Customer Reviews

The Girl Who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis, A Personal Biography

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You have to admire Charlotte Chandler just for the way she prints a photo of herself with Bette Davis on the back cover, and in the photo she, Chandler, is wearing either the goofiest hat ever designed for a woman, or perhaps the worst haircut an author ever received. It is the kind of upswept hairdo we associate with Lillian Russell and the Gibson Girls, but different somehow, with the texture of a minor, pale fur like rabbit or nutria. In contrast Bette Davis, stroke and all, looks like she's got it all together. What a delightful book, compiled from houts and hours of taped conversations in which Davis details all of the movies she made (87 feature films, thirteen TV movies, one miniseries) as well as the men she made along the way. Yes, some of the material is familiar, such as Davis' worship of her mentor George Arliss, and her devotion to William Wyler who, for all I know, may indeed be America's greatest director but I doubt it. However, many of the comments Davis makes here are completely new to me. And in addition, Chandler interviews many of those who worked with Davis and solicited their opinions about "This N That."

I enjoyed reading George Cukor's comments on Davis' appeal. Though he never directed her in a film, he was the man who picked her out to join his stock company while still working in the stage repertory system. "Even in Rochester, young as she was, Bette has styar quality,. 'Do you know what the secret of star quality is?' he asked me. 'It's being irritating. The great women stars have an irritating quality, each in her own way, individually irritating. It's a part of what makes them distinctive. Katharine Hepburn, Garbo, Olivia de Havilland, with all that sweetness of Melanie, each had that oh-so-irritating quality.'" I don't know whether this says more about Cukor or the women he finds irritating, but it's something to think about, and rarely so well expressed.

Another intriguing story is the one of the "film that got away," Irving Rapper's proposed biopic (from the 1947-8 period) of Mary Todd Lincoln, in which Davis might have played the conspiracy-ridden first lady, committed to a mental hospital after her husband was assassinated and her son died. Todd Lincoln had an unusual friendship with a black milliner which would have been part of the script too, at least as Rapper describes it, alas a great part for someone like Ethel Waters or Marietta Canty lost to us forever due to lackluster studio response. Instead, Davis and Robert Montgomery made JUNE BRIDE, a horse of a different color indeed.

Did you know Greer Garson was asked to play the part of THE NANNY? I didn't, and there's an amusing story that goes along with that (pp. 245-6).

You have to give Chandler props as well for the bizarre collection of blurbs that decorates this volume! How on earth did she land Pavarotti, Liv Ullmann, and Michelangelo Antonioni to say things like "Formidable!" on the book jacket?

Most of the stars and studio personnel interviewed by Chandler give Bette Davis nothing but good marks; on the other hand, there's always Celeste Holm, who's been practicing a dill pickle sourness for years now when it comes to the topic of ALL ABOUT EVE. She'll outlive us all, preserved in acid like a car battery.

Charlotte Chandler --- whose biographical takes on Groucho, Fellini and Hitchcock are considered some of the best --- now takes on Mother Goddamn herself, Miss Bette Davis. What makes the book stand out from the surfeit of other Bette bios are Chandler's candid conversations she had with the actress during the last decade of her life. Riddled with never-before-told stories of intrigues with various actors, producers and directors, they offer a glimpse into the valiant side of Miss D, instead of simply an extension of the parts Davis played. Chandler's talent lie in using her subject's own words, supplemented by recollections of others who knew her, to make an often-told story fluid and fascinating. And the photos ain't bad either. A best Bette!

I enjoyed this latest biography on Davis. While the movie caps were trite (and I already knew them all), what I liked was Davis' seemingly endless stream of verbalized thoughts running throughout. She was an amazingly intelligent and sensitive woman as well as a sublime and professional actor. Having already devoured Whitney Stine's accounts "Mother Goddam" and "I'd Love to Kiss You..." again and again, Chandler's book was another addition to sides of Davis I hadn't known. For instance, while the late Mr.Stine was male, Chandler is female and Davis seemed to open up more frankly to her, especially about sex. Plus she was more open about her childhood and relationship with her father that plagued her through a lot of her life. There are also rare photos I hadn't seen before. If you've read Stine's books, then I heartily reccommend this as well. Davis was a multifaceted persona and human being and there is stuff here to engross you. Please enjoy.

I know that most of you "Old Hollywood" fans will have your heart skip a beat when this book appears in the store or on-line but don't get your hopes up. This book is quite boring. No truly new information or insight exists in Ms. Chandler's biography.

Much of the information in this release has been covered in other biographies and told more artfully and with more insight by other biographers.

I have given this book two stars because of the photographs previously unseen by the general public.

When reading the book I felt as if I was reading an amalgamation of pieces of stories and anecdotes culled from foggy memories. I just did not like it.

I agree with the reviewer below who said there is nothing new here. The author breezes through Davis' life with Davis interjecting here and there. Its been done before and a lot better (notably Whitney Stine's book 'Mother Goddam'). The author writes very poorly as well and the book is labyrinthical and very confusing. One doesn't know when Davis is talking, when the author is talking, or when one of the people whom the author interviewed is talking. Skip this one. Davis deserves better.

