Hollywood's Greatest Catfight

Nothing proved Joan to herself more than her brief marriage to actor Franchot Tone, son of the president of the Carborundum Company, and in the social register, but then Tone made a film called Dangerous and was seduced by his costar, Bette Davis. Class knows class, the message went back to Joan.

They were both great stars, with the same over-emotionalism. Joan was more authentically beautiful, though the young Bette was very sexy. They both slept around. Crawford was also married to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and she had an affair with Clark Gable that lasted most of the '30s. Bette married a bandleader but had a fling with director William Wyler. But Bette said she was no Joan Crawford, meekly accepting any assignment. She wanted better parts, and she pulled rank whenever possible. Years later in her book, The Lonely Life, which she wrote herself, here's how she described the silly froth of Joan's pictures: "This was the period when Joan Crawford would start every film as a factory worker who punched the time clock in a simple, black Molyneux with white piping (someone's idea of poverty) and ended marrying the boss who now allowed her to deck herself out in tremendous buttons, cuffs and shoes with bows (someone's idea of wealth)." It was pretty good movie criticism, and it covered the years in which Joan slaved away while Bette won a first Oscar with Dangerous (1935), a second for Jezebel (1938), and then was nominated for Dark Victory (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), Now, Voyager (1942) and Mr. Skeffington (1944). In those glory years for Davis, Joan got not a single nomination.

In the early '40s, though, Joan was released from her contract by Metro. And now the worm turned. Bette was showing her age. Then Joan signed a contract with Bette's studio, Warners--a comeback. Bette murmured loud enough for the world to hear that Joan needed new lovers. And then Bette raised eyebrows when she said of Joan, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie." Warners had bought the James M. Cain novel Mildred Pierce for Bette, but it had been on the shelf: too hot for the censor and too sexy for Bette. Joan got Mildred Pierce in 1945, and won her only Oscar with it. Indeed, Joan lasted rather longer as a star than Bette, though Davis had a last triumph in 1950 with All About Eve.

And so, in 1962, Bette and Joan were both relics brought back for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? They got the film finished, though they were poised on the brink of a quarrel all the time, bad-mouthing each other. Only the business laughed at the finished picture. And only history has shown how alike these two battling broads were.

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David Thomson

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