The really in spots were, unfortunately, often out as far as Miss Davis was concerned. Ordinarily, I would have chosen a tonier restaurant-Chasen’s or Romanoff’s-but because Bette was a master at creating scenes, you had to be very careful where you took her.

I thought he and Bette would get along just fine, but to be doubly certain, a couple of weeks before the cameras were to roll, I took them and their spouses to dinner at a modest but popular place on La Cienega Boulevard called the Ready Room. To make sure things went smoothly, I hired the talented television director Herschel Daugherty, whom I had used several times before. Theater, Malice Toward One, was also her first made-for-TV film. She was a magnificently talented actress, but the emotional baggage she brought with her was awesome. Davis had agreed to star in an upcoming episode, so this time we had a solid basis for a conversation.įrom the start, I realized that having Bette Davis work for you was a mixed blessing. By then I was producing General Electric Theater, a weekly half-hour anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan, and the series was owned by MCA/Revue Productions, which had been founded by Stein. And it was at a cocktail party at the Steins’ sprawling Angeleno estate, Misty Mountain, that I met Davis for the second time, a full 10 years after that day with Joel McCrea. MCA superagent Jules Stein was one of the great Hollywood hosts to whose home Bette Davis was invited.

It’s funny I was never intimidated at meeting any of the other great Hollywood ladies-Greer Garson, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert-but my first time in the Davis presence left me speechless. Of Human Bondage, The Petrified Forest, Jezebel, Dark Victory, Now, Voyager-Davis’s films had provided some of the most unforgettable moments of my life up to then. Joel introduced me, but I said virtually nothing-I was too overwhelmed. She came right over to our table, and she and Joel embraced like old lovers. One day when we were there having our regular tuna-fish sandwiches and chocolate malts, Bette Davis walked in. Joel McCrea never wanted anything that fancy, so he and I would eat across the street from NBC at Will Wright’s ice-cream parlor. Those clients included Rosalind Russell, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Cary Grant, Dick Powell, Lucille Ball, and Ronald Colman, and during lunch breaks they would walk down to the Brown Derby on Vine Street. Our friendship began in 1957 when I cast her in a TV show I was producing, but I had met her 10 years earlier.Īt that time I was a young agent in Hollywood, hand-holding clients as they taped radio shows at the NBC studios at Sunset and Vine. When you dealt with Bette, 7 years could seem like 70. Describing my seven-year association with her as intense would be an understatement. I always thought of Bette Davis as a lonely lady.

The lonely life by bette davis