Playboy Interview: Bette Davis

As far back as 1935, an observer suggested, "Bette Davis would probably be burned as a witch if she had lived 200 or 300 years ago. She gives the curious feeling of being charged with power that can find no ordinary outlet." More than a legend, Davis today is the indestructible first lady in that select company of all-time-great movie stars once described by a French critic as "the sacred monsters" of cinema. There's nothing halfway about her, never has been, but the unmistakable Davis imprint on a role--achieved by her head-on collision with more than 80 films--has won her two best-actress Oscars and a total of ten nominations, an awesome record. In 1977, she received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award (she is, so far, the only actress thus honored), which seemed to certify her standing as the dowager empress of screen drama--with Katharine Hepburn the only possible challenger to her throne.

Davis arrived in Hollywood as a promising Broadway ingénue more than half a century ago, in 1930, and was so controversial from the very start that an entire history of American movies might be written around her triumphs, defeats, fierce battles and occasional Pyrrhic victories. At first, it was young Bette who felt the barbs for being unbeautiful, atypical and altogether out of step with what movie moguls believed a star ought to look like. A couple of decades--and a couple of Academy Awards--later, she would become the unlikely synthesis of radiant Hollywood glamor and cynical Broadway chic in her definitive role, as Margo Channing in "All About Eve." Her campy, mannered, flamboyant, egomaniacal Margo is a superb performance, often (wrongly) thought to be a self-portrait--bits and pieces of Bette Davis with sly Tallulah Bankhead undertones.

Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born of solid Yankee stock in Lowell, Massachusetts, on April 5, 1908, during a mighty thunderstorm that seemed in retrospect to have been an apt piece of celestial stage managing. As a young girl, she impulsively gave herself a new first name, borrowing from Balzac's novel "La Cousine Bette," and stubbornly retained the spelling after her father mocked it as just a whim. Her parents separated when she was seven, and the abrupt departure of her father--a patent lawyer named Harlow Morrell Davis--left Bette with a younger sister, Bobby, and her beloved mother, Ruthie, who became a roving photographer to support her daughters.

Once she decided to become an actress, while still in her teens, Bette was unstoppable. Eva Le Gallienne rejected her as too "frivolous" for Madam's prestigious repertory theater, so she went to drama school instead; got hired for her first professional job with George Cukor's winter-stock company in Rochester, New York (Cukor subsequently fired her); ushered and acted in summer stock at Cape Cod; finally made her New York debut in 1929, at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village, in a play called "The Earth Between." Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times called her "an entrancing creature." A year or so later, Bette Davis was summoned to Hollywood.

Dismayed by wretched roles in six bottom-drawer movies during 1931-1932, Bette was packed to go back to New York in defeat when England's venerable George Arliss phoned to say he needed a fresh young leading lady for his new production, "The Man Who Played God," at Warner Bros. Davis unpacked, destined for her first big hit, and stayed to make 14 more films until 1934, when Warner's reluctantly lent her to a rival studio to play the slatternly Mildred opposite Leslie Howard in W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage." With that, the misunderstood and frequently miscast starlet became a major star.

Davis didn't win her first Oscar until "Dangerous," the following year, but found a friendlier climate for a time at Warner's. Meanwhile, she had married "Ham". Nelson, her high school sweet-heart, in August 1932--still a virgin on her wedding day, at the age of 24. The marriage was destined to be as stormy as her career, for Nelson by then had his own night-club orchestra but nothing to match his wife's fierce ambition and earning power. Inevitably, the strains increased, and Davis became the ex-Mrs. Nelson while shooting "Juarez" with Paul Muni in 1938.

Two years earlier, she had staged a revolution against the peonage of the studio-contract system when she walked out on her Warner Bros, contract. The studio sought an injunction to stop her from making two films abroad, and the subsequent trial, in London, cost Davis more than $30,000. She lost. Nevertheless, her firm convictions persuaded Jack L. Warner to pick up her court costs and give her better roles--propelling her into her golden era, highlighted by "Jezebel" (for which she won her second Oscar, in 1938), "Juarez," "Dark Victory," "The Old Maid," "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (all released in 1939), "The Letter" (1940, with director William Wyler), "The Little Foxes" (1941, again with Wyler) and her classic "woman's picture," "Now, Voyager" (1942). During that peak period, she was sometimes referred to as the fourth Warner brother.

Her offscreen life was far less satisfactory. Married for the second time, on New Year's Eve, 1940, to aircraft engineer Arthur "Farney" Farnsworth, who was night manager at a New England inn when she met him, Davis found domestic bliss elusive and brief. In August 1943, Farnsworth collapsed on Hollywood Boulevard and died the next day from a previously undiagnosed cranial injury. In November 1945, Bette married artist William Grant Sherry after a month's acquaintance. Their daughter, B.D., was born in May 1947, during a period otherwise characterized by Bette's steady professional decline in a series of pictures that fortified the public's image of her as a chain-smoking, hip-swinging, saucer-eyed caricature. It was in "Beyond the Forest" (1949) that Bette said "What a dump!" and collected the worst reviews of her career. She dumped Sherry shortly after, their divorce becoming final on July 4, 1950. Three weeks later, she married actor Gary Merrill, her virile co-star in "All About Eve," a comeback and a triumph on all counts.

During a lively but "black" decade with Merrill, Bette settled in Maine, in a house they called Witch Way, and the couple adopted two children: Margot, in 1951, and Michael, in 1952. In the wake of "Eve," sickness and tragedy dogged Bette. Young Margot was found to be brain-damaged and ultimately had to be institutionalized.

Davis' own health slumped during her return to Broadway in a sold-out but critically unsung 1952 musical revue, "Two's Company," which she had to leave to undergo jaw surgery for osteomyelitis. She would go back to the stage in full sail several more times--notably in Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana," in 1961. Since 1973, when she made the first of her appearances as a legendary lady of movies, she has toured regularly in a sight-and-sound "Bette Davis in Person" show, consisting of film clips and fast answers from the podium.

Her marriage to Merrill came to an end in 1960, followed by fractious years of thrashing through a custody fight over Michael. By then, she was past 50, a seemingly fading star in the Margo Channing image she had immortalized a decade earlier. Then came "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" in 1962, in which Davis' baby-Grand Guignol put her right back in the game with her tenth Oscar nomination (but brought little joy to co-star Joan Crawford).

No snob about TV, as far back as the Fifties Davis had begun to shift gears and ensure her durability. Since 1970, she has been one of the upstart medium's hardest-working actresses, doing everything from movies of the week to Westerns, working always with the same indefatigable, compulsive energy that often drives her frazzled colleagues up the wall.

Davis currently resides in West Hollywood, presumably pondering new challenges, munching on her laurels and eating journalists for breakfast. We sent Playboy Contributing Editor and movie critic Bruce Williamson to face the formidable lady in her lair. He reports:

"She is shorter than you expect, with Bette Davis eyes, hair, voice, hands--Bette Davis everything--wearing a shirt and a flowered-print skirt. Greeting me at the door with a firm Yankee hand-shake, she led me into her warm, woody top-floor apartment, which, except for its wide-screen view of smoggy Hollywood, might be a cottage in Maine.

"In my line of work, I find few celebrities who still have the power to strike me with awe. This was the day--genuine movie-fan excitement on my part, and the first interview session passed nervously. But on the second day, she wore little or no make-up, had her hair tucked under a visored baseball cap and said, 'I curled my hair for you yesterday because it was the first time we'd met.'

"Now she obviously meant business, and although she rarely permits herself to be interviewed at home, she had decided to give me a tour of her apartment, 'which is really rather a museum. I think you'll find it interesting.' Indeed, I did. Framed Davis memorabilia every-where--an Edith Head costume sketch for 'All About Eve'; a sketch of her Carlota costume from 'Juarez' above an authentic sketch of Carlota signed by the empress herself; a photo collection of Bette with her political heroes--F.D.R., Al Smith, several Kennedys, Anwar Sadat. Framed on the wall near the door is a New Yorker cartoon depicting two matronly matineegoers outside a theater, one saying: 'I like Bette Davis and I like Joan Crawford. But I don't know if I like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.'

"She calls the small bright alcove off her terrace 'my blood, sweat and tears room,' because it's the resting place of her Oscars--the first so tarnished and aged that it looks greenish-gray rather than gold--and of innumerable awards, citations and plaques. In her living room, there's a chaise with an afghan draped over it, done in a ladybug design for the good luck they bring. There's also a small needlework pillow bearing the words No Guts No Glory, which speaks for itself.

"Whenever we settled down to talk, Davis smoked steadily, striking large kitchen matches on the underside of an end table if she didn't find a lighter handy. No booze was served while the tape machine ran--a house rule, she informed me with a knowing smile to indicate she's learned a few tricks of the trade through the years.

"By the beginning of the fourth day, she was becoming rather tired of talking about herself and greeted me plaintively with: 'Before you came to Los Angeles, I had a life beyond Playboy.' She readily acknowledged, however, that she had agreed to do this and, by God, she would see it through.

"One memorable evening, after we had finished taping, we were joined by Marilyn Grabowski, Playboy's West Coast Photo Editor. We had drinks in the trophy room off the terrace. Bette put on an LP titled 'Miss Bette Davis,' an EMI record made in England some five years ago but never released in the U. S. It's a collection of movie theme songs, including such standards as 'Until It's Time for You to Go' and 'I Wish You Love.' 'I'm going to have that last one sung at my funeral . . . it's all arranged,' said Davis, who gave us a private sing-along performance of virtually the entire album with frequent asides, really acting in a hushed, hoarse whisper a number called 'Loneliness,' campily croaking 'I've Written a Letter to Daddy,' from 'Baby Jane.' Still into it, she sat there with a glorious sunset behind her while Hollywood itself slowly faded into a backdrop of distant twinkling lights in the darkness. Bette, in close-up, had an enthralled audience of two. Such a great Bette Davis finale, I wondered later whether she had planned it that way. Now we flash back to the beginning."

