To Catch a Falling Star

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"If you're a star you don't stop being a star."

Margaret (Bette Davis)

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It is human nature, I suppose, to be reluctant to give up anything that is comfortable and familiar — whatever it may be.

People who have been in the public spotlight — athletes, politicians, movie stars — seem particularly stubborn about acknowledging the ravages of time or the fickleness of followers. Their resistance is doomed to failure, of course, and most of them probably already know that the batting average for those who preceded them is roughly .000, but they always seem to think that they will be the exception.

Bette Davis played such a character in "The Star," which premiered on this day in 1952. There was an ironic twist to the casting — but I'll come back to that.

Davis' character had once been an in–demand Hollywood star whose latest movies always drew long lines at the box office, an Academy Award winner, but that was when she was young and beautiful. Davis still saw herself that way, but the moviegoing public did not. (Davis, by the way, was 44 when the movie premiered and more than 20 years removed from her own big–screen debut.)

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Davis' character clearly was in the stages of grief later described by Elisabeth Kübler–Ross. Mostly in "The Star," she alternated between the anger and denial stages, but there was a generous helping of depression and even a bit of bargaining involved.

Ultimately all that was followed by the acceptance stage, but it came at the very end, and the audience had to go through that journey with Davis. It was the point of the movie.

Davis' character, who apparently hadn't been in a movie for quite awhile and was forced to sell many of her most valuable possessions to pay her debts, was offered a small role that was completely at odds with her self–image — the role of the older sister of a younger, sexier character (played by the latest Hollywood sex symbol).

In her screen test, Davis' character figured she could snag the starring role by putting a sexy spin on her performance. But that — predictably — was a dismal failure, and Davis realized what Sterling Hayden (a former actor Davis had helped once) and a young Natalie Wood (14 when "The Star" premiered and cast as Davis' daughter) had been trying to tell her.

Her career was over. It was time to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

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Wood's role was definitely a supporting one — and not really all that big, even for a supporting role — but symbolically she represented the future, Hollywood's real–life next generation — in many ways like Davis' younger rival in "The Star."

Davis did receive her ninth Best Actress nomination (she lost to Shirley Booth) but would be so honored only once more in her lifetime — for "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Wood, on the other hand, received only three Oscar nominations and rarely received praise for what she did, but she seldom lacked for work in her comparatively brief career.

Bette Davis Eyes

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"I didn't bring your breakfast because you didn't eat your din–din!"

Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis)

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If it is true what they say about the eyes being the windows of the soul, then Bette Davis' eyes spoke volumes in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Davis' and Joan Crawford's hatred for each other was probably the worst–kept secret in Hollywood — ever — which made them the perfect choices to play sisters who hated each other in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" which premiered on this day in 1962.

You may think that you know all about sibling rivalry. You may even think that you know all about it from personal experience. But trust me, you don't know sibling rivalry until you have seen "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Davis and Crawford weren't siblings, of course. They only played siblings in the movie. But their loathing for each other was at the heart of the movie's initial appeal.

When the movie began and the siblings were young girls, Baby Jane was the star of the family while her older sister Blanche toiled in her shadow. But as they got older, their roles reversed. Blanche (Crawford played the adult version) was the success while Jane (played by Davis) was a flop.

Blanche's career came to an abrupt end when she was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident that was shrouded in mystery. Unofficially it was blamed on Jane — who became Blanche's caretaker and lived with her in a house that had been bought with Blanche's movie earnings.

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But caretaker was far from the right word for Jane. She was a mentally ill alcoholic who believed she should have been a star but that Blanche had stolen it from her. Consequently she was abusive and cruel to her sister, who told her one day that she had decided to sell the house. Jane descended further into her mental abyss, removing the telephone from her sister's room and serving her a dead parakeet and a dead rat for her meals.

Jane also became obsessed with reviving her career and began looking for a pianist to accompany her on the songs she used to sing when, as Baby Jane, she had enchanted audiences everywhere. Victor Buono, as a down–on–his–luck pianist, responded to an ad she had placed in a local newspaper and encouraged her to seek the spotlight again.

He was unaware of some of the things Jane had already done to keep her dream alive — she had severely beaten her sister and she had killed the housekeeper when she became too inquisitive.

But when he discovered Blanche bound in her bed, he left to notify the authorities.

I always felt the Buono–Davis relationship was intriguing. When I was a young reporter at my first newspaper job, one of my standing assignments was to cover the police beat. In the process, I learned a lot more about the law and law enforcement than I ever did in my college courses.

One of the things I learned was how, sometimes, two people brought together become capable of things that neither would have done alone. It's like they create a third personality. I have always seen Buono and Davis as being that way — or, at least, they could have been.

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There is no telling what would have happened if they had continued to work together, but when Buono bailed, Jane took her emaciated sister to the beach, which led to the climax of the story. I won't share that with you. Everyone should see it.

And today, being Halloween, would be a good time to see it.

It wouldn't be right to wrap this up without saying a little more about the Davis–Crawford feud.

