Bette and Joan The Divine Feud (36 page)

The woman in the doorway was Joan Crawford.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

"I made a picture in 1934 too.
But the studio didn't want to
show my film. They were too
busy giving a big buildup to
that crap you were turning out."

—BABY JANE TO SISTER BLANCHE

T
he project began with Bob Aldrich, producer and director of
Apache, Vera Cruz,
and
Autumn Leaves.
The latter starred Joan Crawford in 1955, and since then, the director said, she had pestered him to find another project for them to work on. "She said she wanted to work with Bette Davis," said Aldrich. "I could never see them working together in anything. Then I read
Baby Jane."

The book, written by Henry Farrell, told of two sisters, former movie stars, who lived in a dank, foreboding mansion somewhere in Hollywood, bound to each other in mutual hate. "There was never a thought of doing the picture with anyone but Joan Crawford and Bette Davis," said scriptwriter Lukas Heller. In July 1961, while filming
Sodom and Gomorrah
in Rome, Aldrich instructed his agent at William Morris to buy the film rights to the book for $17,500. That October he sent a first draft of the script to Joan Crawford. A week later she cabled him: "When do we start?" In January, Joan visited Bette backstage at the Royale Theatre on Broadway.

At that meeting there were no show-business kisses or embraces exchanged between the pair. "Let's make this quick, Joan," said Bette curtly. "I'm going to the country in five minutes."

Joan told Bette that "at last" she had found the perfect film script for them to do together.

"Together?"
said Bette with pursed lips and brows raised to her hairline.

"Yes, dear," said Joan, "I have
always
wanted to work with you."

"I looked at her," said Bette, "and I thought, 'This woman is full of shit.'"

Joan gave Bette a copy of the book. Bette took it to the country, read it, and thought, "Well, it could work, you know. It's all there. Phony Joan and Crazy Bette."

In California that same month, when the script was completed, Aldrich mailed it with a letter to Davis. "I took a lot of time composing a letter that was arrogant, but I thought it was necessarily so," he said. "I wrote 'If this isn't the best screenplay you've ever read, don't see me.'"

Bette replied that the script was O.K. and she'd meet with Aldrich.

"She had only professional questions," he said.

The first question was, "What part will I be playing?"

"Jane of course," said Aldrich.

"Good," said Bette. "I just wanted to be sure."

The second question was of a more personal nature. Bette knew that Aldrich and Crawford had worked before, on
Autumn Leaves.
She also knew that Joan had a habit of developing "a meaningful relationship" with her male star or director, to give her a certain power. "I did not know, or care, if she was the sexual athlete others have described," said Davis. "I just wanted to be sure there was no partiality involved."

"Have you slept with Joan?" she asked the director.

"No," said Aldrich. "Not that I haven't had the opportunity." (Joan tried to seduce Aldrich during production of
Autumn Leaves,
he told his dialogue director, Bob Sherman. "She would sit in her dressing room at Columbia forever, drinking," said Sherman. "Sometimes she'd sleep there overnight. One night she called Aldrich in for a conference. She came on to him but he backed away at the last minute because he didn't want to be compromised. He told me he didn't want her to have anything over him, anything that he couldn't handle.")

Davis agreed to do the picture, with a few stipulations upfront. She wanted first billing, and more money than Joan. "I offered both actresses a piece of the picture plus some salary," said Aldrich. "Joan accepted, but Bette's agent held out for more than I could pay."

Eventually a deal was struck. Davis would receive sixty thousand dollars in salary, plus 10 percent of the worldwide net profits. Joan would receive less money up front, thirty thousand, and 15 percent of the net profits. The film would be shot over a six-week period in Los Angeles that summer of 1962, and both stars were assured of approval on costumes, makeup, and cinematographer.

With Bette and Joan set for the lead roles, Aldrich attempted to secure financing and a distributor for the picture. "Four major studios declined to even read the script or scan the budget," he said.

"I wouldn't give you one dime for those two washed-up old bitches," said Bette and Joan's venerable old boss, Jack Warner.

To make the package more attractive, Aldrich considered adding a third name to the cast—that of Peter Lawford. He would play the part of Edwin Flagg, the overgrown mama's boy whom Baby Jane hires as her accompanist. Lawford accepted the part, then withdrew two days later, due to "family" concerns. He felt the effete character might reflect badly on his real-life role as brother-in-law of the current President of the United States, John E Kennedy. Aldrich then signed an unknown, twenty-six-year-old Victor Buono, for the part (which would bring the actor an Oscar nomination), and the package was offered to Seven Arts, a small independent company owned by an Englishman, Elliott Hyman, with Ray Stark as a vice-president. Hyman told Aldrich he would finance the film "on very tough terms, because it's a high-risk venture. But we feel it should be made by you, and with Davis and Crawford."