[A] Davis: Is this going to be one of those lovely, long, old-fashioned interviews like they used to do years ago?

[Q] Playboy: Maybe even lovelier and longer. But, to begin, do you have any idea how intimidating Bette Davis is supposed to be?

[A] Davis: Oh, I'm supposed to be frightening. But until you're thought of that way, I think you haven't made it! This involves, of course, making many enemies. And if you don't dare to be hated, you're never going to get there. Never! I think that unless you provoke great pros and cons about your work, you are really not a very important performer. To be an uncontroversial actor is nothing to aim for.

[Q] Playboy: But you didn't start out aiming to be controversial, surely. Or did you?

[A] Davis: No, of course not. I just worked very hard and, well [points to her couch], like that little pillow says, No Guts No Glory. I had a lot of guts to fight for what I believed in, and that makes enemies. It wasn't easy, and today I am very grateful that I did what I did, since all these films of mine are displayed year after year after year. . . . How could I know that would happen? Yet I thank God that I really put forth an effort to make them good.

[Q] Playboy: And that was often an uphill fight?

[A] Davis: Very often, yes. Yet, you see, there's a great misconception about the terms temper and temperament. Because anyone without temperament is never going to make it in the arts, in any art. But temper is a totally different thing. People who scream and yell and carry on . . . that's not temperament, that's just bad behavior.

[Q] Playboy: You're saying you raised hell only over important issues rather than indulged in ego trips over another actor's close-ups.

[A] Davis: Exactly. I never did that. I always wanted everybody around me to be the best, because you're only as good as the people you work with. I was always strong in my beliefs, and my kind of person is difficult to cope with, but I have never had a jealous moment in my life. I just prayed to God I got good people.

[Q] Playboy: You certainly worked with a lot of people. At the beginning, wasn't it at Universal Studios that you were subjected to an infamous day of screen tests with 15 men?

[A] Davis: Yes, but it was just one of the things they made me do. First, the Universal man in New York wanted to change my name to Bettina Dawes. Then, when I got to Hollywood, I was the test girl, with all these men flopping on top of me, one after another, with the cameras over to the right. Oh, it was terrible! And I wasn't some little . . . nobody, you know. I'd been in the theater for three years and I'd been very successful, too. It was insulting, just torture.

[Q] Playboy: Who were the men? Anybody we know?

[A] Davis: All actors, and I don't remember any of them except that beautiful Mexican Gilbert Roland--terrific, a gorgeous guy--whom I worked with at warner's years later. He was the only one who sort of knew I was in agony; he was just darling to me and whispered: "Don't worry, it won't always be like this."

[Q] Playboy: Did you raise any hell at the time?

[A] Davis: Heavens, no. They had me under contract. That was my day's work.

[Q] Playboy: Coming from Broadway, did you find it difficult to adapt to acting for the screen? Did you have to learn to be more low-key?

[A] Davis: [Flaring visibly] Low-key? Never! I did not buy it! Never, never! I fought that battle from the beginning. I think acting should be larger than life. The writing, the scripts should be larger than life. It should all be larger than life.

[Q] Playboy: Did anyone ever suggest you play down a bit for the camera?

[A] Davis: Oh, over and over. You still run into directors today who tell you that, but I never bought that theory at all: "Do less in a close-up than you do in a long shot. Don't, for God's sake, give any suggestion that you're acting. Just be natural. . . ." No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

[Q] Playboy: The message is coming through: You like things larger than life.

[A] Davis: Personally, no; not in private. Those are two different things. I'm talking about acting now. I've been very fortunate with reviews, number one. But the biggest over-all criticism through the years has been that I'm too much. That's usually when I'm acting with people who don't do anything, so of course I look like I'm doing too much. That has never depressed me, because that's the way I do things, and that's the critic's taste; if he doesn't like what I do, I'm sorry. But I believed my way would work, and I proved it.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel at the American Film Institute tribute four years ago, hearing your praises sung, watching all those film clips of the characters you've played?

[A] Davis: Well, it was impressive but torture. You think about yourself as a young girl who started out in he New York theater back in 1928, 1929, whatever, and then, suddenly, there you are that evening. It was awesome . . . just fracturing.

[Q] Playboy: Was there a particular moment when you knew you had become a movie star?

[A] Davis: The big moment for me, I suppose, was the day I walked up Broadway and saw my name blazing in lights on the marquee of the Warner theater. That's a thrill for any performer. My mother and I stood there, just seeing it, and I said, "Well--progress." You know, it's terrific to reach that point, but it never affected how I feel about me.

[Q] Playboy: Which you attribute to your Yankee common sense?

[A] Davis: Yes. And my father gave me a very good brain, so that helps you hang on. There's a beautiful book--I think it's My Grandmother Called It Carnal--all about the rigidity of a Yankee upbringing. No catering, no sloppiness, no softness. No comfortable chairs in the house, no really soft beds.

[Q] Playboy: Comfort was carnal?

[A] Davis: Oh, yes. And even now, I don't really enjoy a thing if it's too easy. I'm very strange. That's one reason Joe Mankiewicz suggested what should be my epitaph: Here Lies Bette Davis--She Did It The Hard Way.

[Q] Playboy: Do you still see yourself as a solid Yankee with a passion for order?

[A] Davis: Definitely. I can't bear disorganization, in the kitchen or anywhere. A place for everything, everything in its place. I feel sorry for people who waste their time hunting for things. This is hereditary, too. I got it from my father. He could go through a pitch-dark room and find handkerchiefs, socks, whatever. . . .

[Q] Playboy: You make yourself sound like some kind of Yankee-Doodle Dandy. One would think you were born on the Fourth of July.

[A] Davis: [Hoot of laughter] Strangely enough, I was conceived on the Fourth of July, on Squirrel Island, in Maine, in circumstances that probably affected my whole life; who knows? My parents were on their honeymoon, married July first, and due to a water shortage, my mother could not properly take care of herself to keep from becoming pregnant. Which put my father into an absolute rage, screaming at everybody in the hotel, raising hell. He was just wild, but . . . well, nobody could get rid of me. My mother had many, many friends in Lowell, Massachusetts, but I arrived exactly nine months later, so they weren't able to say she was pregnant when she was married. Her reputation came out clean.

[Q] Playboy: And you were born during-----

[A] Davis: A thunderstorm, in my grand-mother's house in Lowell. Very tumultuous beginnings, you see. My father was never meant to be a father, in any case. He despised little babies--thought children should be seen and not heard--so we almost never saw him. He was never meant to marry, either, really. Mother and Daddy were divorced when I was seven years old.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel that strengthened you, in a way?

[A] Davis: Oh, I was born with strength, born liberated, the whole thing. There's no question about it. I never really had a father, in my opinion, and I was glad he and my mother separated, because they didn't get along. He was a brilliant, cruel, sarcastic man. He came to see my first play in New York and was really very proud, though it was he who'd said, "This theater is just nonsense. . . . Send her to secretarial school; she'll make money quicker."

[Q] Playboy: During your teens, didn't you once have a date with Henry Fonda? In his December 1981 Playboy Interview, he said he kissed you and received a follow-up letter from you accepting his proposal, which scared hell out of him.

[A] Davis: I don't remember that much, honest to God. I only know we went to Princeton and ended up in the stadium, a beautiful moonlit night. I met him through a beau of my sister's. He may have kissed me. He was very shy, Hank, very shy. This was long before the Cape Playhouse, where I saw him again. . . . Aahh. [Deep sigh]

[Q] Playboy: What's that for? Do you still have a crush on him?

[A] Davis: No, though he was very beautiful. He just never took to me. We were making Jezebel together when his daughter Jane was born.

[Q] Playboy: One of the earliest show-business stories about you is your being fired from a Rochester stock company by George Cukor. You've never explained why.

[A] Davis: Really, I didn't live up to what was expected in those days of a stock-company ingénue, who had other duties . . . you know what I'm talking about. Socializing. Socializing very seriously, let us say, with people in the company. That was just not my cup of tea.

[Q] Playboy: Was that a clearly stated prerequisite for holding your job?

[A] Davis: Clearly stated, no. But I understood it.

[Q] Playboy: That sounds like just a minor early skirmish. Let's go through the Bette Davis wars later on, starting with your famous case against Warner Bros.

[A] Davis: That was fighting for good scripts and directors. Decent parts, great directors. I wasn't getting them; that was my particular beef when I walked out on Warner Bros. and went to England. Because I knew I'd have no career the way things were going. Making movies like Parachute Jumper, Bureau of Missing Persons, The Big Shakedown. Oh, it was terrible!

[Q] Playboy: After they took you to court in London, you lost your case but more or less won your point, didn't you?

[A] Davis: Well, they respected me more when I came back. They didn't fool around so much. And the first role I was given was in Marked Woman, a very good picture, with Bogey.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you miss out on an even better part, however--Scarlett O'Hara?

[A] Davis: That was bought for me by Jack Warner and his people before I left for England. Warner sent for me and said, "Please don't leave--I just bought a wonderful book for you." And I said, "I'll bet it's a pip!" and walked out of his office. Well, much later, David Selznick acquired Gone with the Wind from Warner and wanted me to do it with Errol Flynn, but I wouldn't have done it with Flynn, so that was really no great disappointment.

Everything worked out, because, mean-while, I had the pleasure of doing Jezebel and winning the Oscar for it. And if I may be privileged to say so, I really think that [director] Willie Wyler's feeling of the South, in Jezebel, was more truly Southern, even, than Gone with the Wind's. My favorite story about Gone with the Wind, of course, is about the college president who said, "If the South had had that many soldiers, they'd have won the war."

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't The African Queen also meant to be a Bette Davis movie during your years at Warner's?

[A] Davis: I wouldn't put it that way, but they bought it for me and then I left Warner's for good in 1948. I always wanted to do it with John Mills, the English actor, who would have been absolutely perfect for it at the time. This was not my largest disappointment, but I was let down. Such a marvelous part.

[Q] Playboy: Once you began to get the great parts and had the power to do so, you were known for being rough on directors. At what point would you decide that you might have to take over some of the director's job?

