Customer Reviews

Bette: The Life of Bette Davis

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent well-written look at Bette Davis' life and career up to 1981 when it was published. Author Charles Higham is somewhat notorious for his more controversial biographies such as the one on Errol Flynn but this one on Davis has it's feet on the ground (although his allegations that Joan Crawford lusted after Davis were quite shocking to many back then and denied by some). It was also the first book on Davis that punctured her carefully constructed image as a serene grande dame of films off the screen and the first to write of her romances with Howard Hughes and William Wyler. Even with opening the door on some aspects of Davis' life, he is fairly respectful and seems to admire her courage and strength. Davis herself did not knock the book which should say something. Try to get a hardcover version with the gorgeous pop artwork dustjacket of Davis from her ALL ABOUT EVE era.

Having read several of Higham's biographies, I've come to the conclusion that he's more or less in the category of Kitty Kelley, if not quite as free and easy with twisting the truth around.
This bio. is itself, ok, but could have been a lot better. For one thing, (big pet peeve), The author is simply not careful with dates, and therefore one worries that he's not careful with other information as well. For example, observant readers will love Bette's 13-month-long pregnancy with daughter BD Hyman.
The book was published in 1981, and so is pre-Bette's strokes and mastectomy, and pre "My Mother's Keeper".
Not a bad read, but there are many others, written a little more carefully and covering Bette's entire life, which are more worth the reader's time.

A woman I know says she's seen "Now Voyager" 34 times. Practically everybody has seen "all About Eve" at least 10-12 times. Any insomniac can do 10 minutes on Bette Davis's fire-and-ice, or "Elizabeth and Essex." So there's been some call for a decent biography of the star.

Charles Higham, veteran Hollywood journalist, was among those who answered. (He also authored books on Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, and Errol Flynn, the latter being quite controversial in its time, due to the allegations he made against Flynn. )However, his Davis book, while it unspools a much more dramatic offstage life than you might expect, is reasonably responsible in its treatment of his subject's juicy private existence: he makes no sensational allegations against her, and sticks pretty closely to known, or verifiable facts.

Bette Davis was born of sturdy New England stock, though her parents divorced. She wanted to be an actress from an early age, and was blessed--and burdened-- by an ambitious stage mother, Ruthie, who helped Davis achieve success (Bette supported her in luxury as soon as she was able.) In addition,she had to support an envious, emotionally troubled sister who frequently required expensive hospitalization.

She had affairs with famed director William Wyler, and multi-millionaire Howard Hughes, but she married four weak men whom she had to support. Her second husband died in mysterious, violent circumstances. Her fourth, actor Gary Merrill, took to drinking heavily; she had several widely publicized battles with him to keep him away from their adopted son. Then she adopted an infant girl who turned out to be mentally retarded: she had to keep her in pricey private care. And then there was the daughter who hurt Bette the most, towards the end of her life, publishing a "Mommie Dearest"-style attack on Ms Davis, similar to that published by Joan Crawfod's adopted daughter.

So Davis saw quite a bit of turmoil in her private life, and, as for her courageous highly-publicized public battles with Warner Brothers, her studio: well, they helped every actor who came after her.

Finally, it seems she suffered all her working life from peculiar accidents, bad luck, ill health, and the odd nervous breakdown. All of which suffering should prove as vicariously satisfactory to the interested reader as a good old Joan Crawford movie.

But first and last, of course, there is the work and that outlives Joan Crawford-- and Bette Davis.