James Spada - Bette Davis: More Than a Woman

by James Spada

  The Department of Special Collections at the Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University, under the curatorship of Dr. Howard Gottlieb and the management of archivist Karen Mix, houses the Bette Davis papers and provided a wealth of primary and secondary source material. The collection contains Bette’s baby books, scrapbooks of clippings of her career, magazine articles, photo albums, letters and telegrams to and from her and her family, annotated scripts, and several unpublished biographies of Bette in manuscript form by her mother and her uncle, the Reverend Paul Favor. The collection is a treasure trove for any Bette Davis biographer, and I am grateful for the access I was granted to it.

  Equally rich in information on Bette’s career is the Warner Brothers Collection at the University of Southern California, under the directorship of Leith Adams. The files contain contracts, memos, letters, annotated scripts, production schedules, notes of private and telephone conversations, daily production reports, and budget and profit-and-loss statements for all of Bette’s Warner Brothers films. The helpful good cheer of Ned Comstock and Stuart Ng made research in the collection easier and more pleasant than it might have been.

  The Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences contains voluminous files of articles and clippings about Bette’s films and personal life; the theater collection of the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts offers thorough collections of reviews and background articles on all of Bette’s stage appearances.

  The U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, released to me the dossiers kept on Bette, Gary Merrill, and Arthur Farnsworth pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

  PART ONE

  In addition to the personal interviews quoted in this section and listed above, many of the general details of Bette Davis’s childhood, school years, and early stage career were gathered from her 1962 autobiography, The Lonely Life. Additional information was gleaned from her mother’s two unpublished memoirs of life with Bette, and her uncle Paul Favor’s unpublished biographical profile.

  Important details of Bette’s early life are contained in Gladys Hall’s extended profile, “Bette Davis Life Story,” in Modern Screen, which was based on interviews with Bette and Ruthie. Equally helpful were Bette’s lengthy autobiographical article in the July 1941 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal entitled “Uncertain Glory”; Sonia Lee’s profile “The Untold Bette” in Screenplay, November 1935; and another Davis memoir, “All About Me,” as told to Bill Davidson, in the November 25 and December 9, 1955, issues of Collier’s.

  Details of Bette’s family background came from a genealogy of the Hinckley family by Emmet Charles Hinckley and the Colonel Jabez Mathews family tree located among Bette’s papers at Boston University.

  The 1900 U.S. Department of Commerce Census, the Maine Historical Society, and the State of Maine Office of Death Records supplied information about Harlow Davis and his parents. The City Clerk of Lowell, Massachusetts, made available Harlow and Ruthie’s marriage certificate. The quote from Harlow’s Bates College classmate about his scholastic achievements at the school is contained in Paul Favor’s writings. Some of Bette’s quotes about her feelings toward her father were given to Christopher Nickens during a telephone interview in 1985.

  The quotes and observations from Bette’s acting-school roommate Virginia Conroy were taken from Conroy’s lengthy unpublished memoir of her friendship with Bette, “It Was a Bumpy Life.” Ruthie and Harlow’s divorce papers were obtained from the Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Superior Court. The date of Harlow’s marriage to Minnie Stewart is listed among his biographical data in a Bates College alumni directory.

  Bette’s Cushing Academy senior yearbook provided information about her popularity at the school and her appearance in the senior play. Bette offered details of her nude posing as a teenager in her 1981 Playboy interview. She spoke of watching Ruthie work on her retouching in Sonia Lee’s profile.

  Henry Fonda recalled his date with Bette in his autobiography and in Playboy. Ginny Conroy supplied photographs of Bette’s first screen test while at the Milton/Anderson School. Harlow Davis’s letter to his daughter after he saw The Wild Duck is a part of the Boston University Davis collection.

  PART TWO

  The Warner Brothers archives at the University of Southern California provided invaluable information for this section, as did the files of the Margaret Herrick Library and the Lincoln Center Library. Some details of Bette’s courtship by and marriage to Ham Nelson were found in the article “Marriage Costs Bette Plenty” by Laura Benham in the August 1933 issue of Picture Play and Bette’s piece “I Love My Husband Because He Doesn’t Treat Me Like a Star” in a 1936 issue of Screen Book.

  Background on the nominating rules of the Academy Awards in 1935 and 1936 was obtained from the “Academy Awards of Merit Text of Rules” for those years. Details of Harlow’s visit to Bette and Ham in Hollywood were gleaned from a variety of Bette’s interviews over the years. Harlow Davis’s death certificate was obtained from the Office of the Town Clerk of Belmont, Massachusetts.

  Ross Alexander’s infatuation with Bette is detailed in Lawrence Quirk’s Fasten Your Seat Belts. Mr. Justice Branson’s decision against Bette in her Warner Brothers lawsuit was published in the volume Trial—Law Reports of the King’s Bench Division, 1937.

  Ham Nelson’s bugging of Bette and Howard Hughes has long been rumored, but no one with firsthand information has ever gone on the record about it until now. I thank Bette’s niece Ruth Bailey for confirming the incident and adding information about her father’s involvement in it.