[A] Davis: You would find that out pretty soon. There were different varieties. First, the chauvinistic director who had to win, as a man--while you, as a woman, could have the best ideas in the world and his male ego could not allow you to be right. Then there was the director who simply wasn't competent, as you soon learned by how he directed you and the rest of the cast. Then, if the script wasn't right . . . oh, my scripts were some mess of rewriting in those days! When you had a good script, as in All About Eve, you wouldn't touch it. But on Now, Voyager, my script was scratched to pieces. I'd sit up nights and restore scenes from Olive Higgins Prouty's novel; they were right just the way she had written them. Such situations didn't make you popular, though; nope.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you order two sets of costumes for one of your Elizabethan movies?

[A] Davis: Yes. Michael Curtiz, who directed The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, never should have directed it at all, because it just was not his type of film. He was great for the very flamboyant kind of thing Flynn did. And he said, "No, no, you can't have the skirts so big, so many ruffs," etc. The designer and I had copied the Holbein paintings of the era. So we just went and made up a totally different wardrobe and got it tested and approved by Curtiz. Then, when we started shooting and wore the original clothes, nobody ever knew the difference. I had very definite ideas about costumes, hair, all those details. As the star, you're the one who gets the blame or the praise in the end, when a film comes out. And that is something you must never, never forget. Wyler--and he was a very tough man to work for--said one day, "I don't care what goes on while we make this picture; I care only about what the audience sees when they pay for it." Well, that was the basis of any difficulties I perpetrated. Definitely. I was going to get it right, one way or another. When I had differences with incompetent directors, it was really self-preservation. And that's why, when I see my films today, those scripts don't embarrass me, the performances don't embarrass me, the clothes don't embarrass me. . . .

[Q] Playboy: And you fought for all of it?

[A] Davis: Oh, yes, I fought . . . always. Now, of course, you and I know that movies are a director's and a cameraman's medium, totally. But I still believe audiences don't go to see directors; they go to see people.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about the time you were president of the motion picture academy. Didn't you resign just a few days after you took the job?

[A] Davis: Oh, it was longer than that. But I definitely resigned. [Darryl] Zanuck put me in there, for whatever reason--as just a figurehead, I suspect. As with everything I've ever done, I took the job seriously and had excellent ideas, all of which were pooh-poohed. I was the first to suggest that they abolish votes by extras, which they all thought was the wildest thing they'd ever heard. Well, three quarters of the Hollywood extras at that time couldn't even speak English, and to have extras voting for the Oscars was absolutely absurd. Thousands of them. If you were up for an Oscar and you bought them ice cream every Saturday afternoon, you'd get it. Absolutely ridiculous. When Jean Hersholt came in as president after me, he got this rule changed. But I threatened to quit, and Zanuck finally said: "If you resign, you'll never work again in this town." Some years later, he begged me to come play Margo Channing. That was kind of fun.

[Q] Playboy: While we're on the subject, will you tell how you personally started the tradition of calling the Academy Award the "Oscar"?

[A] Davis: Well, the rear end of it looked like my first husband's, Ham Nelson's, bare behind. And Ham's middle name was Oscar, which I didn't even know for years. He had never told me, he hated the name so.

[Q] Playboy: How did the rest of the world learn about this?

[A] Davis: I really can't remember. It's all so far back, and the academy resents enormously the fact that I've gotten credit for the name. I don't believe it was called the Oscar until after I got one and really looked at it, which was . . . oh, God, 1000 years ago! It was my consolation prize for Dangerous. But whether or not I named it officially isn't going to make a bit of difference in my life. At this point, they may have the honor; I return it to them!

[Q] Playboy: You mentioned a consolation prize. Do you still feel that the Oscars you received are not those you wanted and most deserved?

[A] Davis: Yeah, I should have gotten one for Baby Jane. Definitely. I hadn't thought there was a doubt in the world, and that was a huge disappointment.

[Q] Playboy: Who won instead?

[A] Davis: Anne Bancroft, for The Miracle Worker. But I have always felt that an actor who's played a part onstage for two or three years should be in a different category. Playing a part you've never played before is a much bigger test. They make this kind of distinction in other categories; with writers, for instance. Anyway, that year, 1962, I felt I should have had it, no matter who else was up.

[Q] Playboy: What about the other Oscars?

[A] Davis: I'd say I won honestly for Jezebel. But Dangerous . . . . You know, there was just no comparison between that and Of Human Bondage. Well, the entire town thought I would win for Bondage, but It Happened One Night swept everything that year, and everyone said it was a cheat. That's what used to happen. The Price Waterhouse accounting came in the following year, because of it. The academy received hundreds of letters saying what a gyp it was, so they hired Price Waterhouse. All the studios used to divide the prizes up, really. They're much fairer today than they were.

[Q] Playboy: Anything else?

[A] Davis: I should have had it for All About Eve, and that was another case of the stage thing--Judy Holliday's winning for redoing her Broadway role in Born Yesterday. Now, [Gloria] Swanson was up for an award that same year, for Sunset Boulevard, and if she'd won, I'd have shouted hooray. She was sensational, just fantastic, and she had never won. But who knows; she may still. I think they decide to give you one just before you die. Of course, someone like Garbo never won--and should have for Camille, no question about it. She was brilliant. But people resented her. She made all her money here and she hadn't become a citizen, and everyone resented that very much. It was the same with Chaplin.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever receive a nomination as best supporting actress?

[A] Davis: No, and I don't want one. I would refuse it. I'm not going to be in that position, because my name is always billed above the title. My role in Death on the Nile was small, yet I had star billing. I will never be below the title, so I will never be in a supporting category.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't it true that some of your best roles tended to be the definitive film versions of plays other actresses had done on Broadway?

[A] Davis: Mmmm. I was disappointed myself, I must say, when I played The Night of the Iguana on Broadway and did not get to do it on the screen, because I was never asked. Ava Gardner got the part. But motion-picture producers always say, "Pooh--we don't want her; she's not box office." That's why Julie Andrews didn't get My Fair Lady. Angela Lansbury absolutely should have done the movie of Mame; Ethel Merman should have done Gypsy. It's terrible, terrible.

[Q] Playboy: But we were referring to your being on the other end of this unfair trade-off. Weren't Jezebel, Dark Victory and The Little Foxes all Tallulah Bankhead stage vehicles originally?

[A] Davis: Yes, though I believe Miriam Hopkins wound up playing in Jezebel. And Dark Victory was not enormously successful on the stage.

[Q] Playboy: Bankhead rather resented you, didn't she?

[A] Davis: She wasn't madly in love with me. We met at a Warner's party, where she said, "You've played all the parts I've played on the stage, and I was so much better." And I said, "Miss Bankhead, I agree with you." As a matter of fact, I tried to get [Sam] Goldwyn to let her do The Little Foxes, another of those situations where they wouldn't take the stage star. Sinful. Then it became a very complicated story with Wyler, because he wanted me to play the movie totally differently and I said, "I'm sorry, but the way Miss Bankhead played it is the way [Lillian] Hellman wrote it," so it became a kind of permanent argument, in a way. Yet now I think it's a wonderful picture.

[Q] Playboy: Was there any truth in the story that you were doing a bit of Bank-head shtick in All About Eve?

[A] Davis: No truth at all. She claimed that, and we've always had a certain resemblance, with that long bob she had, but no . . . we never even thought of her. Bankhead was far more eccentric than Margo Channing.

[Q] Playboy: There was no genuine feud between you?

[A] Davis: She had a certain thing about me, no question, partly because I was successful in films. She did a radio show for years on which she used to take me to the cleaners all the time, but . . . well, she wasn't terribly good on the screen, which I think was a big disappointment to her. She did Lifeboat and a role as Catherine of Russia; that's about it. She always played Tallulah Bankhead, and she was a fascinating woman--when she behaved herself. She usually gave a great opening-night performance, and that was it.

[Q] Playboy: Were there any authentic feuds between you and fellow performers?

[A] Davis: Never, really. I don't have feuds. Professionally, there's no way I could work if I were having a feud. It's just not my nature. It's true there was an unspoken war between Miriam Hopkins and me, because she fought me every foot of the way. Miriam was a wonderful actress but a bitch, the most thoroughgoing bitch I've ever worked with. She used to drive me mad, but I never blew up at her, because if you let her get to you, you'd be the loser. So I coped with her, but I'd go home and just scream my head off afterward . . . really scream.

[Q] Playboy: What about your alleged feud with Joan Crawford?

[A] Davis: I never feuded with Crawford in my life. [Slowly] Never any problem at all, I repeat for the record. During Baby Jane, the whole world hoped we would fight but we did not. We were both pros. With three weeks to make the picture, can you imagine we'd spend time feuding?

[Q] Playboy: You weren't exactly friends, though, were you?

[A] Davis: Socially, we never knew each other, no. But that doesn't mean anything.

[Q] Playboy: Earlier, before Baby Jane but after Eve, you had made another film about an actress....

[A] Davis:The Star. That was one of the best scripts ever written about an untalented, movie-mad actress. Well, of course, you know whom it was written about, don't you?

[Q] Playboy: That was going to be the next question.

[A] Davis: Crawford. It was written by the Eunsons, Katherine Albert and Dale Eunson, two of the biggest writers in the business. She, in particular, was a fan-magazine writer who'd done most of the stories about Crawford. Oh, and I kept saying "Bless you" to the crew, all that sort of thing she did. Oh, yes, that was Crawford. I often wondered if she ever realized it, but I never, never knew. I wasn't imitating her, of course. It was just that whole approach of hers to the business as regards the importance of glamor and all the offstage things. Yet, believe me, these women were responsible for the public's fascination with Hollywood, much ore so than people like me. Much more.

[Q] Playboy: You mean the American dream of what a movie star is supposed to be?

[A] Davis: Absolutely. And Joan was the epitome of this. I got another Oscar nomination for The Star, an independent picture . . . Fox never spent a dime publicizing it.

[Q] Playboy: While we're on the subject of Crawford, did you read Mommie Dearest?

