald Collins, Jr., for various memorabilia.
My gratitude also to: John Cocchi, Don Koll, the James R. Quirk Memorial Film Symposium and Research Center, New York; Mary Corliss and the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film’s photo archives; the staff of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Hollywood; the British Film Institute, London; Dorothy Swerdlove, Rod Bladel, and their associates at the Billy Rose Theater and Film Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center; Ernest D. Burns of Cinemabilia, New York; Mark Ricci and The Memory Shop, New York; Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Material Store, New York; and Photofest.
Also thanks to: Lou Valentino; Terry Geesken of the Museum of Modern Art Film Library; John W. M. Phillips, London; Ken Sephton, London; Eduardo Moreno, Ben Carbonetto, Manuel Cordova, Barry Paris, John Gallagher, the late DeWitt Bodeen, and Henry Hart, editor of Films in Review from 1950 to 1971, who published my pioneering life story of Bette Davis in Films in Review’s December 1955 issue.
Also my appreciation to James E. Runyan, John A. Guzman, Robert Heide, John Gilman, Mike Snell, Jim McGowan, Frank Rowley of the Biograph Cinema, New York; Howard Otway of Theatre 80, New York; and Barbara Barondess MacLean, actress, designer, writer, and a contemporary of Bette Davis.
And with sincere thanks to Daniel Strone, my agent and friend, to whom this book is dedicated; to my editor, Douglas Stumpf; and to Jared B. Stamm. And to the memory of Michael Lavelle Scuffle III (1962–1989), my young writer friend who loved Bette Davis movies and saw many of them with me.
A Selective Bette Davis Bibliography
Astor, Mary. A Life on Film. New York: Delacorte Press, 1971.
Davis, Bette. The Lonely Life. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962.
Davis, Bette. This ’n That. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987.
Higham, Charles. Bette: The Life of Bette Davis. New York: Macmillan: 1981.
Higham, Charles, and Joel Greenberg. The Celluloid Muse. London: Angus and Robertson, 1969.
Hirschhorn, Clive. The Warner Bros. Story. New York: Crown Publishers, 1979.
Huston, John. An Open Book. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980.
Hyman, B. D. My Mother’s Keeper. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1985.
Kaminsky, Stuart. John Huston, Maker of Magic. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1978.
McGilligan, Patrick. Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1986.
Merrill, Gary. Bette, Rita, and the Rest of My Life. Augusta, M.E.: Lance Tapley, 1988.
Nickens, Christopher. Bette Davis. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985.
Quirk, Lawrence J. “Bette Davis.” Films in Review, December 1955.
———. Bette Davis: Her Films and Career. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1985.
———. “Bette Davis: Hollywood’s Neglected Genius.” Hollywood Stars, 1957.
———. Joan Crawford. Films in Review, December 1956.
———. The Films of Joan Crawford. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1968.
———. The Great Romantic Films. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1974.
———. Anthology of Photoplay. New York: Dover Publications, 1971.
———. Claudette Colbert. New York: Crown Publishers, 1985.
———. Margaret Sullavan: Child of Fate. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986.
———. Lauren Bacall: Her Films and Career. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1986.
———. Norma: The Story of Norma Shearer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Stine, Whitney. Mother Goddam. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1974.
Swindell, Larry. Charles Boyer. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983.
Walker, Alexander. Bette Davis. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1986.
Selected Periodicals
Quirk’s Reviews, Films in Review, Photoplay, Motion Picture, Modern Screen, Time, Life, McCall’s, The New York Times, Variety, People, Vanity Fair.
Index
The pagination of this digital edition does not match the print edition from which the Index was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
Academy Awards
Of Human Bondage controversy, 118–120
nominations, 221, 269, 363, 425, 428, 441, 494
presentation by Davis, 455–456
winning films, 119, 143–144, 148, 186, 195–197, 312
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 287–288
Adolfi, John, 53–54, 87
Agee, James, 329, 335–336, 342, 365–366, 462
Aherne, Brian, 227–228, 231–232, 423
Akins, Zoe, 236
Albert, Katherine, 39–40, 102, 106, 130–131, 437–439
Albertson, Frank, 39, 41
Albright, Hardie, 57, 86, 87
Aldrich, Robert, 489–490, 492–494, 496, 499, 511–518
Alexander, Ross, 135–137
All About Eve (film), 413, 417–429
All This and Heaven, Too (Field), 262, 265
All This and Heaven, Too (film), 163, 262–267
Always a Gent, 104–106
American Cinema Awards, 583–584
American Film Institute Award for Life Achievement, 471–472, 543
American Movie Award, 563
Anderson, Lindsay, 575–577
Anderson, Maxwell, 246
Andrews, Harry, 547
Anniversary, The (film), 520–522
Another Man’s Poison (film), 431–435
Arkoff, Samuel Z., 526, 528
Arliss, Florence, 54–55
Arliss, George, 11, 51–56, 85–87, 98, 110, 113, 158
Asher, Jerry, 74–75, 131, 135–137, 166, 185–186, 255, 319–320, 426, 473–474, 502
As Summers Die (TV film), 573
Astor, Mary, 150, 276–279, 517–518, 555
Atkinson, Brooks, 17
Ayers, John H., 96
Bacon, Lloyd, 159–160, 162
Bad Sister (film), 31–34
Bainter, Fay, 189, 195, 196–197, 400
Baker, Carroll, 557
Baker, Roy Ward, 520–521
Balcon, Michael, 480
Bankhead, Tallulah, 181, 288–290, 421–422
Banks, Polan, 275
Barbara Stanwyck, 91
Barnes, Howard, 294–295
Barrymore, Ethel, 357–358, 537
Barrymore, John, 296, 298
Barthelmess, Richard, 65–67
Baskette, Kirtley, 119–120
Baum, Martin, 498
Baxter, Anne, 419, 424, 427, 428
Beeson, Paul, 479
Bennett, Bruce, 373
Bennett, Constance, 56, 63
Bennett, Jill, 519–520
Bennett, Richard, 23–24
Bergner, Elisabeth, 367, 421
Berkeley, Busby, 100, 101
Berman, Pandro, 39, 110, 113
Bernhardt, Curtis, 369, 376, 378–379, 411–416, 438
Berry, David, 575
Bessell, Ted, 532
Best, Willie, 327
Bette Davis Day, 565
“Bette Davis Eyes” (Carnes), 563
Bette Davis on Film and in Person (one-woman show), 532–536
Beyond the Forest (film), 404–411, 533
Bickford, Charles, 192
Big Shakedown, The (film), 102–103
Binford, Lloyd, 394
Bird, Carol, 96
Biroc, Joseph, 513
Black, Karen, 539–541
Blanke, Henry, 100, 131, 188, 275, 330–331, 378, 387, 397, 402–408
Blaustein, Julian, 456, 458, 459
Blondell, Joan, 68–69, 563
Blore, Eric, 173, 175
Boehm, David, 92
Bogart, Humphrey, 31–33, 144, 145, 146, 150, 160, 161, 164, 165, 167
Boles, John, 34, 35–36
Bondi, Beulah, 202
Booth, Shirley, 442
Bordertown (film), 110, 122–125, 226
Boredom (Moravia), 502
Fasten Your Seat Belts Page 52
