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Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis
The legendary Hollywood star blazes a fiery trail in this enthralling portrait of a brilliant actress and the movies her talent elevated to greatness
She was magnificent and exasperating in equal measure. Jack Warner called her "an explosive little broad with a sharp left." Humphrey Bogart once remarked, "Unless you're very big she can knock you down." Bette Davis was a force of nature--an idiosyncratic talent who nevertheless defined the words "movie star" for more than half a century and who created an extraordinary body of work filled with unforgettable performances.
In Dark Victory, the noted film critic and biographer Ed Sikov paints the most detailed picture ever delivered of this intelligent, opinionated, and unusual woman who was--in the words of a close friend--"one of the major events of the twentieth century." Drawing on new interviews with friends, directors, and admirers, as well as archival research and a fresh look at the films, this stylish, intimate biography reveals Davis's personal as well as professional life in a way that is both revealing and sympathetic. With his wise and well-informed take on the production and accomplishments of such movie milestones as Jezebel, All About Eve, and Now, Voyager, as well as the turbulent life and complicated personality of the actress who made them, Sikov's Dark Victory brings to life the two-time Academy Award-winning actress's unmistakable screen style, and shows the reader how Davis's art was her own dark victory.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2007
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About the author
Ed Sikov
20 books12 followersEd Sikov has taught at Haverford College, Colorado College, and Columbia University. He is the author of seven books, including On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder, Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis, Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers, and Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s. He lives in New York City.
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December 22, 2011
Spoiler alert! Yes, she really was, by most prevailing standards, a bitch. I think my favorite anecdote from this whole book was culled from the 1960s-era recollections of a random dentist who, hearing angry shouting, ran out to his waiting area only to find Bette Davis and Tennessee Williams ripping each other a new one to the shock and (perhaps) awe of a roomful of the dentally afflicted. She had earlier appeared in a stage production of his The Night of the Iguana—playing that one character Ava Gardner played in the John Huston film version—and let's just say she never really took much to playwrights, screenwriters, producers, and (least of all) directors. She preferred to perform all these roles herself, in a strictly informal but no less diligent capacity. It could be claimed, with little exaggeration, that after, oh, 1940 or so, Bette Davis had never truly been directed.
She was absolute terror on most film sets, especially after she became established: screaming, scolding, mocking, malingering, and grandstanding. But the more I read actor, director, and writer biographies, the more I find this sort of bad behavior goes hand-in-hand with either great talent or great technique. Take Groucho Marx, for example. Please. A horrible bastard—insensitive, unloving, impossible. Ingmar Bergman—an absentee father, a narcissist, a chilly neurotic. Woody Allen? Fucking his de facto daughter. Roman Polanski? We don't even need to go there.
So the bright side is that Bette Davis never drugged a minor and raped him (or her). As bright sides go, I'll take what I can get. (Which reminds me... To anyone who claims that celebrity culture is more sleazy and amoral now than ever before: Bullshit on you! It's just more publicized. The media back then was just either somewhat more discreet or very much more venal—ready to be bought off by the major studios. Bette Davis, while married, was giving blowjobs to the boyfriend of Joan Crawford—a well-known bisexual, by the way—in the dressing room on one of her movies. Gloria Grahame, star of Oklahoma! and In a Lonely Place, was caught fucking her husband's fifteen-year-old son. Tallulah Bankhead an Mae West were poster children for outrageous and bad behavior. Bankhead fucked more than she acted, almost dying of venereal disease in the 1930s; she allegedly had lesbian affairs with Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, and Joan Crawford, among others.)
Ed Sikov, the author of Dark Victory, is obviously a big (gay) fan of Bette Davis, so he generally takes a position of tolerance or rationalization for her many faults. For instance, she all but abandons her mentally challenged adopted daughter and leaves not a cent of her money for her care in her will. Her biological daughter B.D. was similarly excluded and shunned—but in this case more reasonably, because she wrote a tell-all before her mother had bothered to die. Sikov writes off B.D.'s book as 'whiny' and pathetic, even while admitting that many of its details are well corroborated. Bette Davis was an alcoholic, she was violent and abusive, and she was just plain mean. On the set of All About Eve, for example, Davis's costar Celeste Holm (who is still alive, incidentally, and 94) reports, 'Why, I walked onto the set the first or second day and said, "Good morning." And do you know her reply? She said, "Oh shit—good manners." I never spoke to her again. Ever. Bette Davis was so rude, so constantly rude. I think it had to do with sex.' And poor Lillian Gish! The ninetysomething actress of the D.W. Griffith silent movie era had the misfortune of appearing in Bette Davis's final completed film The Whales of August. Gish was probably one of the kindliest actresses ever, but Davis's competitiveness and subtle enmity left Gish asking the director, simply, 'Why doesn't she like me?'
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. She was a bitch. But she was also one of the notable serious actresses of her generation. She didn't need to appear glamorous. Often she was in favor of making her characters as unlikeable and physically hideous as possible. Frequently she played characters much older than she was, and consequently she had to be made to look old. She played Queen Elizabeth I twice in her life, and both times she shaved off the front of her hair. Sometimes her performances were steeped in the mannerisms and dictions which have become the catnip for gay impersonators the world over, but at other times she was capable of remarkable restraint—something she was never quite capable of in her private life. An incredibly driven and ruthless perfectionist and an incurable neurotic, she took out all of her insecurities, as is often the cliche, on everyone within firing distance. Her three children, her four husbands, her mother, and her mentally disturbed sister included. This same insatiable drive ensured that she worked until the very end—even after she'd had a stroke that impaired her speech and caused one side of her face to wilt unresponsively. I think the only thing she really, really wanted to do in her life was work—and that work just happened to end up being acting.
My Rankings:
(I haven't seen very many of her many, many films. Wikipedia reports that she has over 100 film, television, and theater credits.)
1. All About Eve
2. Jezebel
3. Mr. Skeffington
4. Dark Victory
5. Now, Voyager
6. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
7. Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte
8. A Stolen Life
9. The Star
She was absolute terror on most film sets, especially after she became established: screaming, scolding, mocking, malingering, and grandstanding. But the more I read actor, director, and writer biographies, the more I find this sort of bad behavior goes hand-in-hand with either great talent or great technique. Take Groucho Marx, for example. Please. A horrible bastard—insensitive, unloving, impossible. Ingmar Bergman—an absentee father, a narcissist, a chilly neurotic. Woody Allen? Fucking his de facto daughter. Roman Polanski? We don't even need to go there.
So the bright side is that Bette Davis never drugged a minor and raped him (or her). As bright sides go, I'll take what I can get. (Which reminds me... To anyone who claims that celebrity culture is more sleazy and amoral now than ever before: Bullshit on you! It's just more publicized. The media back then was just either somewhat more discreet or very much more venal—ready to be bought off by the major studios. Bette Davis, while married, was giving blowjobs to the boyfriend of Joan Crawford—a well-known bisexual, by the way—in the dressing room on one of her movies. Gloria Grahame, star of Oklahoma! and In a Lonely Place, was caught fucking her husband's fifteen-year-old son. Tallulah Bankhead an Mae West were poster children for outrageous and bad behavior. Bankhead fucked more than she acted, almost dying of venereal disease in the 1930s; she allegedly had lesbian affairs with Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, and Joan Crawford, among others.)
Ed Sikov, the author of Dark Victory, is obviously a big (gay) fan of Bette Davis, so he generally takes a position of tolerance or rationalization for her many faults. For instance, she all but abandons her mentally challenged adopted daughter and leaves not a cent of her money for her care in her will. Her biological daughter B.D. was similarly excluded and shunned—but in this case more reasonably, because she wrote a tell-all before her mother had bothered to die. Sikov writes off B.D.'s book as 'whiny' and pathetic, even while admitting that many of its details are well corroborated. Bette Davis was an alcoholic, she was violent and abusive, and she was just plain mean. On the set of All About Eve, for example, Davis's costar Celeste Holm (who is still alive, incidentally, and 94) reports, 'Why, I walked onto the set the first or second day and said, "Good morning." And do you know her reply? She said, "Oh shit—good manners." I never spoke to her again. Ever. Bette Davis was so rude, so constantly rude. I think it had to do with sex.' And poor Lillian Gish! The ninetysomething actress of the D.W. Griffith silent movie era had the misfortune of appearing in Bette Davis's final completed film The Whales of August. Gish was probably one of the kindliest actresses ever, but Davis's competitiveness and subtle enmity left Gish asking the director, simply, 'Why doesn't she like me?'
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. She was a bitch. But she was also one of the notable serious actresses of her generation. She didn't need to appear glamorous. Often she was in favor of making her characters as unlikeable and physically hideous as possible. Frequently she played characters much older than she was, and consequently she had to be made to look old. She played Queen Elizabeth I twice in her life, and both times she shaved off the front of her hair. Sometimes her performances were steeped in the mannerisms and dictions which have become the catnip for gay impersonators the world over, but at other times she was capable of remarkable restraint—something she was never quite capable of in her private life. An incredibly driven and ruthless perfectionist and an incurable neurotic, she took out all of her insecurities, as is often the cliche, on everyone within firing distance. Her three children, her four husbands, her mother, and her mentally disturbed sister included. This same insatiable drive ensured that she worked until the very end—even after she'd had a stroke that impaired her speech and caused one side of her face to wilt unresponsively. I think the only thing she really, really wanted to do in her life was work—and that work just happened to end up being acting.
My Rankings:
(I haven't seen very many of her many, many films. Wikipedia reports that she has over 100 film, television, and theater credits.)