[A] Davis: Yes, and I don't blame the daughter, don't blame her at all. She was left without a cent, living in a motor home in Tarzana, and I doubt she could have written this if it weren't true. One area of life Joan should never have gone into was children. She bought them . . . paid thousands for them, and there was a role she was not right for. No, I don't blame Christina Crawford; I don't think anyone would invent her book. You couldn't just make it up.

[Q] Playboy: You believe Crawford's mother role was just another publicity gimmick?

[A] Davis: But of course! Christina's very honest about that. Joan was the perfect mother in front of the public but not behind the front door. She wanted this image that just wasn't meant for her. I've never behaved like . . . well, I doubt that my children will write a book.

[Q] Playboy: Then you feel you've succeeded pretty well in your mother role.

[A] Davis: I love my children, love them and actually brought them up by myself. They were still very young when Gary and I were divorced. B.D. was the oldest, but Mike and Margot were fairly young, and one being a boy child--not easy. Of course, I didn't have any children until my career was basically made. I was 39 years old when I had B.D. So I've always spent a great deal of time with them, and I'm terribly grateful I didn't have children when I was much younger.

[Q] Playboy: You mean because you'd have had to turn them over to boarding schools and baby sitters?

[A] Davis: But I wouldn't have. I never would have done that. I think I'd have chosen the children and had an entirely different sort of life.

[Q] Playboy: You'd have given up your career?

[A] Davis: Oh, definitely. As dedicated as I was, with the kind of drive I had, I soon realized my career was an all-consuming affair.

[Q] Playboy: You've talked about having had an abortion-----

[A] Davis: I had two--during my first marriage, to Ham Nelson. I don't want to talk about my marriages. But . . . well, that's what he wanted. Being the dutiful wife, that's what I did. And I guess I will thank him all my life. Because if I'd had those two children. . . . I see myself at 50, with the children all grown up, wondering whether or not I ever would have made it. I think there's nothing sadder, and I'm sure I'd have given it all up if I'd had children earlier.

[Q] Playboy: We seem to have backed into an answer as to where you stand politically on abortion.

[A] Davis: I believe abortion is better than having 10,000,000 children you can't support! Of course, there are many people against it, the Catholic Church's big argument being that you're killing a human being. Perfect nonsense! Ridiculous, this murder thing! There is no child involved if you get an abortion at one month. I've seen an awful lot of this famous-parent business with children . . . oh, boy, have I! There's one great thing happening today. When I was a child, born in 1908, education taught you that your destiny was to marry and have children. Just because you're a woman--but that is not your destiny. There are many great women who were just never meant to be mothers, that's all. We are improving this way enormously.

[Q] Playboy: Yet you're an extremely ambitious woman, who has children and no regrets-----

[A] Davis: Oh, today, if I didn't have my children and my grandchildren, I'd be the most bored human being who ever lived! They're my top priority in life.

[Q] Playboy: Are your grandchildren aware of you as Bette Davis, with any notion of what that means?

[A] Davis: Well, of course. B.D.'s son Ashley is 13; what are you talking about? He played a very big part with me in Family Reunion, a recent film on TV. We don't know how far his aspirations go, but he loved doing it.

[Q] Playboy: Does he know your films?

[A] Davis: Oh, certainly, up to a point.

[Q] Playboy: Let's go back to those movies. What are your personal all-time favorites?

[A] Davis: Well, the basic thrill occurs when a film comes out the way you'd dreamed about it when you began--and that means the total film, the script, everything; not just my own part. By this standard, Dark Victory was a favorite. Jezebel was one and Now, Voyager.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds as if those you liked best were also your biggest successes.

[A] Davis: No; well, they all succeeded from that point on. Elizabeth succeeded; The Letter succeeded; but they weren't necessarily my favorites. Playing Elizabeth was a thrill, but I have to admit I wasn't mad about having Errol Flynn in it. I would have loved to have had Laurence Olivier, thank you very much.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ask for Oliver?

[A] Davis: No, I didn't honestly think of it at the time, and Warner's wanted Errol. Soon after All About Eve, I gave what I consider one of my best performances, in Payment on Demand, among the best bloody films ever done about this driving kind of American woman . . . oh, that was written for me! I was a great part of that story, which was originally called The Story of a Divorce--which is what it should have been called, because what it should have been called, because that's what it was all about.

[Q] Playboy: Why was the title changed?

[A] Davis: Howard Hughes was the producer, and he messed around with the ending. We had the perfect ending, where she's got her husband back and starts all over again telling him what he should do about his career, and so forth, and he gets up and walks out. Marvelous. But Hughes wouldn't let us do that. He also insisted we call it Payment on Demand, a very cheap title, and made us end with a touching reunion at the front door. I begged him not to redo the ending, but I remember Hughes saying, "Doesn't every woman still want a roll in the hay?" And I said, "No--this is not her big drive after 35 years." I lost the argument, but it was still a terrific picture, excellently directed, just great.

[Q] Playboy: What about Eve?

[A] Davis: That was such a great, huge box-office success, which is why I've always told Mankiewicz, "You know you resurrected me from the dead." And, of course, I was never supposed to play that part. I was a replacement for Claudette Colbert . . . and, oh, what a happy replacement. She had something wrong with her back. Since then, the few times I've seen her, I've always said, "Thank you, dear, for your bad back."

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever see Applause, the musical version of Eve that Lauren Becall did on Broadway?

[A] Davis: Yes, but long years before she ever did it, I tried to buy the rights to All About Eve for a musical. And Fox wouldn't sell them. I always felt it was a natural, and I would have done that musical. I always imagined singing that song called Fasten Your Seat Belts--that wouldn't been incredible. Then, when I first saw it, Becall didn't even get a laugh on that line in the show, just banged a guitar and finished. I couldn't believe my ears--one of the most famous lines!

[Q] Playboy: So you feel they blew it?

[A] Davis: Oh, no, no, please don't ever imply I said that. I don't say that at all. But what she played was more like a Hollywood star than a theater star, and Margo was of the theater. There's a vast difference. I also saw Anne Baxter do Applause--the original Eve herself, who's a very dear friend, and she was marvelous; she emphasized the age thing of Margo somewhat more than Bacall did.

[Q] Playboy: Except for "Fasten your seat belts," probably the most famous Bette Davis line is "What a dump!" Do you ever use it these days?

[A] Davis: [Cackling wickedly] Ooohh, yes. I start every Bette Davis in Person show with this. A marvelous suggestion from my stage manager, becasue when we began, they were never sure whether to present me as a tragedy queen of cinema or a real human being. So we now open with film clips, ending with the "Fasten your seat belts" line from Eve. Then I come onstage, light a cigarette, look all around the auditorium and say, "What--a--dump!" Sometimes the theaters are dumps and sometimes they're gorgeous, but it's a marvelous idea either way. Really breaks the ice--people laugh and know they can sit back to relax with the show instead of having to revere me. I have a ball doing the show. I'll be doing it all my life, every now and then. I love it and I'm good at it, because I'm very quick.

[Q] Playboy: While you missed a chance to do the musical version of All About Eve, weren't you one of the first big movie stars to go back to Broadway in a musical, years before Rex Harrison started talk-singing in My Fair Lady?

[A] Davis: That was Two's Company, in the Fifties. Then I did Miss Moffat a few years ago, which I had to leave because of illness. I just love the whole field of music. During the war, Frank Loesser wrote They're Either Too Young or Too Old for me, as a jitterbug number in . . . oh, I have a hard time remembering these things.

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't that Thank Your Lucky Stars, in 1943?

[A] Davis: Thanks, yes. When I made my record album in England, I recorded the Loesser song; also the title song from Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte, because [Robert] Aldrich wouldn't let me record that for the film--which was stupid of him, I thought, because it's marvelous. Anyway, the original idea of Two's Company was to make fun of myself, you know, after 21 years of fame and being who I was. It was a fun idea, but some of the critics were furious with me, thinking I'd ducked my own field, I suppose, by not doing a drama.

[Q] Playboy: Do you expect to do any more stage work aside from your In Person show?

[A] Davis: I wouldn't do Broadway theater again for anything in the world. Never. I prefer films; I think theater is a dog's life, grueling. And I'm too selfish; I find eight shows a week absolutely inhuman, plus I cannot be replaced. Someone like me, from motion pictures, cannot have an understudy, because the box office for picture people is astronomical. Astronomical. If you don't appear, customers just get up and turn in their tickets. Therefore, you have a monkey on your back and aren't allowed even a small case of flu! It's frightening. So you sit around between shows and worry about your health--I find that a very stupid way to live. Anyway, acting in motion pictures is much more believable, in my opinion; you can do much more in a performance.

[Q] Playboy: Besides those we've mentioned, are there any other important roles you wanted to do and didn't, for whatever reason?

[A] Davis: There are three or four. One was The Visit, [Friedrich] Duerrenmatt's play, which I did everything in the world to get and would have been right for. They were making that in Italy with Ingrid Bergman while I was there on another film, and I have no comment on her performance--except that Miss Bergman was simply much too young and much too beautiful. I also wanted to do Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? That, of course, is where [Edward] Albee made the "What a dump!" line famous . . . when the heroine does an imitation of me. When I did the line originally, in Beyond the Forest, I just threw it away . . . absolutely nothing. Let me see . . . then I wanted to do the movie of Mame. I wrote Zanuck a letter saying I'd pay for my own test, I'd buy my own wardrobe if he'd let me test for Mame . . . .

[Q] Playboy: You wanted to play Mame in the movie musical?

[A] Davis: Yes, but Lucille Ball had already been signed. Then I was offered the wonderful part that Bea Arthur played, Mame's friend. But I don't think Miss Ball wanted me.

[Q] Playboy: You'd have played second finddle to Lucy?

[A] Davis: Certainly! That's a great part.

[Q] Playboy: On the other hand, are there any big Bette Davis films that you actively dislike or wish you hadn't done?

