Bette and Joan The Divine Feud (21 page)

Whatever the true cause of his death, the handsome young flier from Vermont had the last laugh at Bette's expense. The joint tax form he signed on the day of his fatal fall came back to haunt his illustrious widow. The Internal Revenue Service challenged the return a few years later. Her husband had no income for 1943, they stated, disallowing her claim. And Bette was forced to pay sixty-six thousand dollars in back taxes.

Brave Bette

"Once again Bette Davis has
faced tragedy with courage and
left all bitterness to those of
smaller heart and
narrower vision."

—A REPORTER FROM THE SET
OF
MR. SKEFFINGTON

I
n the aftermath of her husband's death, Bette said she was fortunate she had her work to return to. Tears were duly shed, but they weren't hers. One co-worker said that filming on
Mr. Skeffington
was "five months of war, sheer hell, with no casualties taken." And Bette agreed. In those years she admitted that when people disliked her, they really detested her, "and they couldn't do any more about me than they could about death and taxes."

As Fanny Skeffington, the most beautiful woman in New York in 1914, the star demanded approval over every facet of the production. She had her friend Maggie Donovan design her hairstyles, "which gave me the illusion of beauty," with Donovan's husband, Perc Westmore, creating the makeup. Some forty costumes were created by Orry-Kelly, and Ernie Haller was assigned to photograph the star. "She began to go to extremes," said Haller. "She wanted to look ravishingly beautiful in the opening scenes, and then ugly as sin in the last shots. She had a ghastly rubber mask designed to make her look older. Instead it made her look like something out of a horror movie, but she insisted on wearing it."

Her ego had also reached monstrous proportions, the producers of the film said. Julius J. Epstein and his brother Philip had written
Casablanca
the previous year. The success of that classic led to their assignment in 1943 as writers and producers of
Mr. Skeffington.
They quit "when we found out that Bette Davis had more power than we had." She did considerable damage to the script. "She wants her name to be mentioned even when she isn't in the scene, so no one can ever forget for a second she's in the story," production manager Frank Mattison wrote in a memo to studio executive Steve Trilling. When Bette's temperament and constant demands slowed filming down to a crawl, a second memo was sent by Mattison. "It sure is tough," he said, "to sit by with a show where she is the whole band; the music; and all the instruments, including the bazooka."

It was Bette's obsession for perfection, coupled with the intense grief she was experiencing for her departed husband, that caused her neurotic behavior, her friends insisted.

"It wasn't grief, it was guilt," said another source. "Her sins were catching up with her."

"Guilty? Bette Davis? Don't be foolish," said George Cukor. "She is a star, and all stars learn how to cultivate one very important asset early in their career: a very short memory. They remember only what they want to remember."

Bette and director Vincent Sherman

Getting It

The main problem with Bette during the making of
Mr. Skeffington
was sex and the lack thereof, said director Vincent Sherman, who at the time was still the object of Bette's persistent ardor. "She made it very difficult for me," he said. "The more I resisted, the more impossible she became. She insisted we become lovers. She threatened to have the entire production shut down if I continued to refuse her. I've worked with many actresses, including Joan [Crawford], but no one was as destructive as Bette. That sexual suppression you see on the screen, that nervous hysterical energy, was not acting. That's the way she was in real life. The only way I could finish the picture was by having an affair with her."

Bette wanted Sherman to leave his wife and marry her, but the affair lasted only to the end of the filming, he said. "I avoided her after that. I refused to return her calls. She tried to make trouble. But Jack Warner didn't care as long as the picture was made. And I already had told my wife, who had a wonderful understanding of what goes on in this business. Then, sometime later, after the editing was finished and the guys in the front office had seen it, Bette stopped me on the street at Warner's. 'Everyone says the picture is wonderful,' she said, 'so I want you to direct my next one.' I said, 'Bette, do me a favor, get another director.' And I kept walking, as fast as I could, away from her."

Meanwhile, Back at the Hollywood Canteen

Neither the loss of her husband nor the affair with Vincent Sherman kept Bette away from her job as chief hostess and president of the Hollywood Canteen committee. Throughout the duration of the war, as long as there were American forces fighting, she said it was her duty to work as hard as she could for the good of the Canteen.

"Only a bare month after the tragic loss of her husband, dressed in a simple black suit and dark snood, her mourning costume relieved by a white orchid, Bette Davis showed up for the first anniversary of the Hollywood Canteen," wrote Hedda Hopper.

