She's funny. She's honest. She's candid. She knows when to say "I don't want to talk about that", and she knows when to say something shocking to reveal her true character behind the legend. She's Bette Davis, still the queen of cinema nearly 30 years after her death, and one who is still revered thanks to the recent TV mini-series "Feud". With a career that would continue for another 18 years and only ended with her death (while on the road receiving an award in France), Bette Davis can bring up images of a tough, demanding actress who gave directors and studio moguls hell, yet she can also bring up images of a down to earth Yankee gal who is more pot roast than Filet Minon and lobster tails. She is candid in talking about her marriages, her children, and her goals for the later part of her career. By the time she did this interview with Dick Cavett in 1971, her film career was relegated to whatever low budget feature she could get her hands on ("Bunny O'Hare" is no legend's idea of an ideal film assignment) or TV movies of the week, some weak, some classics in that genre. But what she is here is funny, deliciously outspoken and not at all the cantankerous aging diva you are afraid will rip your head off if you say the wrong thing.
When Cavett brings up Joan Crawford, you can see the wheels turning in her head, first with "I knew this was coming" eye roll, and then the thoughts processing a dignified way of explaining why the legend of their alleged feud keeps going. Her only gripe is the way Crawford campaigned against her for the Oscar, taking away not only her third chance at the golden statuette but box office for the film which would have been income for both of them. She praises co-stars like George Arliss who guided her career to being more than just the little brown wren that Universal viewed her as and Paul Lukas who won the Oscar for "Watch on the Rhine", not considering it one of her classics, but a participation in an important film that had one great speech for her, and a film that stands the test of time. She talks about the garbage films that lead her to go on strike, her reaction to "Gone With the Wind" ("I bet it's a lu-lu", she told Jack Warner after turning it down.) She praises the writers and good directors (particularly William Wyler), and even talks about how she never realized that she had truly made it until she was mimicked, particularly by Elizabeth Taylor with "What a Dump!" in "Virginia Woolf".
Whatever you may read about Dick Cavett as a person off the talk show set is inconsequential when you watch his interviews with an assortment of guests. He has an everyman's charm that makes the guests I've seen him interview instantly relaxed. I could imagine Davis at his home, and would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to listen in on conversations with Cavett's very Tallulah Bankhead like wife, Carrie Nye. Cavett not only gets Davis to open up about a variety of topics, but makes her laugh too, and when she reveals a very personal aspect about her private life, it is a classic moment of celebrity interviewing that may have you in stitches. This is an interview I could have seen going on for hours and not being bored for one minute with. I've seen over 95% of Davis's movie and TV work, and if one thing comes out about her is that she was a no-nonsense yet fun loving woman who could joke around on a long day on the set, fight for what she believed in for the good of the picture she was making, and didn't need women's liberation to prove that she was an independent thinker. If there ever was one of the boys who was one of the girls, Ms. Davis gets the crown for that title, and thanks to Dick Cavett, who she really is gets brought out beautifully thanks to both participants in this classic moment of celebrity journalism.
When Cavett brings up Joan Crawford, you can see the wheels turning in her head, first with "I knew this was coming" eye roll, and then the thoughts processing a dignified way of explaining why the legend of their alleged feud keeps going. Her only gripe is the way Crawford campaigned against her for the Oscar, taking away not only her third chance at the golden statuette but box office for the film which would have been income for both of them. She praises co-stars like George Arliss who guided her career to being more than just the little brown wren that Universal viewed her as and Paul Lukas who won the Oscar for "Watch on the Rhine", not considering it one of her classics, but a participation in an important film that had one great speech for her, and a film that stands the test of time. She talks about the garbage films that lead her to go on strike, her reaction to "Gone With the Wind" ("I bet it's a lu-lu", she told Jack Warner after turning it down.) She praises the writers and good directors (particularly William Wyler), and even talks about how she never realized that she had truly made it until she was mimicked, particularly by Elizabeth Taylor with "What a Dump!" in "Virginia Woolf".
Whatever you may read about Dick Cavett as a person off the talk show set is inconsequential when you watch his interviews with an assortment of guests. He has an everyman's charm that makes the guests I've seen him interview instantly relaxed. I could imagine Davis at his home, and would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to listen in on conversations with Cavett's very Tallulah Bankhead like wife, Carrie Nye. Cavett not only gets Davis to open up about a variety of topics, but makes her laugh too, and when she reveals a very personal aspect about her private life, it is a classic moment of celebrity interviewing that may have you in stitches. This is an interview I could have seen going on for hours and not being bored for one minute with. I've seen over 95% of Davis's movie and TV work, and if one thing comes out about her is that she was a no-nonsense yet fun loving woman who could joke around on a long day on the set, fight for what she believed in for the good of the picture she was making, and didn't need women's liberation to prove that she was an independent thinker. If there ever was one of the boys who was one of the girls, Ms. Davis gets the crown for that title, and thanks to Dick Cavett, who she really is gets brought out beautifully thanks to both participants in this classic moment of celebrity journalism.