[A] Davis: The big ones, no. We're not talking about Parachute Jumper again, I hope. Well, In This Our Life was a bomb, dreadful, with Olivia de Havilland and me, directed by John Huston. From a great book. I was all wrong, too old for it. As a matter of fact, I had a great suggestion for Warner's publicity department. When In This Our Life was finished and turned out so bad, I suggested they take out big ads and quote Bette davis as saying this was the worst film she ever made . . . that would've been brilliant perverse publicity. But it was hard to get people to try new ideas.

[Q] Playboy: During all those ups and downs, were there any gurus or mentors who influenced your professional life?

[A] Davis: George Arliss was the first one, because he gave me my first decent part; William Wyler, who directed three of my best films; and Hal Wallis--my boss for ten years at Warner Bros. Those were my three great good-luck people.

[Q] Playboy: Considering the love-hate nature of your relationship with Warner Bros., exactly what did Wallis do for you?

[A] Davis: Well, he ran Warner Bros. He bought me all those books and New York plays--The Corn Is Green, The Old Maid, Old Acquaintance. All of them. Now, Voyager. Hal was interesting, because he didn't really like my work very much. He liked slapstick much more than drama. He told me eventually, after many years, that he'd never been able to stand my films. He just didn't like tragedy, but he said, "As long as you can sell it, I'll buy it." And we're still great friends.

[Q] Playboy: Before that, you had never suspected that Wallis secretly hated Bette Davis movies?

[A] Davis: No, I was very shocked. I couldn't believe it, really.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel about your leading men in movies? It seems pretty clear that Errol Flynn was not a favorite.

[A] Davis: Because he was not a very good actor. He said so himself. He was enormously beautiful, but it didn't mean anything to him to be known as a great actor, so he didn't really work very hard. He was kind of lazy, with a so-what attitude, which was not my attitude, Never, never, never! I didn't have favorite leading men, because Warner's was not like Metro, where they'd put teams together. We all carried films on our own. [Charles] Boyer was beautiful to work with. I was very fortunate to work with Leslie Howard. I always wanted to do a really important film with Bogey and once had a script called The Prizefighter and the Lady, which would have been ideal for us, though we didn't get to do it. George Brent was beautiful. Paul Henreid was beautiful. I made two films I enjoyed very much with Hank Fonda. Claude Rains was not exactly in the leading-man category, but what a wonderful actor. I made four films with him and he was one of my great, great friends. But my favorite actor, I suppose, was [Spencer] Tracy. Always will be. We worked together only once, when I did a tiny part in 20,000 Years in Sing Sing.

[Q] Playboy: What about Alec Guinness? After you had worked with Guinness on The Scapegoat, you were quoted as saying he performed by himself and for himself.

[A] Davis: Mmm-hmm. He was probably the most difficult. But I also think he was very uncomfortable in that film as a leading man. That was never his type of role. He played two parts, as twins, and you could never tell which was which. But any remarks I've made about male actors don't come from actual conflicts. They're mostly based on general observation. It's just true that men are more vain. They spend more time on their hair and on everything else than women do. They always say women keep them waiting, but many husbands take longer than their wives getting ready to go out. I mean, if there's one bathroom in the house, God help you, God help you--you sure line up and wait for the male, absolutely.

[Q] Playboy: This seems as good a place as any to ask, if we may, why there's a small brass plate on the door identifying your bathroom as The Zsa Zsa?

[A] Davis: Well, I'll tell you why. I had a duplex suite in a New York hotel last year, with a powder room that was very . . . oh, satin walls, elegant fixtures; you know, nothing like my plain Yankee enamel-type bathroom. So one day I said, "This looks as if it ought to be in Zsa Zsa Gabor's house." Some time later, a friend had the sign made for me. . . .

[Q] Playboy: So the john become the Zsa Zsa?

[A] Davis: That's right.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about men and women a bit, shall we?

[A] Davis: Well, I just don't want to talk about my marriages, because I'm bored with the subject. I have been a single woman for more than 20 years now and have vowed never to discuss them again. However, I believe in marriage. To be a woman all by yourself is absurd. If you're lucky, I think marriage is the only answer. But some women are unlucky. You need a great deal of luck in marriage, I think--plus wisdom in your choice. But you don't know until after you've made the choice, do you?

It's true, really, that God's biggest joke on human beings is sex, which is totally blinding. Totally. We all have a tendency to give attributes to people that we want them to have--this is a very human failing prior to marriage. But, truthfully, when the physical attraction goes--and how suddenly it can go!--you find yourself looking at somebody and saying, "I don't believe it! What did I ever see in this person?" The one thing I never did was pretend to be someone I wasn't before marriage, something men do as much as women--put on a great, big, beautiful act, then go right back to being the way they were after they get you.

[Q] Playboy: Could it be argued that you're something of a man-hater?

[A] Davis: Not at all. I deny that. I've always liked men better than women. A woman can't go floating through life, going to restaurants by herself, living on her own as easily as a man can. Yet I do believe that men, more than women, will not face issues, particularly in a marriage. Will do anything to get away from trouble. But life can get pretty desperate at times without a man; as the old song says, "It's nice to have a man around the house." Which reminds me of another line--a brilliant one by Ogden Nash, which was censored from one of my plays: [Hoarsely hums, torch style] "The day he went away he left the seat up. . . . And I was too lonely to put it down."

[Q] Playboy: But still, haven't men sometimes seen you as a man-hater?

[A] Davis: Oh, no, no, no, I am not. Though I do believe there's a tendency in some males to feel that we can't possibly exist in this world without them. That's one thing we're finding out today--that women can. And it's a great deal up to us to change the attitude of the males. She's right, Germaine Greer. I believe wildly in Greer's book The Female Eunuch. I try to get every woman I know to read her book, because women have to change before men will change their attitude toward women. As long as women marry for security, however long all that goes on, men will not change. Greer is attractive, remember, and has great regard for men.

[Q] Playboy: Can you describe the kind of man who might have been Mr. Right for Bette Davis?

[A] Davis: I always used to say, only someone like J. Paul Getty or John F. Kennedy when he was President of the United States. You know, I'm really saying someboy with strength, who's identifiable to himself. Yet that kind of man would not want to take on a famous woman--wouldn't dream of marrying a big Hollywood star. In other words, I basically had no chance of getting a man who might have been right for me.

[Q] Playboy: Is the real problem simply that of being Mr. Bette Davis?

[A] Davis: Of course--a terrific problem and understandably so. And you feel very bad because, with all the care and sensitivity in the world, you can't solve the problem outside your own home. I mean, I never went around inside the house insisting I be called Bette Davis! I was always called by my married name in private everywhere . . . if I were asked my name.

[Q] Playboy: You once said that the trouble in your marriages always lay in the scripts and the casting--do you want to expand on that?

[A] Davis: Well, strong women marry only weak men, I've decided. If a man allows his life to be run by a woman, it's his own fault. That's an old home truth about the henpecked husband. I don't think any woman really wants it to be that way, but a great many men abdicate their responsibilites, then beef and say they are put upon. Fortunately, I think men and women are communicating much more today, taking equal roles.

[Q] Playboy: Quoting you: "I've lived in a permanent state of rapture and I was never able to share it with a male; it exhausted them." Is that your romantic history in a nutshell?

[A] Davis: Well, this enthusiasm, drive, having a real go at everything, is a trait I inherited from my mother and her whole family. It is just exhausting, and men aren't as apt to be this way. Although I said that half in fun, in a way it's true.

[Q] Playboy: You were in your mid-20s when you entered what you describe in your 1962 biography as "a nice antiseptic marriage" to Ham Nelson. You write that "the deflowering of New England was unthinkable to this passionate pilgrim." Were you simply trying to avoid becoming Hollywood's oldest living virgin?

[A] Davis: That had nothing to do with Hollywood. It was a question of how I'd been brought up. On The Dick Cavett Show, Cavett asked me when I gave up my virginity. So I counted to ten and said, "When I was married--and it was hell waiting." It was true, but I don't think anyone believed me.

[Q] Playboy: If you were young and single today, would you have different moral standards?

[A] Davis: Oh, yes; if I'd been brought up in this era, I think I'd have had affairs. I might never have married. I didn't bring up my children to think as I was taught to think. I didn't bring up my daughter [B.D.] this way.

[Q] Playboy: You mean preserving her virtue at all cost?

[A] Davis: I never taught her that; therefore, I knew she wouldn't marry just for sex. That's what was wrong in my time. Well, I had known Ham since I was 16, in prep school. And there's no question, it's clear now, that my biggest romance, my all-consuming love affair, was with my work. And if you paid the price. . . .

[Q] Playboy: You've said that your husbands actually beat you. . . .

[A] Davis: Oh, I was beaten many, many times. I didn't seem to bring out the best in men. I've often said that, too. My third husband, Sherry, was basically the biggest offender.

[Q] Playboy: You wrote that he threw you out of the car on your honeymoon "for some forgotten reason." Can't you remember what provoked such hostility?

[A] Davis: I don't know; who knows? He would just beat me. It's hard to imagine that I took it.

[Q] Playboy: From the Bette Davis we've seen, it's hard to imagine you wouldn't shoot the guy dead.

[A] Davis: But as a person, quite apart from my professional attitudes, I can be a big patsy. I'm an Aries, and we under the Aries sign are always patsies about our own problems. We take a lot. Of course, I shouldn't have taken it. And that's why I had to go.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of palimony?

[A] Davis: What's that? [Brief break while it's explained to her] Well, I wouldn't know what to say, because I've always earned my own living and never asked a dime in any divorce from anybody. Any woman that does this I don't understand--aside from child support. I mean, why saddle a man for the rest of his life? For what reason? The fact is, I have paid alimony.

[Q] Playboy: You have?

[A] Davis: Oh, sure. I paid alimony for about three years. It just seemed the sensible thing to do under the circumstances. I don't quite understand a man who accepts it, except there are all kinds of people, all kinds of circumstances. Every divorce is different, you know, and a big thing in life is to learn not to judge others. Please, God, don't judge. I'll say no more.