1. All About Eve
2. Jezebel
3. Mr. Skeffington
4. Dark Victory
5. Now, Voyager
6. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
7. Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte
8. A Stolen Life
9. The Star
August 29, 2024
As is the case when you read "fun" books- you tend to read favorite parts that are juicy, gossipy and bitchy.
I first read portions of Mr. Sikov's biography on the legendary Bette Davis back in 2011, 2012, and of course having read other biographies of Ms. Davis in my childhood, particularly James Spada's cult biography "More than a woman: an intimate portrait of Bette Davis", I immediately became a Bette Davis expert- on both her films, her personal life, and her struggles to achieve independence from a male dominated industry.
Mr. Spada's biography is much more intimate in its writing about La Davis' personal life- and how her personal life tied into some of her most famous movies, and arguably some of the greatest films ever made: Jezebel, The Letter, The Little Foxes, Now, Voyager, All About Eve and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to name the most famous films.
Mr. Sikov with reverence for his subject, injects both personal and professional in his analysis of some of Ms. Davis' films, and his biography primarily focuses on Davis' most famous movies, rather than writing about the well-known and well-worn facts about her personal life.
His book seems rather rushed as some parts, where it could have used longer analysis on both the film itself and the performance Ms. Davis gives in them.
However, it is always a treat to read anything about this fascinating woman, whose performances still continue to fascinate and haunt viewers today, setting the standard of playing character parts that contemporary actresses today such as Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster, and Frances McDormand embody today.
Without Davis and her contributions to the film industry, one may not have any of these women around.
I first read portions of Mr. Sikov's biography on the legendary Bette Davis back in 2011, 2012, and of course having read other biographies of Ms. Davis in my childhood, particularly James Spada's cult biography "More than a woman: an intimate portrait of Bette Davis", I immediately became a Bette Davis expert- on both her films, her personal life, and her struggles to achieve independence from a male dominated industry.
Mr. Spada's biography is much more intimate in its writing about La Davis' personal life- and how her personal life tied into some of her most famous movies, and arguably some of the greatest films ever made: Jezebel, The Letter, The Little Foxes, Now, Voyager, All About Eve and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to name the most famous films.
Mr. Sikov with reverence for his subject, injects both personal and professional in his analysis of some of Ms. Davis' films, and his biography primarily focuses on Davis' most famous movies, rather than writing about the well-known and well-worn facts about her personal life.
His book seems rather rushed as some parts, where it could have used longer analysis on both the film itself and the performance Ms. Davis gives in them.
However, it is always a treat to read anything about this fascinating woman, whose performances still continue to fascinate and haunt viewers today, setting the standard of playing character parts that contemporary actresses today such as Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster, and Frances McDormand embody today.
Without Davis and her contributions to the film industry, one may not have any of these women around.
May 14, 2022
Sometimes your early pop culture influences fade. The first album I ever bought, age 12, was the debut album of Boston. While that does give me a sentimental attachment to the band, let's say it's been decades since I regarded the music with much consequence. And sometimes they don't fade (Star Trek, check). As a teenager I watched on TV an old 1935 movie called Dangerous, and that started me on a fascination with Ruth Elizabeth Davis that has stuck around all these many years. This is the third book I've read about Bette (and I have two others to get to) but the first worth a review. (Briefly, Mother Goddam by Whitney Stine is an oral biography that mainly sticks to the movies but reads as stenography and a bit self-censored. The Girl Who Walked Home Alone--great title--by Charlotte Chandler reads like a fangirl who's just delighted to be in the great lady's presence. Plus I subsequently learned that Chandler is rather journalistically suspect.) Ed Sikov's great virtue in this book is that he's opinionated; he is unafraid to call out movies that are crap or behavior by Miss Davis that is awful. Sometimes I strongly disagree with his opinions, but that's how it should be.
One thing Sikov gets you thinking about is her approach to acting. The stars of the old studio system all had well-established personas they would riff off of in various ways depending on the role. (The only exception I can think of is Paul Muni, who maybe disappeared too much into roles.) Davis was no different, one always knows instantly that it's her, but she had an outsize commitment to the truth of the characters. In Marked Woman, after she's been worked over by gangsters, she felt the Warners makeup people were too concerned that she still look pretty, so on her lunch break she drove to her own doctor and had him make her look like a beating victim might actually look; she got her way, and would repeat this throughout her career. She also used her genuine neurotic tendencies to her advantage. She could be so tightly wound she would practically vibrate, but could harness this in a scene to a fearful rigidity or stare. Similarly, for the most famous smoker ever, she also realized the benefit of cigarettes as props, or a glass of liquor, as something to do with her hands. She didn't see herself as pretty (though especially in the '30s she was often very striking) so never fretted about looking unappealing for a role; she was indifferent to audiences liking her characters, so knew when to grab a choice hateful role, as when she cajoled Jack Warner to loan her out to another studio so she could do Of Human Bondage. It wasn't a lack of vanity or ego, oh my no, she had plenty of both. But her vanity pulled in other directions. Sikov eloquently sums up her particular acting alchemy: "Davis is one of melodrama's greatest dancers."
WINNING BY LOSING
Whether it was by savvy or luck (probably more of the latter), Bette's infamous legal dispute with Warner Brothers launched the persona known to the world as much as any factor. Like Bogart and John Wayne, she made a ton of forgettable films before becoming a star. The early-to-mid '30s were a rich period for Hollywood generally, but not so much for Bette. Over the last several years I've seen alot of these, and often I can only remember the titles (or whether I saw them) by checking to see if I rated them on IMDb. The Rich Are Always With Us; Parachute Jumper; Ex-Lady; Bureau of Missing Persons; The Big Shakedown; Fashions of 1934; Jimmy the Gent; ring any bells? Didn't think so. The occasional good movie slipped in, like 20,000 Years in Sing Sing or Fog Over Frisco, but even after Of Human Bondage it was back to more drek for Warners. So in 1936 she agreed to do a film in England, a blatant violation of her contract, and Warners sued. Bette lost, but her point was made. Her next film after returning was Marked Woman in 1937, one of her best early roles.
I also want to dissent from some conventional wisdom. The prevailing sentiment in Hollywood was that Bette was stiffed by not being nominated for an Oscar for Of Human Bondage, and that her first Oscar win the next year for Dangerous was a makeup award. Bette herself believed this, as does Ed Sikov. Maybe. I can understand the sensation that OHB caused at the time, but watching it now I suspect it would play a bit static and one-note, and I doubt Bette's Cockney accent holds up. But Dangerous is underrated. It's absolutely a soap opera, but it's a really good soap opera. It was enough to spark my own lifelong fandom.
"THE TYRANT I NEEDED"
One thing you get from this book is that, professionally and personally, Bette was impossible. She admired drive and ambition, had plenty of both herself, yet somehow married four unambitious men. (Briefly, Harmon Nelson, an affable part-time jazz musician; Arthur Farnsworth, who comes off here as a genuinely nice guy, unthreatened by Davis' stardom, unfortunately he died shortly after injuring his head in an accident; William Grant Sherry, a whiny brute who was frequently violent; and Gary Merrill, her co-star in All About Eve, they had several happy years but both drank to excess and Merrill was also sometimes violent.) And her relations with directors were usually contentious, sometimes for legitimate reasons, sometimes just for the hell of it. In the 1970s at the start of a shoot, she announced to her rookie director that they would have to replace his cinematographer. The director was stunned but replied if that was the case, they'd have to replace him as well. Turns out Davis had no issue with the cinematographer, she was just testing to see if the director had a spine. He passed. Many didn't, and Bette walked all over them.
Her ideal director was William Wyler, with whom she made Jezebel, The Letter, and The Little Foxes, all among her best work. Wyler was established, confident, and as stubborn as Bette; they clashed frequently (and also had a brief torrid affair), but in his case if Bette lost the battle it was fine, because she respected his artistry. The most illuminating account of their dynamic concerns the climax of The Letter, in which Bette plays an unrepentant murderess. At the end she says in anguish to Herbert Marshall, her husband, "With all my heart, I still love the man I killed!" It's devastating, because her clueless husband is a good man who is trying to forgive her. Bette couldn't bear saying the line while looking into Marshall's eyes; she felt it was too cruel. She wanted to look off to the side when she spoke the line. But Wyler insisted. They had a huge fight, Bette walked off the set. Neither would budge. Eventually Wyler won out. I love this story because it illustrates that for all Bette's diva-ish ways, she cared most about the work:
Davis had her peak years as a star from 1938 - 1942, when she did at least eight films that offered signature roles, culminating with Now, Voyager, which might be the absolute apex of '40s women's pictures (or at least a tie with Joan Crawford's Mildred Pierce). I recently rewatched it, slightly worried how it would hold up, but it's so precisely made it's glorious, you don't dare complain about soapy melodramatics when done this assuredly. It earns its final line, "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." Bette's time at Warners ended in 1949 after the abysmal Beyond the Forest, eighteen years of clashes with Jack Warner finally wearing both of them out. And then of course, her first movie as a free agent turned out to be her best, All About Eve (one of my ten favorite films ever), which Sikov rightly calls "one of the best, richest movies ever made." You may know that the role of Margot Channing was supposed to go to Claudette Colbert, who had to drop out due to an injury. It might sound mean, but when Sikov calls Colbert's injured back "one of the best things that ever happened to world cinema", well, he does have a point.
RUTHIE, BOBBY, and B.D.