  Ham Nelson’s divorce decree from Bette (Case No. D1754595) was obtained from the Los Angeles County Superior Court. The information in this section and those that follow about Bette’s various real estate holdings was obtained from the Los Angeles and Orange County Grantee/Grantor records.

  PART THREE

  The USC Warner Brothers archives once again provided a wealth of information about Bette’s films. Background on Franconia, New Hampshire, and Peckett’s Inn was provided by Robert Peckett III and Duncan Chaplin III. Some details of Bette’s courtship with Arthur Farnsworth were gleaned from the profile of Bette, “You Can Have Hollywood,” published in the Boston Advertiser on June 23, 1940, and Gladys Hall’s “Keeping Up with Bette” in Modern Screen, April 1940. Some of Lucile de Besche’s quotes about her brother Arthur Farnsworth are contained in written responses to queries submitted to her by the author.

  Jack Carson’s observations about Bette and the men of the Hollywood Canteen are contained in Fasten Your Seat Belts.

  My re-creation of the death of Arthur Farnsworth is based on contemporary newspaper accounts and other published sources, Bette’s reminiscences over the years, an interview with William Grant Sherry, Farnsworth’s death certificate, No. 12857, obtained from the State of California Department of Health, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s autopsy report, and the official inquest verdict. The verbatim transcript of coroner Frank Nance’s inquest, provided by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office and long thought missing, provided the basis for my conclusion that the inquest was itself a part of a studio cover-up of the facts.

  The information about Bette’s marriage to and divorce from William Grant Sherry was culled from his and his wife Marion’s lengthy and forthcoming observations during interviews for this book, contemporary newspaper accounts and other published sources, the marriage certificate (No. 26189) provided by the County of Riverside, California, and divorce papers obtained from the Santa Monica and Orange County Superior Courts.

  Hedda Hopper wrote of her visit to Bette after B.D.’s birth in “Welcome Stranger,” Modern Screen, August 1947. The details of Bessie Downs’s lawsuit against Bette are contained in the records of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

  Information about Bobby’s divorce from Robert Pelgram was gleaned from their divorce papers, Case No. 627591 of the Los Angeles Superior Court. The details of her marriage to and divorce from
David Berry are contained in divorce papers obtained from the Orange County Superior Court, Certificate No. 51176.

  Some of Joseph Mankiewicz’s observations regarding All About Eve are contained in a letter to the author dated December 9, 1991. Other sources were Gary Carey’s “Colloquy” with the director, More About All About Eve, and Harry Haun’s article “Hollywood’s All-Time Bitch is 40,” in Hollywood magazine, October/November, 1990.

  PART FOUR

  Gary Merrill’s autobiography provided some details of his marriage to Bette, as did her memoirs and B.D. Hyman’s My Mother’s Keeper. Gladys Young’s diaries and her memorabilia of the Merrills’ trip to England offered important insights into that period. Bette imparted a good deal of information about Margot’s behavioral problems in a January 17, 1960, article in The American Weekly, “Our Daughter.”

  In addition to the interviews with Mike Ellis and the cast members of Two’s Company, the University of Pittsburgh library provided contracts, memos, and letters that shed a great deal of light on that troubled production, as well as Bette’s subsequent illness. Frederick Goddard’s observations of Gary Merrill’s odd behavior at the football game are contained in a letter to the author dated November 8, 1991. Riy Stricklyn’s reminiscences of speaking with Bette after her initial divorce action against Gary are part of his unpublished memoir, “Bette Davis: A Personal Remembrance.”

  The voluminous, 190-page record of Gary and Bette’s protracted custody battle over Michael is contained in the archives of the Santa Monica Superior Court, Case No. WEC2895. Ruth Davis’s death certificate was obtained from the California Department of Health, County of Orange, Certificate No. 3000. Sandford Dody’s recollections of his stormy collaboration with Bette on her autobiography are from his memoir, Giving Up the Ghost.

  PART FIVE

  My account of B.D. and Jeremy’s meeting and courtship is based largely on her own in My Mother’s Keeper. Some of the details of Bette’s disagreement over the ending of Where Love Has Gone were gleaned from the depositions taken for the lawsuit Paramount Pictures v. Bette Davis, Los Angeles Civil Court Case No. 838992, filed May 20, 1964. My recounting of Bette’s conversation with the young fans in 1964 is based on a tape of the encounter provided to me by Randall Henderson.

  Joshua Logan’s comments about Bette and Miss Moffat are a part of his memoir Movie Stars, Real People and Me. Rex Reed’s interview with Bette appeared in the New York Daily News on October 12, 1975. Kath Sermak’s reminiscences of Bette are contained in This ’n That, as are B.D. and Jeremy’s notes of appreciation to Bette for saving their farm from foreclosure. Much of the information about the Hyman family’s conversion to born-again Christianity was provided by B.D. and Jeremy in Narrow Is the Way. The lawsuits and judgments against the Hymans and the Pitchers in 1985 are a part of the public record in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, and Onandaga County, New York.

  Details of Bette’s collapse at the American Cinema Awards were also provided to the author by Alex Gildzen in a letter dated November 27, 1989. Bette’s last days were recounted by Kathryn Sermak in her 1990 update of Bette’s autobiography The Lonely Life. Bette’s will was probated in Los Angeles, Case No. P741578.

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