[Q] Playboy: With which of your husbands do you feel you came closest to having marriage work?

[A] Davis: Gary Merrill, maybe. Gary and I might possibly have made it work.

[Q] Playboy: And you still believe, on principle, in the desirability of being "a downright, upright, four-square married lady"?

[A] Davis: Oh, that's a marvelous line from Eve. That's when the characters finally decide to marry, yes. Gary and I fell in love while doing that picture.

[Q] Playboy: On the subject of love, there's a great and former secret love whom you have spoken about, even written about in your bio, describing him as a titan, "a man who would have run my life from sunrise to sunset." Are you ready to identify him now?

[A] Davis: [Deliberately, eyes popped] I'm not gonna say anything!

[Q] Playboy: Since his death last year, there's been evidence brought forth and widely circulated that the man we're talking about must have been director William Wyler. Do you have any comment?

[A] Davis: [Long, stony pause] I will not discuss Wyler in this way as long as I live, out of respect for his family.

[Q] Playboy: Well, it is no secret, is it, that George Brent--your leading man in Dark Victory and in numerous other films--was one of the big romances of your life?

[A] Davis: Yes, that's right. I adored him, adored him.

[Q] Playboy: There's yet another mystery man in your past, whom you once described provocatively in print as your partner in a "catastrophic relationship with the prototype of the Hollywood male . . . extremely attractive and one of the wealthiest men in the West--or East, for that matter." Do we get three guesses?

[A] Davis: I have no idea who that was. At one point, I was sort of chased by several who might fit the description.

[Q] Playboy: You're putting us on. Charles Higham's unauthorized biography [Bette] says Howard Hughes was this powerful man, and in his version, it involved a love triangle, tape recordings and blackmail. Don't you at least want to comment on it for the record?

[A] Davis: This book does not exist, as far as I'm concerned! I do not intend to read it, but it is a pack of lies, based on excerpts I have seen. I will not talk about the book or anything in it, now or ever. To hell with the book! That's my comment.

[Q] Playboy: All right, let's move on to other people's peccadilloes you've mentioned publicly. You were quoted as saying that Errol Flynn would "co-star with anyone on the lot." What was your experience while working with him?

[A] Davis: Errol did once say to me, "If I made a pass at you, Bette, you'd laugh in my face, wouldn't you?" And I said, "Yes--I certainly would." No, I was never very interested in boys with black-boards, and chalk--and there were plenty of them, you know; they'd make chalk marks, vying with one another to see how many famous women they could get into the hay.

[Q] Playboy: And Flynn led the pack?

[A] Davis: Errol? Oh, yes, heavens . . . though he really liked young girls.

[Q] Playboy: Who were the others?

[A] Davis: Well, I tend to be kind of nice about things like this. But Leslie Howard was definitely a great ladies' man. He was something. His wife used to say that the only leading lady he hadn't gone to bed with was Bette Davis. That remark became famous in Hollywood. I had a little pride about things like that. I really didn't have time, and I wasn't personally that crazy about actors, anyway. Never was.

[Q] Playboy: So you never attended any of those orgiastic Hollywood parties we've heard so much about?

[A] Davis: No, no. Those of us who worked very hard were hardly part of the social scene out here at all. You never saw Tracy and such people at parties. Anyway, you couldn't go out and get high and enjoy yourself, because then everyone would say, "Well, she's a real drunk." If you wanted to have a ball, you'd stay at home with very good friends. That's the truth.

[Q] Playboy: Were you aware of the prevalence of drinking and drug use in Hollywood?

[A] Davis: Back then, no. Not drugs. You heard very little about drugs. Now, good heavens, you see examples of it all the time, which I think is terrible for the individuals, taking them nowhere fast. As for me, I have never in my life had a drink while I was working. Some people did, and that's their business, but it's certainly not good for the work. Though, you know, people out here just get written about a lot. There's much more immorality in high society or in small towns in New England. Oh, my dear, those little Yankee towns are appalling. The only thing the Puritans ever worried about was getting caught. In my part of the world, it wasn't a sin if nobody knew.

[Q] Playboy: You once described yourself as "hopelessly Puritan, helplessly passionate." Do you feel you overcame that conflict?

[A] Davis: Well, I didn't intend to become one of those prim New England women who are afraid of sex, didn't want to reach my present age and not have experienced everything, had a full life. Now I'm a virgin again, but I guess I did all right for a little Yankee girl.

[Q] Playboy: If you were not Bette Davis but some great historical figure, who would you choose to be?

[A] Davis: God, that's an easy one; I wouldn't have to think about it for a second. Elizabeth the First. She was a fantastic woman. I mean, the respect you have for her as a monarch, and she was also a very, very vain, tricky flirt. No man ever got to her. Essex tried. He was the one who tried hardest.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of other woman you admire, is there any actress whose achievements you have envied?

[A] Davis: No, I have never envied anybody. Yet I have always wanted to look like Katharine Hepburn, always found her face fascinating and preferred it to my ordinary little round face. Just the look is marvelous.

[Q] Playboy: Do you know Hepburn?

[A] Davis: I've never known her, no. I telephoned her once, after Garson Kanin wrote that dreadful book Tracy and Hepburn about her and Spence. I just wanted to express how awful I felt it was, but she didn't seem terribly concerned, really.

[Q] Playboy: The late Anna Magnani was a great fan of yours, wasn't she?

[A] Davis: Well, she was the actress I admired most in the whole world! We were great friends, met many times, and I went and saw her in Italy. God, she's given such great performances . . . terrific stuff. We're terribly alike as actors. I had a photograph of her in my book, with the caption There's One In Every Country.

[Q] Playboy: Which contemporary actresses do you see as having star quality or charisma or whatever you call it?

[A] Davis: I think certainly Jane has it. Jane Fonda. I think Streisand. Oh, God, I know so--she's something else. I saw her opening night of Funny Girl in New York. The minute she walked on the stage, we all knew. You saw a star born. She's just--an individual, who had brains enough to stay looking the way she looks. What happened so often when lots of us came up in Hollywood, the studio tried to change you over . . . fix noses, hair, everything. A few of us had brains enough not to let them. Talk about people today--I think Marsha Mason is damned good. Jill Clayburgh; she's terrific. If she were working all the time, picture after picture, she'd have a different career. You wait so long between films nowadays.

[Q] Playboy: With all its faults, do you think the old studio system was advantageous for actors?

[A] Davis: Oh, God, yes, because I don't think there's any continuity to careers anymore. There aren't that many films. You had people behind you, they publicized you, bought properties for you, had scripts written for you. They don't write scripts for people anymore; they just cast them. We became part of the public's lives. Now, pick up a Sunday New York Times, you see huge ads for 15 films you never heard of, starring players you have heard even less of--you just don't know who they are.

[Q] Playboy: Who are your favorite leading men in this generation, if you have any?

[A] Davis: Burt Reynolds. He is one really sexy male. You know, there's a whole new breed of leading man today. A different kind.

[Q] Playboy: And Reynolds represents the new breed?

[A] Davis: No, no; he's the only one left who's like Gable and Cooper and all the hot, gorgeous, terrific guys of that era. The new breed--well, many of them are Italian--they're just different types, though some are certainly talented. [Jack] Nicholson is very talented, but that's a different kind of male star. Burt knows what I think of him, because they did a big testimonial dinner for him at the Waldorf, which I couldn't attend, so I sent a message saying he's enormously attractive, sexy and a very, very good actor. I would be happy, however, if Reynolds would get out of his motor-car syndrome and start making films about real people.

[Q] Playboy: How about Robert Redford?

[A] Davis: Redford is absolutely great. I'm glad you mentioned him. But I would lament terribly if he completely gave up acting for directing. He's marvelous. Paul Newman, too. Both very attractive men. Yet I still happen to think that Reynolds is in a different category. I had an absolute passion, of course, for Steve McQueen. He was also terrific.

[Q] Playboy: You've expressed skepticism about so-called Method actors of Brando's school, haven't you, even though you admire Brando himself?

[A] Davis: I just think he's a very talented guy, and if the Method worked for him--as it obviously did--everybody to his own thing. It's not for me. Ugh, no.

[Q] Playboy: What's your method?

[A] Davis: I go along with Claude Rains, who once said, "I learn the lines and pray to God." I think Tracy said that, too. Trust your intuition. I just go in and do it. Yet I believe in voice and dance training. There's no training anymore. Today you can't hear half the actors across the set.

[Q] Playboy: In his Playboy Interview, Brando said he didn't consider any movie a work of art or any movie actor an artist. Would you comment on that?

[A] Davis: Yes, it's perfectly absurd. How he can feel that way, with the work he himself has done as an example, is totally beyond me. Think of On the Water-front, one of the greatest performances he ever gave. We don't any of us know what happened to Marlon Brando. Of course it's an art form, judged entirely from the standpoint of his career without mentioning anybody else's.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think about actors these days--and not only Brando--who are paid $2,000,000 or $3,000,000 for doing even a small role in a big film?

[A] Davis: If the men in charge are willing to pay, I don't blame the actors. I think the people paying it are just lily guts and absurd, but be it on their heads. They're bankrupting the business. I mean, I would be totally embarrassed. On the other hand, I don't think there's enough money in the world to pay any of us for the hell we go through trying to give a performance. An actor today is up against worse odds than ever before.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you say that?

[A] Davis: Well, everything now is being shot on location, and location shooting is miserable, miserable, miserable! We used to all live in our own homes and work on those lovely sound stages where we didn't have to worry about wind, rain, heat, cold. There was more control and it was physically so much more pleasant. They call it realism, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with acting. For The Petrified Forest, we had the gas station and the petrified forest on two huge sound stages. We had a whole Welsh village there for The Corn Is Green. When I went to Mexico City and saw the Chapultepec Palace, I swore to God the one reproduced on our sound stage for Juarez looked just as real.

[Q] Playboy: Still, don't you agree that the quality of movies has been improved by such background authenticity, avoiding the "studio look" of many of those early films?