"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" was nominated for five Oscars. Davis was nominated for Best Actress, and Buono was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Neither won.

Crawford contacted the other Best Actress nominees and offered to accept the award on their behalf if they won but could not attend. Anne Bancroft, the eventual winner, took Crawford up on the offer. She was performing in a play in New York the night of the Oscars ceremony.

Davis claimed that Crawford lobbied against her with Oscar voters — in spite of the fact that an Oscar for Davis would have meant considerably more money at the box office. Both actresses had agreed to lower salaries so they could share in the movie's profits.

What Was the Truth?

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"No ... wire ... hangers! What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you no wire hangers ever? I work and work 'til I'm half dead, and I hear people say, 'She's getting old.' And what do I get? A daughter ... who cares as much about the beautiful dresses I give her ... as she cares about me! What's wire hangers doing in this closet? Answer me! I buy you beautiful dresses, and you treat them like they were some dishrag! You do! Three hundred–dollar dress on a wire hanger? We'll see how many you've got, if they're hidden somewhere! We'll see! We'll see! Get out of that bed. All of this is coming out! Out ... out ... out ... out! You got any more? We're gonna see how many wire hangers you've got in your closet! A wi ... wire hanger! Why? Why? Christina, get out of that bed. Get out of that bed! You live in the most beautiful house in Brentwood ... and you don't care if your clothes get stretched out from wire hangers? And your room looks like some $2–a–week furnished room in some two–bit back street town in Oklahoma! Get up! Clean up this mess!"

Faye Dunaway (Joan Crawford)

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Faye Dunaway has had many memorable roles in her career, but her performance in "Mommie Dearest," which premiered on this date in 1981, may have been her most memorable.

By the time she made "Mommie Dearest," Dunaway was no stranger to controversy, but the movie was controversial in a way that was unique in Dunaway's experience. Dunaway was portraying not a fictional character but a real–life actress, Joan Crawford, who had died less than four years earlier and was still well remembered by many of her fans — and Crawford had an image that many of her friends in Hollywood wished to protect.

"Mommie Dearest" was based on a book by Christina Crawford, Joan Crawford's adopted daughter, who had been specifically mentioned in the actress' will as not being a recipient of any portion of her mother's estate. Christina alleged that Crawford had been abusive to her and her brother Christopher — and some folks in Hollywood were willing to back her up on that. Essentially, Christina accused her adopted mother of caring more about fame than being a parent and used the children as props to further her career.

Some people believed — and continue to believe — that Christina was motivated by a desire to get even with her mother. If that was indeed the objective, she seemed to accomplish it. My feeling at the time — and still is — that both the book, which sold well, and the movie, which did pretty well at the box office, were probably guilty pleasures for a voyeuristic public. Was Christina Crawford telling the truth? Did Joan Crawford abuse her children behind closed doors then parade them in public as examples of what a fine mother she was?

And certainly there was curiosity about how this conflict between Joan Crawford (Dunaway) and Christina (played as an adult by Diana Scarwid, as a child by Mara Hobel) would come across on the big screen.

The dispute lives on nearly 40 years after the book's publication.

I don't know what the truth is; I suspect that this story is a combination of truths with no single version being the whole truth. Having been a child when these alleged abuses occurred, it is possible Christina's version of events is completely accurate — from a child's perspective.

Events in a child's life can be magnified and exaggerated out of proportion, though. Adults don't tend to give them much credibility until they have had enough time to mature.

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It is equally possible that, from an adult's perspective, the abuse could be seen as parental discipline that was not nearly as frequent as Christina perceived it to be — just as it is also possible that other adults witnessed almost nothing but abuse in their interactions with Joan and her children.

Especially the part where Dunaway went ballistic upon discovering one of her daughter's dresses hanging from a wire hanger in the closet. That scene spawned the somewhat iconic line in which an obsessive Crawford ranted about wire hangers — "No wire hangers!" The American Film Institute ranked it #72 on its list of the top 100 movie lines of all time.

(Whenever I have watched this movie in recent years, the wire hangers scene always reminds me of an evening when I worked on the sports copy desk at the Arkansas Gazette. On that particular occasion, I was in charge of putting out the next morning's sports section. One of the copy editors asked me how we were doing — since we had three deadlines each night, it was important to stay on schedule. I replied that we were still waiting for color art from the wire services covering whichever sports event was in the spotlight that day — I think it was one of the golf majors, but I don't remember which one. The copy editor wrinkled up his face like Dunaway in this movie and snarled, "No ... wire ... color!" I couldn't help laughing.)

Undoubtedly it was the very absence of collaborating accounts that encouraged the mixed reviews the movie received. In the three–plus decades that have passed, "Mommie Dearest" has become something of an underground favorite, a cult classic — but it was not particularly well received when it made the rounds of the nation's movie theaters 35 years ago.

Despite its problems with the critics, the movie was, as I mentioned earlier, reasonably successful at the box office, earning $39 million. That wasn't enough to land the movie in the Top 10 moneymakers for the year, but it was only a few million off the pace.