Bette's family life was its own tangled saga. Her parents divorced when she and younger sister Bobby were children, her father a cold, distant man, and they didn't have much money. Her mother Ruthie stepped up, and when Bette showed an interest in the theatre, Ruthie moved heaven and earth to make it a possibility. I'll say this, Bette could be selfish but she understood that her mother made her life possible and was forever loyal and devoted. Sikov is oddly hard on Ruthie, emphasizing that she never again had to work once Bette found success in Hollywood and rather enjoyed and indulged in being the mother of a star and having everything paid for by Bette. All true, but it seems to me she earned it. Bobby you just feel sad for. She comes off as simple and guileless, never the favorite daughter plus she had mental health struggles at various times in her life, to the point of occasionally being institutionalized. She was as loyal to Bette as Bette was to Ruthie, but didn't receive the same appreciation for it. Bette's own emotional life was obviously turbulent and Bobby would be there for her when needed, though she had her own life, marriage, and daughter. The saddest passage in the book is when Bette is informed in the 1970s that Bobby, who then lived in Arizona, was dying of cancer. At that point the two had been estranged (due to Bette's meanness it must be said), and Bette responded, "Let her come and visit me." They never saw each other again, and Bobby died in 1979.
B.D. (from Barbara Davis, Bette would pronounce it as 'Beady') was born to Bette and her third husband. A few years later, after marrying Gary Merrill, they adopted two more children, Margot Merrill, who was found to be severely brain damaged and would live most of her life in an institution (Margot died just a few days ago, as I was finishing this book) and Michael Merrill, who seemed to draw the lucky card and by all accounts is an upstanding, well-adjusted, normal person. A few years after the publication of Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford's iconic tell-all about the horrors of having Joan Crawford for a mom, B.D., who at 16 had married a 29-year-old man, wrote a tell-all about her own famous parent, My Mother's Keeper. B.D. had recently found God, which she claimed was what inspired her to write the book. As Sikov drily notes, she gave less emphasis to the $100,000 she was paid for the book. Sikov read it, and better him than me. He is I think scathing but fair. On the one hand, most of us would not enjoy having Bette Davis for a parent. As one review described it, the book portrays Miss Davis as "a mean spirited, wildly neurotic, profane and pugnacious boozer who took out her anger at the world by abusing those close to her." To which most of Bette's friends would reply, And your point is? Which probably sounds too glib, but there are a few other factors. One being that by all accounts, B.D. was spoiled rotten. Even after her teenage marriage, Bette paid for most of B.D. and her son-in-law's life. Gary Merrill, as that point long since divorced from Bette, speculated that what might have spurred the book was B.D. wanting something that Bette couldn't or wouldn't pay for. Also, B.D.'s claim of abuse (aside from the verbal sort which no one would contest) rested on the fact that like most parents of preceding generations, Bette endorsed spanking. It's no doubt a good thing that the culture has evolved, but the point is there are no wire coat hanger moments in the book. And finally, the book came out in 1985 when Bette was near the end of her life, having endured a stroke and mastectomy. Sikov says that by the end of the book, you feel bad for B.D. but worse for Bette. Needless to say, it ended any relationship between mother and daughter.
BETTE and JOAN
One very minor disappointment for me is that when he gets to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Sikov talks about its making and about the 'feud' but not much about the film itself. I think it's a masterpiece and Davis' last truly great performance, and it frustrates me that half the people who've seen it remember it wrong. Probably because it's now so iconic, people wrongly think of it as camp, like a John Waters film. It's not camp. It's bleak, somber, and tragic, and the sublime final scene is just wrenching. See it again and be amazed. Anyway, I always suspected the Bette/Joan feud was mostly p.r. I can now say I was somewhat wrong. Bette was mean to Joan during filming, for the hell of it. One day she was crossing out chunks of the script, and Joan asked, "Whose dialogue are you cutting?" "Yours." Joan burst into tears. But of course Bette was only pretending. Joan, however, retaliated in an astonishing way. Bette received her 10th nomination for Best Actress for 1962, and Joan not only campaigned against her, but she somehow convinced two of the other nominees to let her, Joan, accept on their behalf if they won. Anne Bancroft won (for The Miracle Worker) and Joan, who wasn't even nominated, got to waltz up to the stage to accept the award. Now that's the nuclear option. But this all happened long after the heyday of both actresses, and frankly, Bette was equally bitchy to alot of her co-stars. She had a more genuine mutual enmity with Miriam Hopkins in the '30s and '40s, when Hopkins, a few years older, correctly surmised that the younger upstart was going to surpass her (and anyone else) to be the queen of the Warners lot.
She kept working. Sikov convincingly makes the case that she saw no other option, her restless, nervous nature would have hated retirement. Some regard her late career as sad, but I don't; there were some films that were garbage, but this could be said of any decade of her career. She did a half dozen or so horror or horror-ish movies, none of these are terrible, and a couple are quite good--Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte is openly in the mold of Baby Jane (same director, same novelist for the source material, same casting of now-older legends, this time Davis, Olivia DeHaviland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, & Mary Astor) and while not as great it's alot of fun; and the mini-series The Dark Secret of Harvest Home I remember as surprisingly good. She did quite a few TV movies, many were well regarded. In her personal life she became more bitter and angry, and Sikov unearths one possible reason. A family in New England after buying a new house found in the attic a box of letters Ruthie had written to a friend, and no doubt with good intentions they sent them to Bette. A longtime friend recounts she was terrified to read them but finally did, and in some Ruthie complained sarcastically about her daughter being haughty and a pain. It honestly doesn't sound that bad, but Bette, who according to everyone never badmouthed Ruthie ever, was devastated and angry and screamed, "Can you believe this? Can you believe this? After all I did for her!" Increasingly she alienated those close to her. Her essentially last movie, The Whales of August (there was one more after that, which Bette walked out on mid-shooting, unseen by me), is another sad story. She co-starred with Lillian Gish, who was 92, Bette was 78, playing sisters. Bette was near the end and looks almost skeletal. And she still couldn't give her essential nature a rest, being needlessly jealous and competitive with Gish, who was nice to everyone. At one point Gish said to the director, "Poor Bette. How she must be suffering. What an unhappy life she's led." It's a slight movie in every respect, nothing much happens, worth seeing I guess just because where else will you see Gish, Davis, and Vincent Price in the same film? But the acting is strong, Davis' essential professionalism when the camera rolls also never left her, and she apparently was the only member of the cast who consistently watched the dailies.
She died in 1989 after taking ill while attending the San Sebastian film festival. James Woods of all people had a great line at her memorial service: "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy eternity."
I count 70 of Miss Davis' movies that I've seen. If I tried to list ten that are favorites or most essential:
All About Eve
The Letter
The Little Foxes
Marked Woman
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Now, Voyager
Dark Victory
Jezebel
Dangerous
Deception
One thing Sikov gets you thinking about is her approach to acting. The stars of the old studio system all had well-established personas they would riff off of in various ways depending on the role. (The only exception I can think of is Paul Muni, who maybe disappeared too much into roles.) Davis was no different, one always knows instantly that it's her, but she had an outsize commitment to the truth of the characters. In Marked Woman, after she's been worked over by gangsters, she felt the Warners makeup people were too concerned that she still look pretty, so on her lunch break she drove to her own doctor and had him make her look like a beating victim might actually look; she got her way, and would repeat this throughout her career. She also used her genuine neurotic tendencies to her advantage. She could be so tightly wound she would practically vibrate, but could harness this in a scene to a fearful rigidity or stare. Similarly, for the most famous smoker ever, she also realized the benefit of cigarettes as props, or a glass of liquor, as something to do with her hands. She didn't see herself as pretty (though especially in the '30s she was often very striking) so never fretted about looking unappealing for a role; she was indifferent to audiences liking her characters, so knew when to grab a choice hateful role, as when she cajoled Jack Warner to loan her out to another studio so she could do Of Human Bondage. It wasn't a lack of vanity or ego, oh my no, she had plenty of both. But her vanity pulled in other directions. Sikov eloquently sums up her particular acting alchemy: "Davis is one of melodrama's greatest dancers."
WINNING BY LOSING
Whether it was by savvy or luck (probably more of the latter), Bette's infamous legal dispute with Warner Brothers launched the persona known to the world as much as any factor. Like Bogart and John Wayne, she made a ton of forgettable films before becoming a star. The early-to-mid '30s were a rich period for Hollywood generally, but not so much for Bette. Over the last several years I've seen alot of these, and often I can only remember the titles (or whether I saw them) by checking to see if I rated them on IMDb. The Rich Are Always With Us; Parachute Jumper; Ex-Lady; Bureau of Missing Persons; The Big Shakedown; Fashions of 1934; Jimmy the Gent; ring any bells? Didn't think so. The occasional good movie slipped in, like 20,000 Years in Sing Sing or Fog Over Frisco, but even after Of Human Bondage it was back to more drek for Warners. So in 1936 she agreed to do a film in England, a blatant violation of her contract, and Warners sued. Bette lost, but her point was made. Her next film after returning was Marked Woman in 1937, one of her best early roles.
I also want to dissent from some conventional wisdom. The prevailing sentiment in Hollywood was that Bette was stiffed by not being nominated for an Oscar for Of Human Bondage, and that her first Oscar win the next year for Dangerous was a makeup award. Bette herself believed this, as does Ed Sikov. Maybe. I can understand the sensation that OHB caused at the time, but watching it now I suspect it would play a bit static and one-note, and I doubt Bette's Cockney accent holds up. But Dangerous is underrated. It's absolutely a soap opera, but it's a really good soap opera. It was enough to spark my own lifelong fandom.