[A] Davis: No, I do not. They claim it's cheaper to shoot on location. I claim that we're all stunt people today; we're not actors anymore. When we shot Family Reunion, we were outdoors, with the temperature 22 below, trying to act, of all things! Hah! It's gotten so real today, honest to God, you can stand on a street corner and see the same thing. A lot of actors, the whole Sinatra kind of group--they love going to Paris and all these places. They can have 'em! For me, when anything's utterly naturalistic, so untheatrical, no make-up . . . well, it's a bore.

[Q] Playboy: Are you saying you believe the golden age of cinema is long gone?

[A] Davis: Well, those golden years are very romanticized today. Mostly, they were just very hard work, but they had their advantages. Maybe the difference is that the world is less golden. We're in a mess, and our scripts reflect it. Everything gets bigger and more vicious: terror in the streets; dismembered hands floating around. I am truthfully horrified by all the violence and the blood on the screen.

[Q] Playboy: But didn't you yourself make a series of gory horror films, beginning with Baby Jane?

[A] Davis: But ours weren't bloody! And those were the only good parts they were writing for mature actresses. I myself can't look at all that bloody stuff, I just can't take it. Baby Jane had no blood; it was spooky. The Nanny had no blood. Sweet Charlotte had a shot of a head falling down the stairs, which I thoroughly disagreed with. I tried to get Aldrich to skip that, because I thought it totally unnecessary. I was in one really bloody film, which turned out much bloodier than indicated in the script; that was Burnt Offerings, and if you haven't seen it, congratulations.

[Q] Playboy: Seen any movies you have liked lately?

[A] Davis: I see very few. I was mad about Julia and The Turning Point. Two of the best I've seen in years. They were about real people, with well-written scripts. Those big [Francis] Coppola-[Steven] Spielberg-type films are not to my taste, and that's my privilege. I know many people disagree and find them smashing. My God, did you ever see The Shining? Give me a half hour, my dear, and I'll tell you what I thought of that. I thought it was monstrous, the most awful picture I had ever seen. Well, I have never liked [Stanley] Kubrick. His kind of movies are simply not for me.

[Q] Playboy: OK. But don't you admit there's a kind of psychological violence and sick humor in Baby Jane that some people might find just as repellent?

[A] Davis: But those characters were characters, and Baby Jane was actually pretty funny. I suppose the dead birds with mayonnaise were kind of unattractive. And the rat. You know, not long after Baby Jane opened, I gave a cocktail party in New York and had the head chef at the Plaza Hotel make a pâté for me in the shape of a rat. Everyone got a big laugh out of it--this awful rat made of pâté served on a huge silver platter, looking a lot like the one in the film. Oh, I tell you, it was heaven when I lifted the top off.

[Q] Playboy: Are you a card-carrying practical joker, as rumored?

[A] Davis: Yes, I'm terrible. Sometimes I go too far. I've always loved dribble glasses. You wait for a very formal dinner party and then give the glass to the person who will be the most embarrassed. Lovely. I had another marvelous gag going once. Under my dinner table, I kept that gorgeous cowbell that's still there in my dining room. When I was ready to ring for the butler or somebody, I'd clang my huge cowbell. Well, conversation would stop. Everybody would try to pretend this was a perfectly normal thing to do, not looking me in the eye; then they'd all start talking like mad, wondering, of course, if I didn't know any better. About the fourth time I clanged it, they'd just stare. . . . It was hysterical.

[Q] Playboy: You pulled another small prank, didn't you, around the time of Baby Jane, by placing an ad in one of the trade papers?

[A] Davis: That wasn't a serious ad, of course. I was making Baby Jane at the time, in 1962, and I placed this helpwanted ad on a full page in The Hollywood Reporter--just exactly like any other ad for employment. It said: "Mother of three, divorcée. . . . 30 years' experience. Mobile still and more affable than rumor would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood, etc. . . . References on request." Although Rupert Allen, one of the great publicity men out here, advised me against doing it, he ended up congratulating me. That ad rocked the town, finally. Everybody expired with laughter and realized it was a rib. Of course, I was kidding the bankers. The bankers had a list of the bankable people who would be OK'd when the studios went to the banks to finance a film. If you weren't on the list, you didn't get work. For example, Aldrich had had a terrible time getting money for Baby Jane, because of Joan and me. The bank people said, "Those two old bags? Recast this film and we'll give you any amount of money you want." That's why we had to shoot the whole thing in three weeks, because we had so little money. Joan and I didn't get big salaries, so we took a huge percentage and made a fortune on it.

[Q] Playboy: So you had the last laugh. But was everyone convinced it was a joke?

[A] Davis: No. Everywhere I went with Bette Davis in Person--Australia or you name it--they'd bring this up and ask, "Were you advertising for work?" Well, I was working. I'd never stopped working. My God, I would never be so cheap as to take out an employment ad otherwise. It was a riot, a way to say I was sick of the whole system out here, just sick of it.

[Q] Playboy: You expressed your view on the violence in today's films. What do you think of sex and censorship?

[A] Davis: Well, we could still use about half the censorship we had all those years. Though I didn't believe in the Hays Office's brand of censorship. It was all very blue stocking, and I think they actually got big kicks out of the things they censored in films. Now it's all gone way, way over in the other direction. I mean, they haul in nude scenes just for the sake of being sensational. It really boils down to a question of taste, and I don't believe movies were any less sexy when they weren't so explicit. We had to duck the issue sometimes. In Now, Voyager, you definitely knew they had had an affair up in the mountains, but it was done in a tasteful way; it was the whole point of the story.

[Q] Playboy: If you were starting your career now, do you think you could be persuaded to do a nude scene?

[A] Davis: No, never. This is one of the tragedies of girls today. Girls lose roles because they won't do them, and I see no need for it.

[Q] Playboy: Still, there are substantial actresses you respect, such as Fonda and Clayburgh. . . .

[A] Davis: Oh, but I think they use doubles for nude scenes. And what's-her-name, Brooke Shields; she has a double, absolutely.

[Q] Playboy: Largely becasue she is under-age. No, highly respected actresses have done nude scenes.

[A] Davis: Well, I just don't believe the totally naked body is really all that interesting. When I saw Oh! Calcutta! in San Francisco years ago--I mean, I was a pretty sophisticated woman by then, and I sat way in the back, hoping nobody in the theater knew I was there, frankly--I was shocked most by the audience. Mostly middle-aged or older people. I couldn't decide if they were getting their kicks in their seats in the theater, or were getting themselves ready to go home and get their kicks. That was what fascinated me; but either way, I thought it was an abomination.

[Q] Playboy: Yet isn't there a story about your having posed nude for a statute in Boston?

[A] Davis: Oh, this was after high school, when I was a very young person. I took all sorts of jobs to earn money: are needed money. I was asked to pose for a statue of Spring, for a fountain. I've heard it's still up there in a park someplace, though I've never seen it since.

[Q] Playboy: How did this ever come about, given your natural reticence about nudity?

[A] Davis: I was hired by a woman sculptress. I don't remember her name now; she never became very well known. She was a rather elderly woman, with a male assistant to help her. She had a little dressing room at the top of the stairs and told me to just go up and strip, please. Well, 15 minutes or more later, I was still up there when she called out, "Miss Davis, we're ready." I was absolutely panicked. I didn't dare come out. Why she didn't give me some sort of robe to put on, I never knew, but I took my clothes off and there I was. So I finally had to go down, stark naked in front of her and the male assistant. I tell you, I was mortified. It took me years to get over it, as a matter of fact.

[Q] Playboy: But you went on with the sessions?

[A] Davis: You get used to it, in a way. I was only 18. It does present a picture of a sad little girl, earning money for the family. I was so modest. If I had realized I was going to have to be starkers. . . .

[Q] Playboy: So the only Bette Davis nude extant is presumably somewhere in Boston, if not banned. Does Spring resemble you?

[A] Davis: Yes, of course. It was lovely, beautiful. I had the perfect figure for it.

[Q] Playboy: Should we send out a search party?

[A] Davis: [Laughs] Maybe you'll inspire me to locate it.

[Q] Playboy: So much for your views on nudity. You've probably had as busy a career in television as any other actress of your generation. How many shows have you done?

[A] Davis: I have no idea. I did them all, really--General Electric Theater, Alfred Hitchcock, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke. I did Wagon Train three times.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about making TV films as compared with regular movies?

[A] Davis: I don't call them TV films. I'm sick of this horrid little snobbery--the same snobbery that the New York theater had for movies--about "real" films versus films for television. You see at least ten a year on TV just as well acted, just as well done in every way; they're films. Unfortunately, we can't have them without the commercials. But I used to tell my children, "Don't beef--if you want to sit at home and see the Sadler's Wells Ballet direct from London, you've got to pay for it somehow."

[Q] Playboy: Do you watch old Bette Davis movies on television?

[A] Davis: Oh, sure, every now and then. Of course, the cuts they've made just break your heart. Though they are doing less cutting lately, I've noticed. There should have been a clause about that from the beginning. Of course, that was when all the old Warner Bros. films were sold to television. A group of 65 films, many of them mine, was sold for only $7,000,000. This is why I've had more television coverage through the years than almost any other actress.

[Q] Playboy: So you credit TV for building up your following with young people?

[A] Davis: Oh, of course. At least 80 percent of my fan mail is from young people. My audience anywhere is a good mixture, but always a lot of young people.

[Q] Playboy: What about the gay audience? It seems obvious that you and other female stars with a certain flamboyant style have a huge gay following.

[A] Davis: I really don't want to discuss that, not at all. Let us face facts. Homosexuals are probably the most artistic and appreciative human beings, who worship films and theater. Certainly, I've been one of the artists they admire very much. It was always said that Judy Garland and I had the biggest following, but I don't think it's fair to say it's because I'm flamboyant. I'm not flamboyant. In my personal life, I've never been known as flamboyant. Joan Crawford was flamboyant. Generally, homosexuals are very appreciative of serious work in the arts, so it's highly complimentary to be someone they choose.

[Q] Playboy: You have been very popular on the talk shows, too, haven't you?

