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The epic feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford makes hostilities between Taylor Swift and Kanye West, or Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, look like playground skirmishes.
The Hollywood stars’ fabled 40-year vendetta is investigated in a play by Anton Burge, Bette & Joan, at Ensemble Theatre, with Jeanette Cronin and Lucia Mastrantone in the respective roles.
It’s set during the shooting of their 1962 masterpiece, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, although their feud’s genesis lay nearly three decades earlier, when Crawford infuriated Davis by revealing her divorce from Douglas Fairbanks Jr on the same day Bette had planned to steal the headlines by announcing her starring role in Ex-Lady. Then they both fell for actor Franchot Tone, with Davis alleging Crawford stole the leading man from her.
When Joan tried to mend the rift with endless gifts, Davis dismissed these as lesbian overtures. “Joan probably was infatuated with Bette as an incredible actor,” says Mastrantone, “and I think she thought she was gorgeous as well.”
Davis’ most famous putdown came when she proclaimed the sexually liberated Crawford had “slept with every male star at MGM – except Lassie”.
Nonetheless, when Crawford read Baby Jane, and attracted director Bob Aldrich to the project, they knew there was only one actor to play the terrifying younger sister of Crawford’s paraplegic character. This was complicated by Crawford having slept with Aldrich, which led to power games as the women tried to get their way during the shoot.
They were disparate people. Crawford came to Hollywood stardom from abject poverty, a few years before Davis arrived from conquering Broadway. Davis insisted she achieved success through talent and work, rather than the casting couch.
Crawford, meanwhile, astutely used her promiscuity to navigate Hollywood, becoming powerful as well as rich. “Not only was she glamorous and gorgeous,” says Mastrantone, “she was also very strategic.”
Davis’ most famous putdown came when she proclaimed Crawford had ‘slept with every male star at MGM – except Lassie’.
“Bette’s thing was always the work and the script and trying to make that better,” says Cronin. “She wasn’t that interested in nurturing friendships with everybody that she worked with … [other than] people who’d come up through the theatre and weren’t interested in chasing the fame.”
Once on the Baby Jane set, tensions escalated from verbal to physical. When Davis had to lift and drag Crawford, the latter allegedly wore a belt weighted with lead beneath her clothes. Davis’ revenge was to kick Crawford so hard that the latter reportedly required stitches.
Then there was Davis’ famed face-slap of Crawford. “When you watch it, it is quite vicious,” says Mastrantone. “At the same time, Joan would really love the first takes because she’d get the real reaction on celluloid … Joan bankrolled some of that movie, so she’s acting almost as a producer.”
“And,” adds Cronin, “they’re both heavily invested in the film heart-wise because they both wanted a comeback and for their careers to continue into their older years. So there was a lot riding on it for them.”
A sufficient level of professionalism must have prevailed for the film even to be finished, so, to some degree, the feud was inflated by publicists and gossip columnists. “Gossip columnists had a lot of power in those days,” says Mastrantone, “and Joan cultivated friendships with them, whereas Bette had a much more fractious relationship with them … Joan really used the gossip columnists, so she would probably give them gossip, but then deny it in interviews.”
The feud continued until Crawford’s 1977 death, but, upon seeing Baby Jane, as Cronin says, they must have at least been “grateful that the other was so good”.
Bette & Joan: Ensemble Theatre, until April 25.