"THE TYRANT I NEEDED"
One thing you get from this book is that, professionally and personally, Bette was impossible. She admired drive and ambition, had plenty of both herself, yet somehow married four unambitious men. (Briefly, Harmon Nelson, an affable part-time jazz musician; Arthur Farnsworth, who comes off here as a genuinely nice guy, unthreatened by Davis' stardom, unfortunately he died shortly after injuring his head in an accident; William Grant Sherry, a whiny brute who was frequently violent; and Gary Merrill, her co-star in All About Eve, they had several happy years but both drank to excess and Merrill was also sometimes violent.) And her relations with directors were usually contentious, sometimes for legitimate reasons, sometimes just for the hell of it. In the 1970s at the start of a shoot, she announced to her rookie director that they would have to replace his cinematographer. The director was stunned but replied if that was the case, they'd have to replace him as well. Turns out Davis had no issue with the cinematographer, she was just testing to see if the director had a spine. He passed. Many didn't, and Bette walked all over them.
Her ideal director was William Wyler, with whom she made Jezebel, The Letter, and The Little Foxes, all among her best work. Wyler was established, confident, and as stubborn as Bette; they clashed frequently (and also had a brief torrid affair), but in his case if Bette lost the battle it was fine, because she respected his artistry. The most illuminating account of their dynamic concerns the climax of The Letter, in which Bette plays an unrepentant murderess. At the end she says in anguish to Herbert Marshall, her husband, "With all my heart, I still love the man I killed!" It's devastating, because her clueless husband is a good man who is trying to forgive her. Bette couldn't bear saying the line while looking into Marshall's eyes; she felt it was too cruel. She wanted to look off to the side when she spoke the line. But Wyler insisted. They had a huge fight, Bette walked off the set. Neither would budge. Eventually Wyler won out. I love this story because it illustrates that for all Bette's diva-ish ways, she cared most about the work:
I might have been Hollywood's Maria Callas, but Willy Wyler was the male Bette Davis. I could not see it his way, nor he mine. I came back eventually--end result, I did it his way. I lost, but I lost to an artist. The Letter was a magnificent picture due to Willy... So many directors were such weak sisters that I would have to take over. Uncreative, unsure of themselves, frightened to fight back, they offered me none of the security that this tyrant did.
Davis had her peak years as a star from 1938 - 1942, when she did at least eight films that offered signature roles, culminating with Now, Voyager, which might be the absolute apex of '40s women's pictures (or at least a tie with Joan Crawford's Mildred Pierce). I recently rewatched it, slightly worried how it would hold up, but it's so precisely made it's glorious, you don't dare complain about soapy melodramatics when done this assuredly. It earns its final line, "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." Bette's time at Warners ended in 1949 after the abysmal Beyond the Forest, eighteen years of clashes with Jack Warner finally wearing both of them out. And then of course, her first movie as a free agent turned out to be her best, All About Eve (one of my ten favorite films ever), which Sikov rightly calls "one of the best, richest movies ever made." You may know that the role of Margot Channing was supposed to go to Claudette Colbert, who had to drop out due to an injury. It might sound mean, but when Sikov calls Colbert's injured back "one of the best things that ever happened to world cinema", well, he does have a point.
RUTHIE, BOBBY, and B.D.
Bette's family life was its own tangled saga. Her parents divorced when she and younger sister Bobby were children, her father a cold, distant man, and they didn't have much money. Her mother Ruthie stepped up, and when Bette showed an interest in the theatre, Ruthie moved heaven and earth to make it a possibility. I'll say this, Bette could be selfish but she understood that her mother made her life possible and was forever loyal and devoted. Sikov is oddly hard on Ruthie, emphasizing that she never again had to work once Bette found success in Hollywood and rather enjoyed and indulged in being the mother of a star and having everything paid for by Bette. All true, but it seems to me she earned it. Bobby you just feel sad for. She comes off as simple and guileless, never the favorite daughter plus she had mental health struggles at various times in her life, to the point of occasionally being institutionalized. She was as loyal to Bette as Bette was to Ruthie, but didn't receive the same appreciation for it. Bette's own emotional life was obviously turbulent and Bobby would be there for her when needed, though she had her own life, marriage, and daughter. The saddest passage in the book is when Bette is informed in the 1970s that Bobby, who then lived in Arizona, was dying of cancer. At that point the two had been estranged (due to Bette's meanness it must be said), and Bette responded, "Let her come and visit me." They never saw each other again, and Bobby died in 1979.
B.D. (from Barbara Davis, Bette would pronounce it as 'Beady') was born to Bette and her third husband. A few years later, after marrying Gary Merrill, they adopted two more children, Margot Merrill, who was found to be severely brain damaged and would live most of her life in an institution (Margot died just a few days ago, as I was finishing this book) and Michael Merrill, who seemed to draw the lucky card and by all accounts is an upstanding, well-adjusted, normal person. A few years after the publication of Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford's iconic tell-all about the horrors of having Joan Crawford for a mom, B.D., who at 16 had married a 29-year-old man, wrote a tell-all about her own famous parent, My Mother's Keeper. B.D. had recently found God, which she claimed was what inspired her to write the book. As Sikov drily notes, she gave less emphasis to the $100,000 she was paid for the book. Sikov read it, and better him than me. He is I think scathing but fair. On the one hand, most of us would not enjoy having Bette Davis for a parent. As one review described it, the book portrays Miss Davis as "a mean spirited, wildly neurotic, profane and pugnacious boozer who took out her anger at the world by abusing those close to her." To which most of Bette's friends would reply, And your point is? Which probably sounds too glib, but there are a few other factors. One being that by all accounts, B.D. was spoiled rotten. Even after her teenage marriage, Bette paid for most of B.D. and her son-in-law's life. Gary Merrill, as that point long since divorced from Bette, speculated that what might have spurred the book was B.D. wanting something that Bette couldn't or wouldn't pay for. Also, B.D.'s claim of abuse (aside from the verbal sort which no one would contest) rested on the fact that like most parents of preceding generations, Bette endorsed spanking. It's no doubt a good thing that the culture has evolved, but the point is there are no wire coat hanger moments in the book. And finally, the book came out in 1985 when Bette was near the end of her life, having endured a stroke and mastectomy. Sikov says that by the end of the book, you feel bad for B.D. but worse for Bette. Needless to say, it ended any relationship between mother and daughter.
BETTE and JOAN
One very minor disappointment for me is that when he gets to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Sikov talks about its making and about the 'feud' but not much about the film itself. I think it's a masterpiece and Davis' last truly great performance, and it frustrates me that half the people who've seen it remember it wrong. Probably because it's now so iconic, people wrongly think of it as camp, like a John Waters film. It's not camp. It's bleak, somber, and tragic, and the sublime final scene is just wrenching. See it again and be amazed. Anyway, I always suspected the Bette/Joan feud was mostly p.r. I can now say I was somewhat wrong. Bette was mean to Joan during filming, for the hell of it. One day she was crossing out chunks of the script, and Joan asked, "Whose dialogue are you cutting?" "Yours." Joan burst into tears. But of course Bette was only pretending. Joan, however, retaliated in an astonishing way. Bette received her 10th nomination for Best Actress for 1962, and Joan not only campaigned against her, but she somehow convinced two of the other nominees to let her, Joan, accept on their behalf if they won. Anne Bancroft won (for The Miracle Worker) and Joan, who wasn't even nominated, got to waltz up to the stage to accept the award. Now that's the nuclear option. But this all happened long after the heyday of both actresses, and frankly, Bette was equally bitchy to alot of her co-stars. She had a more genuine mutual enmity with Miriam Hopkins in the '30s and '40s, when Hopkins, a few years older, correctly surmised that the younger upstart was going to surpass her (and anyone else) to be the queen of the Warners lot.
She kept working. Sikov convincingly makes the case that she saw no other option, her restless, nervous nature would have hated retirement. Some regard her late career as sad, but I don't; there were some films that were garbage, but this could be said of any decade of her career. She did a half dozen or so horror or horror-ish movies, none of these are terrible, and a couple are quite good--Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte is openly in the mold of Baby Jane (same director, same novelist for the source material, same casting of now-older legends, this time Davis, Olivia DeHaviland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, & Mary Astor) and while not as great it's alot of fun; and the mini-series The Dark Secret of Harvest Home I remember as surprisingly good. She did quite a few TV movies, many were well regarded. In her personal life she became more bitter and angry, and Sikov unearths one possible reason. A family in New England after buying a new house found in the attic a box of letters Ruthie had written to a friend, and no doubt with good intentions they sent them to Bette. A longtime friend recounts she was terrified to read them but finally did, and in some Ruthie complained sarcastically about her daughter being haughty and a pain. It honestly doesn't sound that bad, but Bette, who according to everyone never badmouthed Ruthie ever, was devastated and angry and screamed, "Can you believe this? Can you believe this? After all I did for her!" Increasingly she alienated those close to her. Her essentially last movie, The Whales of August (there was one more after that, which Bette walked out on mid-shooting, unseen by me), is another sad story. She co-starred with Lillian Gish, who was 92, Bette was 78, playing sisters. Bette was near the end and looks almost skeletal. And she still couldn't give her essential nature a rest, being needlessly jealous and competitive with Gish, who was nice to everyone. At one point Gish said to the director, "Poor Bette. How she must be suffering. What an unhappy life she's led." It's a slight movie in every respect, nothing much happens, worth seeing I guess just because where else will you see Gish, Davis, and Vincent Price in the same film? But the acting is strong, Davis' essential professionalism when the camera rolls also never left her, and she apparently was the only member of the cast who consistently watched the dailies.
