Bette Davis hated her face

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32705, 7 September 1971, Page 7

Bette Davis hated her face

I By

MARY KAYE)

l LONDON. Someone once said that talking to Bette Davis is like putting money in a fruit machine. “Those famous bulging eyes swivel round and, remembering all those verbal sour grapes and bitter lemons, you wonder ner(vously what is going to come up.” t j It’s true to say that she . is, at first meeting, a very , formidable woman indeed. 1 Why not? With nearly 40 1 years as “Queen of Hollyt wood” and more than 80 I films behind her, she is not > so much a star as an entire . solar system in her own right. ~ Her latest role, Madame t Sin a high-powered . female counterpart of James j Bond in a 90-minute tele- ! vision film to be made in . England, is one that should ’ fit her like a glove. IMAGE DEFIED For she is one of the few , woman who managed to defy . the old Hollywood adage that you “couldn’t play a bitch . and be a star.” . “Hollywood had never ; seen anything like me , before,” she recalls. “When I first arrived nobody met me off the train. They said afterwards that they had been looking for an actress type. It • worried me for weeks, wondering what they could have meant.

i “I used to hate my face when 1 was young, but now i: I I’m glad it looked the way(: s it did. It’s been a blessing.”!' a And it’s a face that, even!! e today at 62, is compelling, (l So is her line in conversa-: s tion. “I divide women intoji - two,” she says in her deep, l< il throaty voice. “Females and:' r dames.” “TRICKY, REGULAR” “The dames I like, buti' 'boy, the females really, exhaust me. The female is; 1 .tricky. She’s out to make; e money out of the male, andi she’d rather die than be ! Sjlseen not done up to the( u nines. ~ “The dame, well, she’s like ( f a regular guy.” 1 Dame she may be, but! e Bette Davis is female ” enough to like to look her; best in public. “You know,; j it’s considered not chic -to | 3 be glamorous these days,’’| s she says. “It’s chic to look ai ’ mess. ] “But don’t you think it’s( 1 terribly disappointing for; people to see an actress just ( slopping around in blue jeans! v like the girl next door? It! f takes away all the glamour, t “Stars are too available i today. That’s the trouble. And too dull.” r 5 THE OLD DAYS I All the fun has gone out > “ of making films, too. she I - says. “In the old days we 1 had time to be individuals, i . Today you don’t even get to 1 , know the men on the crews ; 1 any more. And I always > knew my crews. '<

“How do you think I got: all those great camera: i angles?” she demands. I (“Because I was right there( I behind the camera, lining up! ! the shots myself.” ; Has she ever made anyi (mistakes in her life? A; (dangerous question that (makes the eyes swivel and flash. But then she answers. “If 1 had to do it all over ■again, the only thing 1 would change is that 1 would never j get married. “But then I wouldn’t have; imy kids, and without them I (would die.” She has had five husbands, and ' three children—the (eldest is 23 and married. “I always said I would end up a (lonely old woman on a hill.” (she wrote in her life story. NO MALE EQUAL ■ And today, with an exI quisitely furnished farm- ! house in Connecticut, she admits. “I do get very lonely . sometimes at night in this (big house. I am a woman (meant for a man. But the (trouble is I never met one (yet who could compete with the image that the, public made out of Bette Davis.” Maybe that’s why her favourite saying is one by; ; Robert Bums: “I have fought all my life. Why not one fight more?” “Mind you,” she says, “it’s the rows when I’ve managed to keep my temper and been ! absolutely brilliant in my! remarks that I’m proudest! of.” i

! But the story that makes! me proud of her is one' (occasion when she really lost ; it. And she laughs now when 'she tells it. i “There was this actor in (Iguana who took an entire I day to figure out the motiva- j tion for taking off his shoe. I finally stood up on stage] and yelled ‘Why don’t you just take the . . . shoe off?: It’s just a shoe’ 1” And he I did. “THE HARD WAY” “I’m very much against, this ‘motivation’ rubbish. All , this Actor’s Studio stuff.! . What kids who want to act! ; need is discipline. Because , that’s the only way to sur--1 vive. “And the reason I survived: in Hollywood is because I (was tougher than anyone (else. “Joe Mankiewicz always! • told me: ‘Bette, when you! i die they oughta put only one ; sentence on your tombstone! i —She did it the hard way.’ j > “And he was right, I did. > And you know something—- ; I it’s the only way.” ■ She still does it the hard : way. And you know some-i ! thing? For her, it IS the only! ■;way.—Features International.