When Bette Davis Met Mae West

Thanks. That's really weird. Is Bette completely soused or just putting it on?

Mae West was very smart, and a major influence in Hollywood producing her own films, making her own money. I can see why someone like Bette Davis would have been intimated by a woman not kept by a studio system. I am sure Bette gave great credence to brains and ambition, and new exactly what Mae was about.

I love them both, in very different ways. Actually, I think West tended to be rather prim (despite her innuendos and the stable of "studs" she surrounded herself with)--she didn't drink, for example, whereas Bette was more free-wheeling with language--she knew where to find the booze, the boys, and the smokes. There was the Yankee side of her, to be sure, but not in the studied performative style of Hepburn, whom I think I would have found insufferable to be around, despite her talent.

Mae always seemed lower class and Bette seemed more upper crust.

They both came from fairly modest backgrounds.

Mae liked Dick.

I think Bette Davis would have considered herself a "real actress", meaning that she would have tried to create the persona that was going to appear in whatever role she was appearing in - whereas Mae West only ever really portrayed herself (or at least her public persona). I think Bette would have respected Mae for controlling her fate by not being a victim of the studio system, which Bette has a number of well-publicized fights with. There's a famous interview with Bette shortly after making Baby Jane, in which she partly defends Joan Crawford, by calling her "professional". (She said that Joan showed up on time, knowing her lines and her blocking). But then she quickly adds that they were very different kinds of actresses, the implication being that Bette was a "real" actress, and Joan was just a Hollywood star. I don't think that Bette would have considered Mae an actress, more of a "personality". Hard to say what Mae would have thought of Bette, because no matter the situation, she was always wise-cracking as her public persona. She never gave a glimpse into the person underneath or what that person thought about anything.

R5 I guess that makes Bette the better actress then. She seemed more East Coast elite. Mae West seemed more like carnival or circus people.

I think a lot of you need read up on Mae West. She was a female playwright, screenwriter, produced her own films and was a self made millionaire. No matter what she was in her public persona, I think people in Hollywood knew what a powerhouse she was in the industry, and was basically printing money at some points in her career. I think Bette Davis would have been very well aware of who she was and what it would take to be a woman in Hollywood and achieve everything that Mae did. I think she would have a great respect for her. Mae never pretended to be a great actress. I think that was Bette's major issue with Joan. Joan thought she was a great actress. I am sure Bette knew Mae was a very smart woman.

I'm not sure that Joan Crawford felt that she was a great actress. She was very well aware that she was a major Hollywood star and that she her name on a marquee could help a picture succeed. That's different, although related, and Bette Davis would have encountered many other movie stars who had only moderate acting talent during her career and would not have hated them for that. Bette was well aware that she was not as objectively beautiful as many of the other movie stars of her time, but in a way, that lack of beauty actually gave her a broader range of roles to choose from - for instance, playing Queen Elizabeth I. . The camera loved Joan Crawford more than it did Bette, and Joan was very proficient in getting the sort of lighting and makeup that would heighten her looks., She was more clever about that than many others of her generation and that gave her more longevity as a film star. (She had that in common with Mae West). .

I think that Bette Davis had two beefs with her. One is that Bette was in love with Franchot Tone, and Joan Crawford stole him from her and married him. The other is that Joan Crawford was pissed that Bette was nominated for an Oscar for Baby Jane and that she was not, and, according to Bette, called up a lot of friends in Hollywood and asked them not to vote for Bette, but for some of the other actresses nominated that year, thus denying Bette her 3rd Oscar win. Bette never forgave her for either transgression.

I agree that Mae managed her career very well and outfoxed a lot of male-dominated parts of the film industry. She's entertaining to watch in her films, but it's more like watching a standup comedienne than watching an actress. A person would never attend a Mae West film for the plot or to shed a tear.

Obviously, Davis' dislike of Crawford pre-dated "Baby Jane" and the Franchot Tone thing would have been a big part. The other would have been Warner's unsubtle signing of Crawford in the 40s and her transition to roles that Davis could have played, like Mildred Pierce.

Given Crawford's transition to looking like Groucho Marx during the 50s, I'd say she lost control of being able to have herself be photographed in a way that was flattering, not that the melodramas she did in the 50s at places like Universal would have afford a budget for the best technicians.

When Mr. Ed Met Mae West...

r11, I agree that Joan's eyebrow makeup got the best of her over time - but she was at least as old as Bette Davis, if not 2 years older and compare the pictures of them below from publicity for Baby Jane

Even sadder is that they were probably younger than I am when that picture was taken. Maybe I need to draw on big black arched eyebrows!