She died in 1989 after taking ill while attending the San Sebastian film festival. James Woods of all people had a great line at her memorial service: "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy eternity."
I count 70 of Miss Davis' movies that I've seen. If I tried to list ten that are favorites or most essential:
All About Eve
The Letter
The Little Foxes
Marked Woman
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Now, Voyager
Dark Victory
Jezebel
Dangerous
Deception
September 12, 2011
To all of you who got the point: thanks!
To those of you who thought it was too gay: you've got to be kidding. There's really very little on that subject.
To those of you who hated it: kiss my raves in the NYTimes and Washington Post.
To those of you who thought it was too gay: you've got to be kidding. There's really very little on that subject.
To those of you who hated it: kiss my raves in the NYTimes and Washington Post.
April 18, 2008
Delicious. A gushy portrait of one of our greatest movie stars that doesn't shy away from showing how much of a pain in the ass she could often be.
October 11, 2017
The parts I liked best were when the author would discuss Davis's films in detail. He has a witty, acerbic style ideally suited to his subject. I ended the book wanting to sit through a Bette Davis movie marathon. Pass the popcorn.
September 4, 2017
My Disclaimer:
I purchased this book at full price on Amazon. I am voluntarily providing an honest review in which all opinions are fully my own. I am not being compensated in any way.
~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review
My Review: ✰✰✰⭒
I have always admired Bette Davis and her work. To me, she is the ultimate movie star, whether it be All About Eve or Death on the Nile. No matter who else is in the movie, she is the star.
I figured she would have been a difficult person to work with, and evidently, she was. She claims to have only argued for things that would make the film better. Never for more screen time for herself or such things. And there was no evidence to support such in any of what Mr. Sikov provided.
Mr. Sikov is gay and seems to jump on every possible mention of gay or lesbian behavior with a reference. I’m not sure they are all worth mentioning unless you happen to be focused on that community.
The book is broken into three sections. Sections one and two are done in brief accounts of her earliest years when she had to fight for everything she got and then the middle years once she had been recognized as the strong actress she was and had some control. This covered lots of name dropping, which was appropriate due to the nature of the business. It also covered brief accounts of the arguments and fighting that went on over each of her films.
Section Three is called Ongoing Conflicts and gets into the long term battles Ms. Davis had in Hollywood and her family issues. Her infamous difference with Joan Crawford was dealt with concisely and well, but there were plenty of other arguments and fights Ms. Davis got into. It seemed there were very few people she didn’t argue with, especially professionally. Unfortunately, her family life wasn’t much better. In fact, at times, it seems it was worse.
Bette’s father was a distant man and disappeared from the family’s lives early. Her mother, Ruthie, became a silhouette photographer to take care of Bette and her sister, Bobby. Once Bette started making money, her mother never worked again. Her sister had to be institutionalized numerous times for mental illness. Bette was married four times. She had several abortions due to conflicts with her filming schedules. She and her last husband adopted two children. One of them turned out to have mental illness and required institutionalization for her and others safety. She did have one child of her own at the age of 39, a girl she named B.D. (beady).
Sometimes this is all related in short accounts stuffed with information about each movie Ms. Davis was in, as in the first and second sections. Or, they were parts of gossipy chatty sessions in the third section. Several times I thought the book was at the end only to have the author pick up again with more of the details for a story I’d thought done.
I’ve never read other books about Ms. Davis, so I have nothing to compare it with. I have read other biographies, but not of quite such big stars, though Marilyn Monroe comes close. I was frustrated with the constant going back to stories. I think I would have preferred a more linear approach to her story. And I feel as if I needed a little black book to keep track of all the addresses for Ms. Davis. If you happen to read this, please let me know your thoughts about it.
I purchased this book at full price on Amazon. I am voluntarily providing an honest review in which all opinions are fully my own. I am not being compensated in any way.
~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review
My Review: ✰✰✰⭒
I have always admired Bette Davis and her work. To me, she is the ultimate movie star, whether it be All About Eve or Death on the Nile. No matter who else is in the movie, she is the star.
I figured she would have been a difficult person to work with, and evidently, she was. She claims to have only argued for things that would make the film better. Never for more screen time for herself or such things. And there was no evidence to support such in any of what Mr. Sikov provided.
Mr. Sikov is gay and seems to jump on every possible mention of gay or lesbian behavior with a reference. I’m not sure they are all worth mentioning unless you happen to be focused on that community.
The book is broken into three sections. Sections one and two are done in brief accounts of her earliest years when she had to fight for everything she got and then the middle years once she had been recognized as the strong actress she was and had some control. This covered lots of name dropping, which was appropriate due to the nature of the business. It also covered brief accounts of the arguments and fighting that went on over each of her films.
Section Three is called Ongoing Conflicts and gets into the long term battles Ms. Davis had in Hollywood and her family issues. Her infamous difference with Joan Crawford was dealt with concisely and well, but there were plenty of other arguments and fights Ms. Davis got into. It seemed there were very few people she didn’t argue with, especially professionally. Unfortunately, her family life wasn’t much better. In fact, at times, it seems it was worse.
Bette’s father was a distant man and disappeared from the family’s lives early. Her mother, Ruthie, became a silhouette photographer to take care of Bette and her sister, Bobby. Once Bette started making money, her mother never worked again. Her sister had to be institutionalized numerous times for mental illness. Bette was married four times. She had several abortions due to conflicts with her filming schedules. She and her last husband adopted two children. One of them turned out to have mental illness and required institutionalization for her and others safety. She did have one child of her own at the age of 39, a girl she named B.D. (beady).
Sometimes this is all related in short accounts stuffed with information about each movie Ms. Davis was in, as in the first and second sections. Or, they were parts of gossipy chatty sessions in the third section. Several times I thought the book was at the end only to have the author pick up again with more of the details for a story I’d thought done.
I’ve never read other books about Ms. Davis, so I have nothing to compare it with. I have read other biographies, but not of quite such big stars, though Marilyn Monroe comes close. I was frustrated with the constant going back to stories. I think I would have preferred a more linear approach to her story. And I feel as if I needed a little black book to keep track of all the addresses for Ms. Davis. If you happen to read this, please let me know your thoughts about it.
Want to read
November 11, 2007As Charles Matthews wrote in a recent review, "The moment she drawled, "I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair" in the 1932 film "Cabin in the Cotton," Bette Davis became two things: a movie star and an icon of camp. She would remain both for the next 57 years of her life. And beyond.
When a star is so easily caricatured, as Davis is by everyone from cartoonists to drag queens, the task of the biographer is to locate the person behind the distortions. In his smart, witty new biography, Ed Sikov makes an effort to do that, and his conclusion is pretty much that with Davis what we saw, exaggerations and all, is what was really there."
When a star is so easily caricatured, as Davis is by everyone from cartoonists to drag queens, the task of the biographer is to locate the person behind the distortions. In his smart, witty new biography, Ed Sikov makes an effort to do that, and his conclusion is pretty much that with Davis what we saw, exaggerations and all, is what was really there."
November 10, 2024
As a woman she was renowned for being earthier than her professional nemesis Joan Crawford and boasted of that, making her perhaps the more arrogant of the two yet no less adorable.
I've read five Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I were recommending which ones to include in your coverage (there are so many), this would make my list.
All the fabulous comical caricatures have redefined our memories of this wonderful actress. Just watch her actual films, though, and you'll rediscover that she was nowhere near as over the top as you might have recalled, she had far greater dramatic subtlety and nuance than her impersonators have led us to believe.
I like to make my own mind up about the subjects of biographies and usually can.
That Bette Davis was no saint becomes clear enough after covering a few biographies; that she was no monster either is also clear. She was a fascinating woman and a great, great star.
I've read five Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I were recommending which ones to include in your coverage (there are so many), this would make my list.
All the fabulous comical caricatures have redefined our memories of this wonderful actress. Just watch her actual films, though, and you'll rediscover that she was nowhere near as over the top as you might have recalled, she had far greater dramatic subtlety and nuance than her impersonators have led us to believe.
I like to make my own mind up about the subjects of biographies and usually can.
That Bette Davis was no saint becomes clear enough after covering a few biographies; that she was no monster either is also clear. She was a fascinating woman and a great, great star.
May 15, 2014
There was one major flaw in this biography. It wasn't told in straight chronological order, which I found distracting. Other than that, I thought it was entertaining, informative and well-researched. I especially liked the discussion about Miss Davis's daughter B.D.'s hateful tell-all book, written out of spite (and for the money) before her mother passed away. Her excuse? "After I found the Lord, I wanted my mother to go to heaven, and to do that, she had to change. My book was meant to make her see that." What self-righteous B.S., B.D.! This is a good Hollywood bio of the queen of mean, who, with all her flaws, was an amazing actress.
December 8, 2009
This review originally ran in the Washington Post Book World:
The moment she drawled “I’d like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair” in the 1932 film “Cabin in the Cotton,” Bette Davis became two things: a movie star and an icon of camp. She would remain both for the next 57 years of her life. And beyond.
When a star is so easily caricatured, as Davis was by everyone from cartoonists to drag queens, the task of the biographer is to locate the person behind the distortions. In his smart, witty new biography, Ed Sikov makes an effort to do that, and his conclusion is pretty much that with Davis, what we saw, exaggerations and all, is what was really there.