In February 1962, after the financing was secured, Jack Warner agreed to distribute the film, but he would not allow it to be made at his studio. His soundstages were tied up in production, primarily with the big-budget musical
Gypsy,
starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood. For their comeback, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis would have to hike it over to the Producers Studio, a ramshackle lot reserved for B westerns on Melrose Avenue.

"Joan and I have never been
warm friends. We are not
simpatico. I admire her, and yet
I feel uncomfortable with her. To
me, she is the personification of
the Movie Star. I have always
felt her greatest performance is
Crawford being Crawford."

—BETTE DAVIS

"So I had no great beginnings in
legitimate theater, but what the
hell had she become if not a
movie star? With all her little
gestures with the cigarette, the
clipped speech, the big eyes, the
deadpan? I was just as much an
actress as she was, even though I
wasn't trained for the stage."

—JOAN CRAWFORD

That spring, while Bette played out her last weeks in
The Night of the Iguana,
Joan flew to Los Angeles and rented an apartment on Fountain Avenue, in a building owned and occupied by Loretta Young. On April 9, for renewed visibility, Joan got herself booked as a presenter on the Oscar show, in a major slot, the Best Actor category. On the day of the event, she arrived at the Santa Monica Auditorium at three in the afternoon, to supervise the placement of a wet bar and lavish buffet outside her dressing room. That evening she stood in the wings and corraled the (big) winners as they left the stage. Rita Moreno, winner of the supporting award for
West Side Story,
recalled her encounter with Joan. "I was in tears coming off the stage when suddenly I found myself locked in the arms of this woman in diamonds. It was Joan Crawford. 'There, there,' she said, clutching me to her bony bosom, 'I'll take care of you.' One of the show's coordinators wanted to take me to the press room, to talk to the media, but Joan wasn't having any of that. She wouldn't let go of me. She took me to her dressing room, so we could be photographed together. A week after she sent me a thank-you note. It said, 'Dear Rita, It was so thoughtful of you on your night of triumph to take the time to stop by my dressing room. Love, Joan.' I thought, 'To take the time?' She would have torn my arm from its socket if I tried to break away from her."

"People couldn't see the chemical
combustion of these two ladies
who were so different. They act
differently and they think
differently. Their attitudes are so
different. You'd put them in a
room and you know they've got
to—in terms of theater—explode."

—ROBERT ALDRICH

On May 9 Bette and Joan met in Hollywood to sign their contracts. Sitting at a table and posing for pictures, Bette managed to grab the best position. She sat in the far right chair, which meant that, when the photos' captions were read from left to right, her name would be first. Joan, wise to this old trick, then stood up
behind
and to the left of Bette, ensuring that her name would be first in those shots.

When the actual signing of the contracts commenced, by mistake Joan was given Bette's contract. The error was quickly rectified, but not before Crawford's eagle eyes noticed that on page one, in addition to Bette's sixty-thousand-dollar salary, she was to receive six hundred per week in living expenses. Two days later, at Joan's insistence, a new clause was inserted in
her
contract. It said that in addition to her salary she would receive fifteen hundred per week for living expenses. Furthermore, if production on the film exceeded six weeks, she was to receive the same amount in overtime as her costar.

With Crawford to contend with and her own comeback to ensure, Davis moved into an expensive house in Beverly Hills and leased the flashiest car—a blue Cadillac convertible with a white top and white leather upholstery. The Beverly Hills house, rented in advance by daughter B.D., had a projection room, a volleyball court, hillside gardens, a pool, and a pool house. Inside was a sweeping curved staircase, huge bedroom suites, and sliding glass doors everywhere. "I must have been going through a Hollywood phase," said B.D., who was fifteen at the time. "Oh B.D.," said Bette, "not another one."

Strolling by the pool, going over her lines for
Baby Jane,
Bette would frequently pause to admire her statuesque teenaged daughter B.D. lying by the pool, acquiring a golden tan. "Look at her!" said Bette. "Great face, great body, and
smart
too. If I had a
fraction
of what she's got I'd be married to a millionaire and be miles
away
from this f ____ town."

Meanwhile, in North Hollywood, Joan was preparing for her role as a cripple, by learning how to navigate in a wheelchair. "I had to push myself around, wheeling myself back and forth," she said. "The exercise with the chair made me as firm and hard as a brickbat. I weighed only ninety-one pounds, the thinnest I was in years." A Korean service veteran, a paraplegic injured in an air crash, showed her how to get herself in and out of bed. "He taught me how to hoist my body into the bed first and then lift each leg, and how to fall out of the chair—straight forward, and then roll over."

The two stars met with costume designer Norma Koch a month before production. A concerned Joan told Bette, "I do hope my color scheme won't interfere with yours."

"Color scheme?" said Bette. "I haven't a speck of color in any dress I wear. Wear any color you want. Besides, it's a black and white film."