The Davis/Crawford feud.

[Michael O'Regan]

So, was this really as bitter as some make out? I've spoken to people who've met both and say that there wasn't anything more than an exaggerated indifference between them.

[drednm]

Probably rivals the Gloria Swanson / Pola Negri feud of the 20s.

[entredeuxguerres]

Probably rivals the Gloria Swanson / Pola Negri feud of the 20s.

Yes, but Gloria says herself in her bio that there was nothing to that; she acknowledged that they weren't chums, weren't part of the same circle of friends, etc., but nothing to suggest personal antagonism.

[drednm]

Yes. I was being ironic. The only movie star feuds I can think of that were apparently real were between Edward G. Robinson and George Raft and between Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.

[entredeuxguerres]

Yes. I was being ironic.

Sorry--as you know, irony & sarcasm are foreign to my ingenuous nature.

Never heard of the Raft/Robinson feud--too bad some savvy producer didn't let them settle their differences on film.

[drednm]

They did. Apparently the set of Manpower was electric (pun intended) as Eddy G. and Raft played feuding electric linemen fighting over jobs and Marlene Dietrich! Not a bad film at all but not very well known.

The Brando/Sinatra snit was based on casting issues in Guys and Dolls.

But back to Swanson and Negri. What a strange PR campaign to fabricate a "feud" between two Paramount stars who never worked together and couldn't (seemingly) have been competing for the same roles. Now at MGM you DID have star actresses competing for plums as Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Marion Davies sought the best roles. Davies never got them; Crawford rarely did. Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Jeanette MacDonald, and others were more pigeon-holed into what parts they ever got to play. Rosalind Russell and Katharine Hepburn were perhaps more successful in snagging top roles later in the 30s.

[Michael O'Regan]

Yes, I can think of no roles for which Crawford and Davis would have been in competition. Crawford and Shearer, yes, as has been documented.
Where did the Crawford/Davis feud start?

[drednm]

Probably when Crawford went to Warners.....

[Roseha]

The Brando/Sinatra snit was based on casting issues in Guys and Dolls.

Was that because Brando, a non-singer if there ever was one, got the role of Sky Masterson which obviously should have gone to Sinatra? I've always been dumbfounded by that myself.

By the way I'd have love to have seen George Burns and Gracie Allen as Nathan and Adelaide and Doris Day as Sarah Brown. I thought of this years ago, since we did an amateur production of it when I was a teenager.

[drednm]

Yes. Sinatra wanted the lead but was sidelined with the lesser role. Brando retaliated by purposely flubbing his lines in the Lindy's cheesecake eating scene. He knew Sinatra hated cheesecake so he screwed up on purpose for an entire day to force Sinatra to eat a ton of cheesecake.

Apparently this one was an open warfare on casting agents between those the studio wanted and those who wanted roles. Vivian Blaine was the only star from the Broadway production to finally got cast. Sinatra wanted the role of Sky. Robert Alda (Broadway) was ignored. Others in contention were Gene Kelly and Clark Gable. Blaine's role of Adelaide was also mentioned for Judy Holliday, Betty Grable, and Marilyn Monroe. Another contender for Nathan (Sinatra) was Bob Hope! Grace Kelly and Jane Russell were in the running for Sarah (Jean Simmons).

Aside from Blaine, the only others from Broadway to film were Stubby Kaye, B.S. Pulley, and Johnny Silver.

[JFK]

Shirley Booth, who was on Broadway in The Philadelphia Story with Kate Hepburn, found herself replaced
by Hepburn in the Hollywood versions of both The Desk Set http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=2544
and The Time of The Cuckoo http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=2342. Hepburn advised Booth not
to do the film adaptation of the latter, then took the lead part for herself when David Lean filmed it.


Tallulah Bankhead was less forgiving than Shirley Booth when Bette Davis duplicated Bankhead's mannerisms,
and two stage parts, for the Brothers Warner: The Little Foxes http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=12430
and Dark Victory http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=10417. Bankhead's lingering resentment fueled many
of her anti-Davis jibes/jokes on her radio variety series, The Big Show.

[Harlowgold]

According to the recent Shirley Booth biography, Hepburn accepted SUMMERTIME only after contacting her former costar Shirley and being assured she was not interested in the film version. The only movies Booth made in the 1950's were Hal B. Wallis productions, I don't know if she was under exclusive contract with him or not.

[Hal Erickson]

There was a pretty healthy animosity between Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford on the set of TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON. The flustered director stopped in mid-take at one point and accused the two stars of "trying to f**k each other." It is said that Ford ordered Brando's wife Anna Kashfi to be replaced by Gia Scala in DON'T GO NEAR THE WATER.

[JFK]

According to the recent Shirley Booth biography, Hepburn accepted SUMMERTIME only after contacting her former costar Shirley and being assured she was not interested in the film version. The only movies Booth made in the 1950's were Hal B. Wallis productions, I don't know if she was under exclusive contract with him or not.