“Nervousness, hysteria and paranoia are defining features of Davis’s acting style,” Sikov observes. And the boundary between her art and her life was permeable. In a gratifyingly brief but persuasive bit of psychologizing, Sikov writes, “Davis’s torn nature suggests that she may have had a borderline personality, one that shifts between the commonly neurotic – anxiety, depression, emotional outbursts – and a baldly psychotic inability to perceive the point at which reality stops and paranoid fantasy takes over.”
But the real secret to her career and her life, Sikov suggests, is that “Bette Davis didn’t give a goddamn. She dares us to hate her, and we often do. Which is why we love her.” And he retorts to any readers who may quarrel that his biography doesn’t even make them like her, “After all the … struggling to get it right, I have to admit it: I don’t give a good goddamn either.”
That’s the spirit, and it makes “Dark Victory” a refreshingly unsentimental and unapologetic biography, one in which the inevitable bits of tittle-tattle – about Davis’s marriages (four) and affairs (uncounted, but including William Wyler and Howard Hughes) and family life (scathingly depicted in her daughter B.D. Hyman’s book “My Mother’s Keeper”) – don’t seem unduly sensationalized.
At one point, Sikov approvingly quotes Janet Malcolm: “Biography is the medium through which the remaining secrets of the famous dead are taken from them and dumped out in full view of the world.” By now, however, there are few secrets about Bette Davis that haven’t been dumped out and viewed. In addition to Hyman’s “sour, whiny book,” as Sikov calls it, there have been full-length biographies by Charles Higham, James Spada, Lawrence Quirk and Charlotte Chandler, not to mention Davis’s own three volumes of ghost-written memoirs. (The last are more interesting and revealing – if not factually more reliable – than most movie star reminiscences, because Davis didn’t care which Hollywood oxen she gored.) The best that Sikov can do is mediate among the various stories that have been told by and about Davis and choose which ones are most plausible. The author of two other biographies of Hollywood figures – Billy Wilder and Peter Sellers – Sikov demonstrates a healthy skepticism. He knows that, the more colorful and juicy the anecdote, the less likely it is to be true.
What Sikov also brings to his Davis biography is point of view: that of a gay man who acknowledges her iconic significance for many gays. He examines such touchstone films as “Dark Victory” and “Now, Voyager” for their influence on gay culture. Davis is the quintessential “drama queen” in these movies, and Sikov observes that “it’s the pent-up energy of concealment and its imminent breakdown that provide the gay regent with much of her authority.” She “became an icon for several generations of gay men, who learned … that they could, through wit and style and camp, rise above this oppressive, second-rate world and, inside at least, be the men they were meant to be.”
But Davis would never have been the star she became if her appeal had been only to closeted gay men. She triumphed in the era of the “women’s picture” – the Depression and war years, when movies were the great escape. And she thrived – eventually – in the tense symbiosis of the studio system. Warner Bros. treated her shabbily for a long time – in 1935, when she made “Dangerous,” for which she won her first Oscar, she was paid less than character actor Guy Kibbee. She rebelled, the studio sued, she lost. And in 1937 she was still being paid significantly less than other stars, such as Greta Garbo, Irene Dunne, Katharine Hepburn and even Sonja Henie. But eventually, her success at the box office brought Warners around.
It’s tempting to wonder what Davis might have achieved if she hadn’t been tethered to the studio. Her best film – “All About Eve,” the only one of Davis’s movies to win a best picture Oscar – was made after she left Warners. She made dozens of movies – the Internet Movie Database lists 121 titles, including some TV shows – and Sikov seems to have watched them all, giving keenly observant and loving accounts of as many of them as he can. She had, as he comments, a talent for overcoming “shallow scripts, artless directors … by pumping her characters harder, substituting adrenaline and tics for the substance she knew was missing from the material.”
Bette Davis is one of those stars it’s impossible to imagine Hollywood without. Sikov’s book is a valuable guide to an essential career.
The moment she drawled “I’d like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair” in the 1932 film “Cabin in the Cotton,” Bette Davis became two things: a movie star and an icon of camp. She would remain both for the next 57 years of her life. And beyond.
When a star is so easily caricatured, as Davis was by everyone from cartoonists to drag queens, the task of the biographer is to locate the person behind the distortions. In his smart, witty new biography, Ed Sikov makes an effort to do that, and his conclusion is pretty much that with Davis, what we saw, exaggerations and all, is what was really there.
“Nervousness, hysteria and paranoia are defining features of Davis’s acting style,” Sikov observes. And the boundary between her art and her life was permeable. In a gratifyingly brief but persuasive bit of psychologizing, Sikov writes, “Davis’s torn nature suggests that she may have had a borderline personality, one that shifts between the commonly neurotic – anxiety, depression, emotional outbursts – and a baldly psychotic inability to perceive the point at which reality stops and paranoid fantasy takes over.”
But the real secret to her career and her life, Sikov suggests, is that “Bette Davis didn’t give a goddamn. She dares us to hate her, and we often do. Which is why we love her.” And he retorts to any readers who may quarrel that his biography doesn’t even make them like her, “After all the … struggling to get it right, I have to admit it: I don’t give a good goddamn either.”
That’s the spirit, and it makes “Dark Victory” a refreshingly unsentimental and unapologetic biography, one in which the inevitable bits of tittle-tattle – about Davis’s marriages (four) and affairs (uncounted, but including William Wyler and Howard Hughes) and family life (scathingly depicted in her daughter B.D. Hyman’s book “My Mother’s Keeper”) – don’t seem unduly sensationalized.
At one point, Sikov approvingly quotes Janet Malcolm: “Biography is the medium through which the remaining secrets of the famous dead are taken from them and dumped out in full view of the world.” By now, however, there are few secrets about Bette Davis that haven’t been dumped out and viewed. In addition to Hyman’s “sour, whiny book,” as Sikov calls it, there have been full-length biographies by Charles Higham, James Spada, Lawrence Quirk and Charlotte Chandler, not to mention Davis’s own three volumes of ghost-written memoirs. (The last are more interesting and revealing – if not factually more reliable – than most movie star reminiscences, because Davis didn’t care which Hollywood oxen she gored.) The best that Sikov can do is mediate among the various stories that have been told by and about Davis and choose which ones are most plausible. The author of two other biographies of Hollywood figures – Billy Wilder and Peter Sellers – Sikov demonstrates a healthy skepticism. He knows that, the more colorful and juicy the anecdote, the less likely it is to be true.
What Sikov also brings to his Davis biography is point of view: that of a gay man who acknowledges her iconic significance for many gays. He examines such touchstone films as “Dark Victory” and “Now, Voyager” for their influence on gay culture. Davis is the quintessential “drama queen” in these movies, and Sikov observes that “it’s the pent-up energy of concealment and its imminent breakdown that provide the gay regent with much of her authority.” She “became an icon for several generations of gay men, who learned … that they could, through wit and style and camp, rise above this oppressive, second-rate world and, inside at least, be the men they were meant to be.”
But Davis would never have been the star she became if her appeal had been only to closeted gay men. She triumphed in the era of the “women’s picture” – the Depression and war years, when movies were the great escape. And she thrived – eventually – in the tense symbiosis of the studio system. Warner Bros. treated her shabbily for a long time – in 1935, when she made “Dangerous,” for which she won her first Oscar, she was paid less than character actor Guy Kibbee. She rebelled, the studio sued, she lost. And in 1937 she was still being paid significantly less than other stars, such as Greta Garbo, Irene Dunne, Katharine Hepburn and even Sonja Henie. But eventually, her success at the box office brought Warners around.
It’s tempting to wonder what Davis might have achieved if she hadn’t been tethered to the studio. Her best film – “All About Eve,” the only one of Davis’s movies to win a best picture Oscar – was made after she left Warners. She made dozens of movies – the Internet Movie Database lists 121 titles, including some TV shows – and Sikov seems to have watched them all, giving keenly observant and loving accounts of as many of them as he can. She had, as he comments, a talent for overcoming “shallow scripts, artless directors … by pumping her characters harder, substituting adrenaline and tics for the substance she knew was missing from the material.”
Bette Davis is one of those stars it’s impossible to imagine Hollywood without. Sikov’s book is a valuable guide to an essential career.
June 8, 2025
Obviously since it took me forever to read this book I was not a fan. The author focused too much on minutia in my opinion. I would like to have more focus on Bette Davis and less on her directors. Also very little was mentioned about her most famous movies.
I am just glad I finished the book.
I am just glad I finished the book.
July 5, 2016
I've read many many bios of the stars of old Hollywood. I love the gossip, the movies, the fantasy lifestyle, the personal problems, the addictions, the personalities and the incestuous nature of it all. This bio is probably the best of the Bette Davis ones. It doesn't paint the picture that the Hollywood publicity offices did. It shows her warts and all as a control freak, a drinker, a perfectionist, a shrew, rude, attention seeking but also explains perhaps why she exercised these traits. Above all, it shows how much her work meant to her and how dedicated she was. It doesn't focus on her personal life, her marriages, the gossip surrounding them (but I'd read all this already in others). Another reviewer said it was "too gay" and said also that the author was. I didn't think so. If anything it only hinted at or touched upon this, certainly less so than in other reads. And who cares whether the author is gay or not as it has no bearing on whether I enjoyed the book or not. I liked that he did show her at her worst as well as her best. Like the way different sources were used to relate their own personal experiences of her. Book also made me look up some of her movies so I could watch certain scenes described and understand her state of mind/circumstances at the time. I also watched a few I hadn't seen before. I prefer her when she plays nice, level headed sensible characters but she's also great to watch when petulant and bitchy which came v naturally to her. Also liked her role and involvement in the Hollywood Canteen. The only criticisms I have are that it could jump about a bit chronologically which may confuse Bette bio virgins but for me, knowing her life already, I coped. Also, it left me wanting more which is great for the author but bad for me - am sure he could have added many more chapters and gone into more details which I'd have loved. A good read - I recommend it.
