After Bette Davis’ curtain call in Broadway’s The Night of the Iguana, she received an unexpected guest in her dressing room.
“Joan Crawford went backstage with a copy of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and said to Bette, ‘I think we should do this,’” Robert Dance, author of Ferocious Ambition: Joan Crawford’s March to Stardom, exclusively tells Closer.
The legendary rivalry between Bette and Joan has been the subject of articles, books and even a wildly entertaining limited TV series, Feud: Bette and Joan. The truth about what really happened between these Golden Age stars is a little less dramatic, but more relatable.
“They were two hugely competitive women — the greatest of the greats,” says Dance. “They certainly didn’t like each other, but that’s a very different thing from a feud.”
Joan Crawford and Bette Davis
It’s not surprising they didn’t have much in common, because they came from different places. Texas-born Joan became a dancer as a teenager to escape her hardscrabble life, while Bette — though not immensely wealthy — attended private schools and began drama training early. Both were “smart, competitive and successful” at getting what they wanted, Dance says.
Before Baby Jane, their paths rarely crossed. Joan became the queen of MGM’s glamour girls, while Bette specialized in gritty dramas over at Warner Brothers.
“I think Bette was always jealous from afar of Joan’s glamour, her beauty, her success with ease,” Dance says. “And Joan was always jealous of Bette’s phenomenal talent.”
By the 1960s, both women were in their 50s and great roles were hard to come by. Baby Jane, a story about two has-been sisters locked in hatred in a decrepit Hollywood mansion, was irresistible to them both.
“There just weren’t a lot of roles for women of that age,” Dance says.
Once on the set, it became clear they didn’t work the same way.
Joan Crawford and Bette Davis
“Bette was constantly criticizing Joan for trying to be too glam and saying, ‘You know, you’re playing an old sick woman who’s a prisoner in a house — knock it off with hairdressers and makeup,’” Dance says. But unlike some exaggerations, “they certainly didn’t feud on the set,” he says. “These were two professionals.”
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford After ‘Baby Jane’
The film became a huge hit, grossing $9 million on an estimated $1 million budget, according to Variety. Unfortunately, when the Oscar nominations came out, Bette, who had the showier role, received a Best Actress nod, while Joan did not.
“This is the root of the ‘feud,’” says Dance, who explains that “furious Joan” contacted the other nominated actresses to ask if she could accept their Oscar for them if they won. “Bette thought she was going to win, but Anne Bancroft won. Joan went onto the stage in magnificent clothes and jewels to accept it as though she had won it herself. This drove Bette completely crazy.”
She got her revenge, though. Bette and Joan both agreed to star in 1964’s Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte, but during filming, Bette sat next to the director and criticized Joan’s every move.
“She had a real mean streak and wouldn’t stop antagonizing her,” Dance says.
After being hospitalized for an unrelated illness, Joan was replaced by Olivia de Havilland in the film. Joan and Bette never worked or spoke to each other again — but the intensity of their feud has been overblown.
“They were just two women who disliked each other,” says Dance, “and were constantly trying to annoy the other.”