"Mrs. Joe Lewis lost her boy, and a week later she was back washing dishes," said Bette, making little of her valor. Sitting at a front table at the anniversary party, she gallantly signed autographs and postcards for the boys, but refused to dance.

When the star attendance fell off at the Canteen, it was Bette who manned the phones and called up the big names and told them to haul themselves back to the club—"and not just when the syndicated photographers are present," she ordered. She also opened the Canteen doors to admit servicewomen—the Wacs and the Waves of America's armed forces. But they weren't allowed to dance with the men. That was a duty reserved for the stars and the official Canteen hostesses. Said hostesses also received mimeographed instructions from Bette, "Hints on how to treat wounded vets."

"Forget the wounds, remember the man," the instructions said. "Don't be over-solicitous, nor too controlled to the point of indifference. Learn to use the word 'prosthetics' instead of 'artificial limbs.' Never say, 'It could have been worse.' And when he talks about his war experiences,
listen,
but don't ask for more details than he wants to give."

To bring in more cash for the war effort, Bette Davis prevailed upon Jack Warner to contribute his profits from three patriotic all-star films. The first of these was
This Is the Army,
starring Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Kate Smith, and 350 GIs marching onstage in the closing number. The second film,
Thank Your Lucky Stars,
had Dinah Shore, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, and Bette, in her singing debut. She was originally set to do a scat duet with Olivia de Havilland and George Tobias. But when Bette asked what "scat" meant, they gave that tricky rhythmic number to Ida Lupino. Instead she would sing a new song by Frank Loesser and Arthur Schwartz, "They're Either Too Young or Too Old."

Recording the song was not difficult for the star. "My two former husbands were musicians," she said, "and they always complimented me on my musical talent." It was the dancing that followed the song that caused some worry. She was to do a jitterbug, with full gymnastics, that would send the star flying every which way over her partner's shoulders.

On the day of filming, the atmosphere on soundstage eighteen was "tense." Bette, wearing a shocking-pink brocaded two-piece gown with long bright-green gloves, arrived with "a retinue of advisers, well-wishers, and sympathizers, who trailed along, offering maxims, condolences, and banalities." Sitting down, she was handed a glass of clear spring water and three cigarettes, which she puffed on in succession.

She was introduced to her dance partner, Conrad Wiedell, "a twenty-four-year-old curly blond—Hollywood's King of the Jitterbugs." Conrad nervously confessed he had danced with many other stars, including Betty Hutton and Joan Crawford, but meeting Bette Davis was "like walking into a room where FDR is seated."

"Go easy on me, kid," said Bette.

Standing on her mark, Bette lip-synched the song, then sauntered to the middle of the dance floor, where she was grabbed by Conrad. "He swung her clear into the ozone, towards the ceiling, alarming several electricians on the overhead catwalks," a reporter noted. "Then he hurled her to the left, to the right, at a ninety-degree angle, which nearly caused her eyes to pop out. Bringing her back to earth she slammed into his hip and almost stumbled as she tried to stand."

"Cut!" said the director. "Let's try it once more."

"No! No!" said Bette, barely able to stand straight. "I said one take, and that was
it."

Turning to the press, she said, "Show's over, gentlemen. Now get the hell out."

Hello, Joan!

In July 1944 Jack Warner announced that the third of his studio's patriotic films was going into
production—Hollywood Canteen,
based on the activities of Bette and her volunteers. The big-budget feature would have sixty-two stars, two big bands, five vocalists, twenty-four dancers, Roy Rogers, Trigger, and ... Joan Crawford.

"Hollywood is tough on has-
beens. The invitations stopped
coming. My phone stopped
ringing. Old friends
stopped coming by. If it wasn't
for my husband and my family,
I
would have gone crazy."

—JOAN CRAWFORD

It had been a rough year for Joan. As Bette Davis continued to ignore her calls, Jack Warner threatened to put her on suspension for not working.

After refusing to do the Ann Sheridan reject
Night Shift,
Crawford also passed on
Never Goodbye,
written specifically for her by
Dark Victory
director Edmund Goulding.

"What are you bitching for?" she asked Goulding when she vetoed his script. "You got your fifty thousand dollars for writing the damn thing."

Joan still had her eyes on
Ethan Frome,
and she asked director Goulding to talk to Bette Davis about working with her. "I wouldn't go near her with a ten-foot electric pole," said Goulding, mindful of the heart attack he had faked on his last visit with the star.