June 22, 2012
This book chronicles Bette Davis's rise to fame. The first half of the book goes through her movies one by one ,and tells you how she got to be in that movie,who her co-stars were and her many disagreements with just about every director or co-star she had. It also tells us about her many affairs she had and she could be a true Bitch on the set. I was really surprised with all the confrontations and her total bitchiness on set and how the managed to getting cast in as many movies as she did. I found I liked the second part of the book better than the first because it just didn't list her early movies in chronological order one by one but went into her life in her later years and portrayed her on a more personal level. Thei author used alot of information and paragraphs gleamed from Bette Davis's own biography to use as information about Bette and quoted things she wrote in her autobiography to add a 'voice' to Bette I suppose.
I'm not sure if I liked that or not? It felt a little like when you had to write a paper for school and used quotes from another book to help the paper along...if you know what I mean. ( just in my opinion) .i would have liked if it had explored more of her relationship with her children ,that made her she cut them out of her last Will ,overall i found it to be a good biography ,with lots of juicy tidbits. It confirmed that yes, Bette Davis was really a bitch, and she had a sexual appetite that you would have never guessed. I'm not sure if I like the authors style . It really felt like he didn't like the way the style of his writing appeared (the way it chronolically listed each movie) in the first half of the book and just suddenly jumped ahead in time to a later time in Bette's life to change the flow? My rating: 3.1 out of 5 stars.
I'm not sure if I liked that or not? It felt a little like when you had to write a paper for school and used quotes from another book to help the paper along...if you know what I mean. ( just in my opinion) .i would have liked if it had explored more of her relationship with her children ,that made her she cut them out of her last Will ,overall i found it to be a good biography ,with lots of juicy tidbits. It confirmed that yes, Bette Davis was really a bitch, and she had a sexual appetite that you would have never guessed. I'm not sure if I like the authors style . It really felt like he didn't like the way the style of his writing appeared (the way it chronolically listed each movie) in the first half of the book and just suddenly jumped ahead in time to a later time in Bette's life to change the flow? My rating: 3.1 out of 5 stars.
July 8, 2008
Towards the end of this novel, fans (or newcomers) into the life of Bette Davis, will either loathe, or admire her. The woman, the legend, the myth. The author, Sikov, paints an objective, yet opinionated tale on the life of one of the world's greatest actresses, who made films, on her time, and by choice.
Making it in Hollywood when a film studio basically made you sign your soul on the dotted line, Bette's preserverence and talent is a tribute to her fiesty attitude. She chose roles that suited her; roles that she could mould into her own creation. Whether or not this resulted in anger from her directors, she didn't care. Bette was passionate, and the end result in these situations was usually brilliance. All About Eve, Dark Victory, and Dangerous were all hand picked roles for Bette that she indulged herself in, worked hard for, and made her own. One juicy section of Dark Victory chronicles the tumultuous relationship Bette embarked on with costar Gary Merill, as well as the tensions brewing on the set of All About Eve: a juicy, pleasurable classic.
Bette Davis, and "Dark Victory" in general, is probably one of the most interesting reads I've been fortunate enough to pick up and experience. There is extensive detail on the atmospheric tension during film shootings (specifically involing William Wyler) as well as detailed gossip surrounding Bette's personal life. Throughout the novel, even towards the end of Bette's life, what fans are left with is the very same attitude they started off with: A fierce, courageous broad who knew what she wanted, and told them all how to get it done.
Making it in Hollywood when a film studio basically made you sign your soul on the dotted line, Bette's preserverence and talent is a tribute to her fiesty attitude. She chose roles that suited her; roles that she could mould into her own creation. Whether or not this resulted in anger from her directors, she didn't care. Bette was passionate, and the end result in these situations was usually brilliance. All About Eve, Dark Victory, and Dangerous were all hand picked roles for Bette that she indulged herself in, worked hard for, and made her own. One juicy section of Dark Victory chronicles the tumultuous relationship Bette embarked on with costar Gary Merill, as well as the tensions brewing on the set of All About Eve: a juicy, pleasurable classic.
Bette Davis, and "Dark Victory" in general, is probably one of the most interesting reads I've been fortunate enough to pick up and experience. There is extensive detail on the atmospheric tension during film shootings (specifically involing William Wyler) as well as detailed gossip surrounding Bette's personal life. Throughout the novel, even towards the end of Bette's life, what fans are left with is the very same attitude they started off with: A fierce, courageous broad who knew what she wanted, and told them all how to get it done.
May 28, 2017
I once read a biography of Bette Davis when I was in high school and I loved it. I found her extremely interesting, but I didn't have a chance to watch many of her movies. Now things are different. I have seen several of her films, including my favorites - "Deception," "The Bride Came C.O.D.," and "The Man Who Came to Dinner." When I came across this book, "Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis," I saw a way to update my knowledge of this great actress - and I learned a lot.
For one thing, either the biography I read earlier left out quite a bit or I forgot a *lot*. Either is possible. Bette was born Ruth Elizabeth Davis on April 6, 1908. Originally nicknamed Betty, a "friend" suggested she change her nickname to Bette, like the character in Balzac's "Cousin Bette." To quote Bette, "The fact that M. Balzac's Lisbeth Fischer was a horror didn't come to my attention until I read the book sometime later." Some friend, hmm?
Of course, Bette could be a pain. She had to be the center of attention and sulked when she was not. Jealous of her younger sister Barbara ("Bobby"), she once cut off the poor girl's hair and cheered, "She isn't going to be pretty any more." You get the impression that she dominated her mother and younger sister.
Bette made her mind up that she was going to be an actress and never relented. She had such a full life - two Oscars, four marriages (three ending in bitter divorces), three children (including an ungrateful daughter and another daughter who was mentally ill and was institutionalized), and many, many wonderful movies.
For one thing, either the biography I read earlier left out quite a bit or I forgot a *lot*. Either is possible. Bette was born Ruth Elizabeth Davis on April 6, 1908. Originally nicknamed Betty, a "friend" suggested she change her nickname to Bette, like the character in Balzac's "Cousin Bette." To quote Bette, "The fact that M. Balzac's Lisbeth Fischer was a horror didn't come to my attention until I read the book sometime later." Some friend, hmm?
Of course, Bette could be a pain. She had to be the center of attention and sulked when she was not. Jealous of her younger sister Barbara ("Bobby"), she once cut off the poor girl's hair and cheered, "She isn't going to be pretty any more." You get the impression that she dominated her mother and younger sister.
Bette made her mind up that she was going to be an actress and never relented. She had such a full life - two Oscars, four marriages (three ending in bitter divorces), three children (including an ungrateful daughter and another daughter who was mentally ill and was institutionalized), and many, many wonderful movies.
August 29, 2015
The biggest surprise of Sikov's perceptive and superbly written new Bette Davis biography is that there are still fascinating details to be discovered after more than a dozen full-length biographies have been devoted to her since her 1989 death.
Sikov (On Sunset Boulevard) follows the volatile actress's long career, specifying how her insecurities and craving for love propelled her into the dueling self-medications of liquor and acting. Even she didn't seem to understand the anger that drove her to battle everything she encountered, from Hollywood producers to the tarnished brass doorknobs in her many houses.
Her personal life was littered with broken marriages, affairs, abortions, feuds and neglected family members, but professionally she created dozens of unforgettable performances. Both sides of her life make for compelling reading. Sikov spends two-thirds of the book documenting the grueling production of most of the 52 films Davis made under her 18-year contract at Warner Bros.
These illuminating tales mix familiar lore with newly excavated material. Sikov loses some steam when Davis's film career sputtered in the late 1960s. The last 20 years (when she was too ornery to die, too driven to sit still, too proud to recede into muted seclusion) is dismissed too quickly in 60 pages.
Sikov (On Sunset Boulevard) follows the volatile actress's long career, specifying how her insecurities and craving for love propelled her into the dueling self-medications of liquor and acting. Even she didn't seem to understand the anger that drove her to battle everything she encountered, from Hollywood producers to the tarnished brass doorknobs in her many houses.
Her personal life was littered with broken marriages, affairs, abortions, feuds and neglected family members, but professionally she created dozens of unforgettable performances. Both sides of her life make for compelling reading. Sikov spends two-thirds of the book documenting the grueling production of most of the 52 films Davis made under her 18-year contract at Warner Bros.
These illuminating tales mix familiar lore with newly excavated material. Sikov loses some steam when Davis's film career sputtered in the late 1960s. The last 20 years (when she was too ornery to die, too driven to sit still, too proud to recede into muted seclusion) is dismissed too quickly in 60 pages.
December 22, 2016
Synopsis: Bette Davis was magnificent and exasperating in equal measure. She was a force of nature, an idiosyncratic talent and trailblazer. Author Ed Sikov mixes in new interviews with friends, directors, and admirers, as well as archival research. He also explains many of her films, tv appearances, and time in the theater. Both Davis's personal and professional life are dissected and examined in a way that is both revealing and sympathetic.
Pros: Felt this biography was very even handed. Bringing in Bette Davis' own words from her autobiographies and then detailing other voices that either affirmed what she said or saw the events another way was enlightening and a brilliant tactic. This retelling of Davis' life is tilted more towards her work, co stars and less about her family, marriages and children, which works, as she was driven to work. One person in the book was quoted as saying that Davis was either gracious or terrifying, and that about sums it up. This is a revealing look at the glamour star that seems to be treated with truth, facts, quotes and lots of research. Well done.