Original Story by Arthur Laurents: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood from pages 199-200

During the run of the play, John Gielgud had invaded Shirley’s dressing room, sat her down and told her to play it { The Time Of The Cuckoo } as long as possible, take it on tour, take it to London, to milk it because a play so suited to its star rarely comes along.
Then Kate Hepburn swashbuckled into the dressing room – she and Shirley had become friends during the run of The Philadelphia Story- sat her down and told her not to go on tour, not to take it to London and most definitely not to do the movie. Hepburn won over Gielgud.
Life magazine did a big spread on Shirley-she had won the Oscar for Come Back, Little Sheba to no effect on our box office - in which she dismissed the report that her next picture was to be The Time Of The Cuckoo. Oh. No: Cuckoo wouldn’t make a good picture, she said vehemently.
“I have to be honest” was her explanation to me.
I countered with: If I told her the dress she was wearing was tasteless and all wrong for her, I might say I was being honest but was there any need for me to say it?
“You really think the dress is wrong?” Shirley asked.
The movie deal with the studio that had her under contract collapsed. It wasn’t a good deal - Swifty Lazar had blithely tried to horn in on Harold Freedman’s territory with no authority whatsoever. Harold called him off and despite the damage that had been done, managed to set up a deal with Alexander Korda in London. The announcement of the sale attracted attention because set to star was none other than our mutual friend, Katharine Hepburn.
“She asked my permission,” Shirley assured me.” And I said it was ok.”
I didn’t doubt that Kate asked and Shirley allowed but how did Kate explain her switch? She didn’t have to explain it to me, I knew the answer: David Lean was to direct the picture. How did she explain it to Shirley? I could write the scene with one hand: Kate would intimidate Shirley with her classy New England superiority, then bamboozle her with ease because she would be bamboozling herself at the same time. She never had trouble with reality because she never had a good grip on it. That became very clear much later-in 1972- when we met regularly over several weeks to decide whether I was going to write and she was going to act in a movie based on Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt.

Laurents goes on to speculate upon Hepburn’s sexuality and her dropping out of Travels With My Aunt.
The book is pretty entertaining.

[Richard M Roberts]

They did. Apparently the set of Manpower was electric (pun intended) as Eddy G. and Raft played feuding electric linemen fighting over jobs and Marlene Dietrich! Not a bad film at all but not very well known.

The so-called Raft/Robinson feud was mostly on George Raft's side, apparently he roughed up Edward G. Robinson in a fit of professional jealousy during shooting, Robinson, a consumate professional, was actually shocked by the behavior, especially as he was replacing another actor in the part that Raft had also not wanted to work with (I can't recall who the other actor was, anybody else here know?).

Whatever happened, it didn't stop Raft and Robinson from working together again more than a decade later in A BULLET FOR JOEY (1955), and apparently they got along fine on that one.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Michael O'Regan]

especially as he was replacing another actor in the part that Raft had also not wanted to work with (I can't recall who the other actor was, anybody else here know?).

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Wasn't it Bogart?

[Richard M Roberts]

especially as he was replacing another actor in the part that Raft had also not wanted to work with (I can't recall who the other actor was, anybody else here know?).

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Wasn't it Bogart?

It was somebody like Bogart or John Garfield, can't recall whom.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Henry Nicolella]

I believe George Raft punched out Peter Lorre on one occasion.
I'm not sure if it qualifies as a feud exactly but Marlon Brandon and Rod Steiger had little use for each other. During the filming of the famous "You wuz my brudder Charlie" scene in the taxi cab in "On the Waterfront", Brandon said his lines to Steiger but when it came time to do Steiger's lines, Brando simply took off. When Steiger came to Syracuse University in the seventies to receive an honorary degree someone asked him about Brando and he replied that they didn't like each other and would say no more than that. I seem to recall reading that the two did reconcile many years later.
Henry Nicolella

[Jay Salsberg]

I don't know how much of this is true- if any of it- but the Crawford/Davis feud supposedly started when Crawford was signed to do MILDRED PIERCE. Allegedly, the property had originally been offered to Davis, who snubbed it as being beneath her. She chose to do THE CORN IS GREEN, instead. Then, when Crawford won the Oscar, Davis went around telling everyone that Joan had stolen MILDRED PIERCE from her! The same thing happened again when Davis turned down POSSESSED. Crawford got the role and won an Oscar nomination. And Bette went around again loudly announcing that Joan was stealing all her good roles.

[Jim Roots]

I don't know how much of this is true- if any of it- but the Crawford/Davis feud supposedly started when Crawford was signed to do MILDRED PIERCE. Allegedly, the property had originally been offered to Davis, who snubbed it as being beneath her. She chose to do THE CORN IS GREEN, instead. Then, when Crawford won the Oscar, Davis went around telling everyone that Joan had stolen MILDRED PIERCE from her! The same thing happened again when Davis turned down POSSESSED. Crawford got the role and won an Oscar nomination. And Bette went around again loudly announcing that Joan was stealing all her good roles.

That doesn't make much sense to me. It would show that Crawford had more power than Davis, and if there was one thing Davis couldn't stand, it was the suggestion that any other actress had more power than her. I just can't see her going around "loudly announcing" that she was not the biggest cat in the jungle.

Jim

[rogerskarsten]

There's a book by Shaun Considine called Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud (1989). I think the feud stretches back to the mid-1930s, when both women were competing for the attention of Franchot Tone. Davis apparently had a thing for her DANGEROUS leading man; Crawford ended up marrying him.

~Roger

[didi-5]

I'm still not convinced that the 'feud' wasn't just good publicity. Joan had already starred with Franchot Tone in 1933's Dancing Lady and that pre-dated any association with Bette, although of course there might not have been any hint of romantic attraction then. It just seems too good to be true to have feuding stars years later being put together in Baby Jane.

[Michael O'Regan]

I think it was a bit of both.

"I don't hate Bette, even though the press wants me to, and they're putting out a feud story on the publicity end. I resent her - I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms instead of real acting ability....She's phoney, but I guess the public likes that"

- Conversations with Joan Crawford - Roy Newquist.

Though, later in the same book:

"Bette Davis had and has a big following because she is a fine actress"

"I admire her so much, I really can't dislike her"

I 've spoken to an acquaintance of mine who didn't know Crawford but knew Davis and says that Davis was one of the first to come forward and defend Crawford in the aftermath of the Mommie Dearest book.