[A] Davis: Yes, but now I never do a talk show with more than two other guests on it. I think they usually have far too many people. I feel--probably very conceitedly--that I've got plenty to say. So I don't see why I should go to the trouble of getting made up to go wherever I have to go, then do five minutes and have to sit there keeping my mouth shut. It just irritates me to death. Very unpleasant. So I'll go only if they have no more than two other guests--usually a singer and a comedian. I have grown to enjoy it since my first talk show, with Jack Paar, which was terrifying. I'd never been so scared in my life of any performance. Because in these situations, you know, you're sitting there completely exposed--as yourself. I learned to get comfortable with it, but it's not easy in the beginning. When you spend your life being somebody else and that's what you enjoy most--being somebody else--well, that's not exactly like everybody else, is it? [Laughs] Am I making myself clear?

[Q] Playboy: Perfectly. Doesn't it mean you weren't sure how to play Bette Davis?

[A] Davis: Well, I never played Bette Davis. I suppose that peculiar thing an actor has of wanting to be somebody else shows a certain not liking of yourself. I think it's true of me and of anyone else who aspires to be in this profession: You're basically not very mad about yourself.

[Q] Playboy: Were you ever in analysis?

[A] Davis: No. Almost went three times--almost. When I was puzzled by things happening in my life. Then I decided that was no good, because what was peculiar about me was probably what had made me successful. Because I've seen some very talented actors go into analysis and really lose it. Among my friends, I think I'm one of the few who haven't gone. I've often thought I'd have loved being a psychoanalyst if I weren't an actress. Either that or a trial lawyer. You know, a great trial lawyer has got to be a good actor. I played a lawyer once on Perry Mason, while Raymond Burr was on vacation. I adored that show.

[Q] Playboy: Let's move from law into politics. You were quite active politically during the Roosevelt years, weren't you?

[A] Davis: No, no. I campaigned once at Madison Square Garden for F.D.R.'s third term. I would have campaigned for Robert Kennedy, definitely. I had great admiration for Teddy [Kennedy] this last time and endorsed him . . . with funds. But I don't know anymore. I was always very careful about this. I think we, as actors, have a dangerous position, because we can influence millions of people, no question. So we'd better know what we're talking about, and I find it very hard today to know what anyone's talking about or even to know what's going on.

[Q] Playboy: Among your supporting cast in Dark Victory, many movies ago, was Ronald Reagan. Do you now support Reagan, who once supported you?

[A] Davis: I am not for Reagan; that is, I didn't vote for him. We always called him "little Ronnie Reagan," you know, and to all of us who grew up with him, it's kind of awesome that he's President [big chuckle]. But Reagan has an enormous advantage, because he comes through on television, and a lot of screen actors are not good on live TV. It's a very strange, personal medium. Yet I think it was wonderful that Reagan appointed a woman to the Supreme Court. That's to his credit, very intelligent of him and long past due. I'm not going to say anything against Reagan. He's probably doing very well; let's hope so, because the country needs a kind of resurrection. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

[Q] Playboy: OK. Are you a superstitious person, as someone once suggested?

[A] Davis: Oh, wildly superstitious. In every way. About hats on beds, walking under ladders, ladybugs for good luck. String . . . if there's ever a piece of string on my clothing, don't take it off me.

[Q] Playboy: That's bad luck?

[A] Davis: No, good luck to leave it on. I have thousands of them, thousands. A bird in the house. I'm just petrified of having a bird inside the house. That's a very old sign of a death. And the day before Farney--my second husband--died, a bird flew up and cracked against the window of our house at Riverbottom. The next day, Farney was dead. That's one that really scares me. Oh, God, I have them all, the works: black cats, broken mirrors. Don't walk with a post between you and a friend. If your nose itches, you'll kiss a fool. Well, I have kissed a lot of fools. . . .

[Q] Playboy: Do you consider yourself in any way religious?

[A] Davis: Yes, I don't think we do it all by ourselves. I believe that God helps those who help themselves. I believe in doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, inasmuch as any of us is humanly able. If you believe in those two things, I say you're religious. But I am not religious in the sense of being a wild churchgoer. I have worked since I was in my teens, and Sunday was my one day off--I was not about to give it up to get dressed and go to church. I was brought up going to Sunday school every Sunday in the world, and I was surfeited with church. In my generation, that happened to many of us. Plus, I was a very practical child. I used to confront my Sunday-school teachers with many of the miracles in the Bible and just say, "Now, this is impossible--walking on water. How?" They didn't like it too much.

[Q] Playboy: This sounds familiar. Doesn't it smack of the way you behaved much later, when you got onto a movie set and saw holes in the script?

[A] Davis:Exactly. Even as a young girl, with the Bible, I could not believe the script! It all sounded absolutely wildly illogical--you had one fish and fed the multitudes? I didn't mean any of it sacrilegiously; that's just the kind of child I was, and my Sunday-school teachers were not enamored of me at all.

[Q] Playboy: Was there any point in your career when you experienced real fear of becoming a has-been?

[A] Davis: That's hard to know. I've had some rough times. Everybody has hiatuses, and I had some good, thorough ones. I think there was one year when I truly thought it was over. I sat out here for a solid year without one job offer--that must have been the late Fifties, around 1960. I don't recall the chronology, but Gary had been working and was gone so much that I finally brought all the children to Los Angeles and rented a house. Not one offer! I wasn't scared, I was desperate. I couldn't believe it, really couldn't understand why. But those things happen. And those things change, as they did for me.

[Q] Playboy: How do you look at the problem of aging? How do you deal with it?

[A] Davis: I'll tell you: I do not believe that life begins at 40. I'm so bored with this statement I could scream. Mentally--for a woman, but I think for everybody--life begins at 30. But the thing I hate most about getting older is the physical change, the fact that you're just not as attractive physically. I think every woman has that, while men get by with much, much more. Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. Look at stills of Bogey, for instance--far more attractive as an older man than he was at 30. Look at Robert Wagner--at 19 or 20 he looked ridiculous; now he's a damned attractive guy. Weathering improves men, that's all; but it doesn't do much for women, though we do have advantage.

[Q] Playboy: What's that?

[A] Davis: Make-up, which can certainly help. But, you know, you just have to face facts, that's all. You do not look as attractive. I do not wish anymore to get into a bikini and go lie on the beach, thank you very, very much. And I never will again. Of course, you cannot be afraid of being your age. As an actress, I have a bigger incentive for staying in shape, and I think weight is what makes people look old the quickest--male or female. I don't think a man looks older, for instance, when he starts losing hair. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm sick of toupees. Men look very attractive with half-bald or even bald heads. I think this hair fetish among men today is ridiculous. B.D.'s father, Sherry, was practically bald, and a very attractivelooking man, very. Another thing is--yes, I believe the thing I lament most about getting older is the way time melts; years sort of melt together. You eventually live day to day. you really and truly begin to take your days one at a time--with no great excitement about what will happen in six months or a year.

[Q] Playboy: Is this a way of dealing with it or a depressing side effect?

[A] Davis: I think it's just the way things are when you're no longer building a career, raising a family. My life is all in the archives of Boston University's library, where I've sent everything: scripts, reviews and a famous little book in which I've collected dance programs, poems that boys wrote to me, notes. Oh, I kept everything. On the outside, it says: All My Secrets Are Hidden Herein.

[Q] Playboy: Any of them shockers?

[A] Davis: Not really. But it's as if I always knew something out of the ordinary was going to happen to me. It's really spooky, in a way. I started collecting it all at 13 and drove everybody crazy even then. I always had to have the top jobs, even as a very young person, all through school, being head of the religious society or the debating society or getting the leads in senior plays.

[Q] Playboy: You don't seem to have any regrets, do you?

[A] Davis: Well, I couldn't stop myself; that's the way I was. You know, I said I don't envy people, but I sometimes envy people who are not that ambitious, who don't have this drive to be first in whatever they do, this terrible perfectionism. It's a terrific responsibility and pretty exhausting. I've never wanted to be anybody else, always felt I was lucky to be what I was. Definitely. I'd often change the exterior, perhaps. My daughter [B.D.] is beautiful at 5'11", and I'm kind of a runt at 5'3" or 5'3 1/2". While I'm small, I've always been too mush; that's the best description of me.

[Q] Playboy: Another description of you was in that Kim Carnes song that was so popular last year, Bettle Davis Eyes. Do you know all the words?

[A] Davis: [Sings] "She's ferocious. . . . She throws you. . . ." No, I haven't learned the lyrics, really, but I think the writers are damned clever. I wrote to them and said, "How did you know me so well?"

[Q] Playboy: Getting back to your own description of yourself-----

[A] Davis: Let's just say it's going to be a great world when I pass on.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you say that?

[A] Davis: Because I think I've been a difficult, difficult woman. I've been difficult for lots of people.

[Q] Playboy: That's pretty negative thinking. there are probably a lot more people you've made happy than unhappy.

[A] Davis: Thank you for that. I will live on that all day. Let's hope that is true. I know in a sense that is true, so I'm not going to be silly about it. No question I've inspired some people. I've taught a lot of people to cook, inspired other people to work harder or do something better, though I still say my kind of person is. . . . [thoughtful pause]

[Q] Playboy: Too much? But isn't too much better than too little?

[A] Davis: Probably. I think so. I hope so.

[Q] Playboy: What is your all-time favorite movie you weren't in?

[A] Davis:The Best Years of Our Lives, by Willie Wyler. Now, that was one of the greatest films ever made.

[Q] Playboy: Guess what? That was our last question.

[A] Davis: It was? Chrrrist--let's have a drink.

"If you don't dare to be hated, you're never going to get there. To be an uncontroversial actor is nothing to aim for."

"Strong women marry only weak men, I've decided. If a man allows his life to be run by a woman, it's his own fault."

"'Baby Jane' was actually pretty funny. I suppose the dead birds with mayonnaise were kind of unattractive. And the rat."

"It's going to be a great world when I pass on. I think I've been a difficult, difficult woman."