Cons: Why were there no pictures in the book? Found it ironic that there were many descriptions of family pictures or scrap book mementos, but no visuals for the reader. So disappointing.
Cover art: 5 out of 5 stars. Perfect black and white photo of Davis.
Pros: Felt this biography was very even handed. Bringing in Bette Davis' own words from her autobiographies and then detailing other voices that either affirmed what she said or saw the events another way was enlightening and a brilliant tactic. This retelling of Davis' life is tilted more towards her work, co stars and less about her family, marriages and children, which works, as she was driven to work. One person in the book was quoted as saying that Davis was either gracious or terrifying, and that about sums it up. This is a revealing look at the glamour star that seems to be treated with truth, facts, quotes and lots of research. Well done.
Cons: Why were there no pictures in the book? Found it ironic that there were many descriptions of family pictures or scrap book mementos, but no visuals for the reader. So disappointing.
Cover art: 5 out of 5 stars. Perfect black and white photo of Davis.
May 21, 2021
At the end of his prologue Ed Sikov states by the end of the book we may be disappointed with Bette Davis and angry with him as some of us hope to grow fond of the subject matter as we would of friends.
I have been a fan of Bette Davis' work for many years and Ed Sikov gives a complete history of her work in movies, plays, musicals and tv appearances as well as her battles with the Hollywood studio system eg pay issues, workload etc.
Ed Sikov gives us an honest portrait of Bette Davis the human being, in that she was affected by the lack of affection from her father; her mother although seeming to make a lot of sacrifices for her never stopped expecting to be repaid; her failed marriages; excessive smoking; excessive drinking which apparently didn't make her a pleasant companion; didn't suffer fools easily; had a temper which affected her relationships with family and friends and who could also be kind, charming, loved to cook, clean and who spoilt her daughter BD rotten.
As an actress she gave 110% not minding how bad she would look for a role but could be difficult to work with either because she didn't have faith in the director, script etc.
I finished this book with a lot of admiration for a woman with immense talent, who lived her life always on her terms.
And if you're wondering was I left disappointed or angry with Ed Sikov - no!
I have been a fan of Bette Davis' work for many years and Ed Sikov gives a complete history of her work in movies, plays, musicals and tv appearances as well as her battles with the Hollywood studio system eg pay issues, workload etc.
Ed Sikov gives us an honest portrait of Bette Davis the human being, in that she was affected by the lack of affection from her father; her mother although seeming to make a lot of sacrifices for her never stopped expecting to be repaid; her failed marriages; excessive smoking; excessive drinking which apparently didn't make her a pleasant companion; didn't suffer fools easily; had a temper which affected her relationships with family and friends and who could also be kind, charming, loved to cook, clean and who spoilt her daughter BD rotten.
As an actress she gave 110% not minding how bad she would look for a role but could be difficult to work with either because she didn't have faith in the director, script etc.
I finished this book with a lot of admiration for a woman with immense talent, who lived her life always on her terms.
And if you're wondering was I left disappointed or angry with Ed Sikov - no!
May 3, 2018
As interesting (and quotable!!) as I found Bette, I was surprised to find that this book was less about her life than it was about Ed Sikov's opinions on her life.
One section illustrates this nicely: Sikov abruptly interrupts himself, completely breaking the flow of the narrative, to tell a rambling, random story of many pages that is supposed to sum up the difficult relationship between Bette and her father. In reality, the story is told to draw attention to the author's incredibly insulting attempt to explain Bette's 'psychic agony' to his readers (who are obviously too stupid to understand that her father's coldness hurt her) and his incredibly pretentious attempt to defend soap-opera Hollywood biographies as high art. Apparently, he earned his dual PhD's in Psychology and Literature during a two-week stint as an intern at People magazine.
I abandoned this book on page 190. I only read that far because Bette was just so repulsive and endearing. Now I'm off to find a biography of her that is actually about her.
One section illustrates this nicely: Sikov abruptly interrupts himself, completely breaking the flow of the narrative, to tell a rambling, random story of many pages that is supposed to sum up the difficult relationship between Bette and her father. In reality, the story is told to draw attention to the author's incredibly insulting attempt to explain Bette's 'psychic agony' to his readers (who are obviously too stupid to understand that her father's coldness hurt her) and his incredibly pretentious attempt to defend soap-opera Hollywood biographies as high art. Apparently, he earned his dual PhD's in Psychology and Literature during a two-week stint as an intern at People magazine.
I abandoned this book on page 190. I only read that far because Bette was just so repulsive and endearing. Now I'm off to find a biography of her that is actually about her.
December 31, 2016
Very entertaining read about Davis' life and films. Some reviewers were very critical of the fact that Sidkov explains all the storylines of her films in detail. I didn't think that was that much of a problem, though the actual analysis of the films could have been a little deeper instead of that much plot info.
Over all, though, good fun.
So what's new about this book, as opposed to the other dozens that have been written of the subject? Well, I guess the angle from which the whole Bette cult is approached has a different slat. It's - not surprisingly - 'queer'. I say not surprsingly because it's problably mostly the gay community (and old film buffs like myself) who'd pick up a book like this.
If you fit into either category you could do much worse than reading this.
Over all, though, good fun.
So what's new about this book, as opposed to the other dozens that have been written of the subject? Well, I guess the angle from which the whole Bette cult is approached has a different slat. It's - not surprisingly - 'queer'. I say not surprsingly because it's problably mostly the gay community (and old film buffs like myself) who'd pick up a book like this.
If you fit into either category you could do much worse than reading this.
December 27, 2012
I not only loved this book--I took notes! I liked how Sikov concentrated on Bette's career rather than her scandals, therefore yeilding a lot of useful career advice. The book's tenets are: directors and money people aren't interested in working with people they aren't interested in sleeping with, know when you are exepreinced enough for management, for studios do fire long toothed functionaries and know and oblige your audience and prepare for changes your demographic! Bette's fandom expanded from middle-aged women to gay men who she grew to realize are the type of husbands she's always wanted :)
-A
-A
June 21, 2008
I like the fact that Sikov mainly focuses on Davis as an actress, rather than including too much gossip - although her erratic behaviour, drinking and troubled relationships are still covered.
I enjoyed the first half or so of the book, with detailed discussions of Davis' great movies from the 1930s and 40s, very much, but wasn't quite so keen on the later sections, probably because the films she made in later life weren't so interesting! I've seen quite a lot of Bette's movies this year (her centenary), and this book has left me wanting to see more of them.
I enjoyed the first half or so of the book, with detailed discussions of Davis' great movies from the 1930s and 40s, very much, but wasn't quite so keen on the later sections, probably because the films she made in later life weren't so interesting! I've seen quite a lot of Bette's movies this year (her centenary), and this book has left me wanting to see more of them.
January 28, 2013
This is the first biography I've read since high school and I have to say I found it thoroughly enjoyable. Although it may be hard to believe, Bette Davis was a bitch, but she was a very talented one. This book does a great job of chronicling her expansive filmography while giving a few tips on films not to miss. It's also one of the few stories of someone who wasn't nice for the sake of popularity, and yet accomplished her goals while remaining likable to the reader. It would have been 5 stars if it was a little more readable, but alas the biographer did the best he could.
April 18, 2013
Mr. Sikov did a great job detailing Bette's movies and the production of them, but I was disappointing in how little he described her personal life. I would have preferred more intimate details about Bette herself. Some of the book is a bit choppy, Sikov bounces around a bit from one topic to another and then back again, this seemed to get noticeably worse as the book progressed. All in all, it was a good book, but I would have preferred more meat on the bone as far as Bette's personal life goes.
April 10, 2013
Excellent biography. The author uses varied sources to present conflicting but ultimately revealing views of Davis' life --including Davis' own words --to present a vivid account of the life of a great actress and star of the Hollywood firmament. In a vocation that spits out women over 40, Davis' tenacity and personality defeat those odds --never stopping work for long until her death at the age of 81. That said, her fighting spirit is so unrelenting and self-destructive that it demolishes most of the relationships in her life. Her autobiography "A Lonely Life" is aptly titled.
March 17, 2008
Early Hollywood movie stars, another passion of mine. I expected this book to be better than it was, or at least as fascinating as its subject, but it was little more than a rehash of things already written and reviews and descriptions of almost every one of her movies. If I wanted to know about her movies I'd watch them. Also the thirty or so footnotes per chapter became increasingly distracting and annoying. It made me as bitchy as Davis.
May 14, 2008
Thorough and sympathetic overview of Ms. Davis's life and career. He does not gloss over her imperfections and he makes it clear that she had a beastly temper and was prone to tantrums and scenes. But he doesn't pass judgment on her. He emphasizes her dedication to her craft more than anything. Not much dishing on her love life or feuds; these are given minimal discussion. Classy approach, but might have been a more fun read if there was more of the dirt.
June 28, 2008
An entertaining biography, peppered with observations from a distinctly (and occasionally jarringly) gay perspective. Davis could be charming and clever and certainly talented, but she sounds like hell on wheels to work with -- a frequently irrational and prickly character who grew less lovable with age. As usual with show biz bios, the last third became a bit depressing and I started to skim, ready for death to provide the final fade-out.
August 31, 2008
well done biography, but nothing new to add to the others out there that I have read. Not as good as "The Girl Who Walked Home Alone." Nonetheless - Bette Davis is always fascinating!
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