This has to be the most candid, self-examining book I've ever seen on the subject- including her own autobios.
It seems there was a dicotomy in her entire life in which she had a strong loyalty to her hardworking,supportive mother- yet was always craving her disapproving and rejecting father's approval due to her having inherited his keen brain! She doesn't hold back a good many of her own shortcomings here but perhaps the most poignant part of the book has to do with her having discovered via her daughter's book that not only did the daughter she loved more than anything detest her- but she had evidently detested her mother for quite sometime before while having pretended to have loved her. Not I think that Bette was faultless as a mother but I had to agree that it was appallingly cruel what her daughter did to her-especially after she had just survived a stroke! It seemed she gave her daughter as close to a replica of the love she'd received from her own mother as she could- only to have returned to her a near-replica of the rejection she'd received from her father! Sharper than a serpent's tooth indeed (and I say this as someone who believes and supports Christina Crawford's side of her story with HER mother).
Yet, as dismissive as her daughter seemed to be about her mother's work. The work itself seemed to give Bette far more purpose and proved to be a more reliable companion than anyone else in her life.
Also, I like how this book gave Bette's insights and plots into the many movies she did over the years!

This book more or less chronicles the life of Bette Davis, one of the finest, most indivualistic, and polarizing actresses this country has produced. It is based, for the most part, on interviews author Charlotte Chandler had with Davis herself, beginning in March, 1980. This technique of getting a book written is entertaining at first, but quickly becomes tiresome. This is, after all, supposed to be a biography (vs. autobiography). Much room is taken up by synopses of Davis' films, and a lengthy Filmography is included at the end of the book. These are interesting and helpful, to a certain point, but more information regarding the actress's life apart from her work would have been helpful and provided a more balanced portrait of the woman. Chandler interviewed friends, co-workers, ex-lovers, and Gary Merrill, Davis' fourth husband, but no other interviews with family members are included, and no explanation is given for this deficiency. One would think that after 25 years of working on a book, Chandler could have done more extensive research on her subject (or at least provided a reason for why she was not able to do this. Perhaps living family members refused to talk to her?). Surely a better biography of this fascinating woman exists, and I do not recommend this one.

I am surprised that the long list of acknowledgements did not include Dick Cavatte. I am only up to page 90, and already much of the book so far consists of Bette's interview with him from his show in the early '70's. If the reader was not aware, they would think that it was the author speaking to Bette, but it is the Cavatte chat show word for word. So far I am not very impressed, and I am glad that I got it from the library and did not buy it. To me the definitive biography is still Lawrence Quirk's "The Passionate Life of Bette Davis".

Don't bother buying this one. If you are a big Bette Davis fan, check out the library. You won't feel cheated. The book is dull and shallow. Can't say I care for the author's style or her content.

With the Turner Classic Movies channel in the middle of a month-long tribute to the screen legend, it seems like a good time to peruse Charlotte Chandler's breezy biography of Bette Davis. Based on a series of interviews the author held near the time of Davis's death at 81 in 1989, the result is a readable mix of the star's professional accomplishments and personal recollections. The drawback is that it is hardly revelatory given the number of books already on the market about Davis's life and career including three autobiographies. At the same time, it provides an opportunity to revive interest in one of the most distinctive actresses of 20th-century American cinema.

Where Chandler's book differs somewhat from the other books is the tone of almost wistful regret she seems to capture in Davis's recollections as the actress was facing her own mortality. Like her contemporary, the equally enduring Katharine Hepburn, Davis was made of defiant Yankee stock and took no prisoners when it came to her work. But even more than Hepburn, Davis thrived on conflict and became infamous for eliciting fear and loathing among colleagues like Joan Crawford and Miriam Hopkins. Her screen persona seems to substantiate such speculation as she portrayed nasty women with unerring conviction, for example, as slatternly Mildred in "Of Human Bondage" and imperious Regina Giddens in "The Little Foxes".

But she also played more sympathetic characters with steely intelligence and uncompromising spirit such as the headstrong heiress in "Dark Victory" and the luminous Margo Channing in "All About Eve", her two best roles. Chandler captures all this in cursory detail, but she also delves into Davis's estranged relationship with her father and her four failed marriages. Davis's disappointment with men seems to be a running theme in the book, for example, she fell so hard for director William Wyler that he felt overwhelmed and would not consider marrying her. Not all the recollections are tragic as Davis recalls a blind date in college with Henry Fonda when both had yet to embark on acting careers and also when she had a torrid affair with Howard Hughes that she knew would sputter out of exhaustion.

Given the actress's close though tension-filled relationship with her own mother and compounded by her failing health at the time, the saddest portions of the book unsurprisingly deal with what Davis deems her daughter B.D.'s betrayal with the publication of a tell-all tome of their tempestuous relationship. This is a woman who clearly remembered every insult leveled at her and made no bones about standing her ground. This comes across well, but I just wish Chandler could have gone beyond dishy gossip and self-serving remarks to produce a revitalized portrayal of the artist and woman at the core. It seems Davis already beat her to the punch.