In December 1943 Jack Warner sent Crawford the script of
Conflict,
about a shrewish wife who gets bumped off after her husband (Humphrey Bogart) leaves her for her younger sister (Alexis Smith). After reading the script, Joan told her agent to convey the news to Mr. Warner that Joan Crawford never dies in her movies, and she never ever loses her man to
anyone.
"Who the hell does she think she is? Bette Davis?" Warner fumed, and sent Joan a telegram in which he ordered the star to "come in and go to work" or she would be put on suspension.

When she received the summons, Joan put on her best star bib and paid a call on the studio boss. Alerted by the studio gateman that she was on her way to see him, Warner ducked out the side door of his office. Warmly greeting the boss's secretary, Joan said: "Tell Jack he is perfectly right. I should not be getting paid if I am not working. So I want him to take me off salary until we can agree on a suitable script."

"That really confused the old bastard," Crawford said later. "He couldn't threaten or yell at me if I wasn't on salary. Deep down, I think he also respected me. It takes guts to turn down work in Hollywood. The name of the game is always your next picture."

It also took courage because she had little money. Her funds were tied up in bonds and real estate, she said. So she took out a second mortgage on the house and let the last of her staff, a children's helper, go. Her husband, Phil Terry, had been dropped by RKO and was working in his father's factory. She got up each morning and made and packed his lunch—"egg and lettuce sandwich, a piece of cake and a big, juicy pear." She also continued her volunteer work and wrote a guest column for a fan magazine. "We can't give you much, only an honorary payment of two hundred dollars," she was told. "I'll take it," said Joan. The column served the main purpose of keeping her name in print before the public, and it also provided upfront seats at the important premieres and top night spots. Her amateur reporter's eye could be keen on these outings. "Neither Bette Davis nor Joan Fontaine need apologize for wearing long evening dresses at a recent party at Ciro's," Joan wrote. "None of us have bought any new formal gowns since the war, so it's fun to take the old ones out of the closet."

In her column, Joan also shared the news, sad and otherwise, passed on to her by the stars. Hollywood's wartime losses could be deep. Eva Gabor's dog, Misha, had been drafted and killed in action in Europe. Loretta Young lost her maid—not in the war, but at the Hollywood Canteen. (The maid was an aspiring opera singer. She sang at the Canteen one night and left Loretta to join a professional company.)

Joan was also a faithful volunteer at the Hollywood Canteen. "I was there without fail every Monday night," she said. She was mobbed on her first visit, and was busy signing autographs when President Bette Davis walked in. "Hello,
Joan!"
said Bette. "We need you desperately, in the kitchen. There are dishes to be washed."

"A very pleasant pile of shit for wartime audiences," was how Crawford described the movie version of
Hollywood Canteen.
As a Warner's contract star, albeit unemployed, she was asked to appear in the film but balked at first. "The public haven't seen me in over a year," she said. "Playing a bit part might make them really believe I'm all washed up." Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck had already agreed to appear in the picture, she was told. "Oh?" said Joan. 'And what is the billing?" "It's alphabetical," she was advised. "Well ..." said Joan, "'C' comes before 'D' and 'S'; so count me in."

The producer of
Hollywood Canteen
asked her to do a musical number. "Nope," said Joan. "My musical days are over. I would prefer to do something more dignified. Recite a poem or give a pep talk to the soldiers."

She would talk, then dance cheek to cheek with an Army sergeant (Dane Clark). The day her brief scene was shot, the soundstage was crowded with extras and onlookers, eager to watch Joan Crawford at work. When her scene was over, they mobbed her, asking for autographs. Watching this
homage
from a distance was the mistress of ceremonies—Bette Davis. "I'll bet you five bucks she paid them to rush her," she muttered to producer Alex Gottlieb.

Joan Crawford went on record numerous times saying she admired Bette Davis for her talent and incredible fighting spirit. Bette in turn confessed she was "bored by Joan." To her cohorts at the studio she often referred to Joan as that mannequin from M-G-M. "I mean, nothing could be further from me," said Bette, "the clothes, the hair, the constant obsession with image. I have no time for people who spend their time in nightclubs."

Vincent Sherman commented on the rivalry between the two during this time. "I think Joan felt that Bette was superior to her. And I was told that Bette made some scurrilous remarks about Joan. 'I wouldn't mind her personality,' she said, 'if only she could act.'"