My Mother's Keeper' Stories

Ohhh Elmer, she's an absolute COW.

Yes, but will there be stories about Bert Lahr and dead owls?

.....At two, Margot had begun to have serious behavioral problems. She was erratic and frequently violent and had her own nurse who did nothing but care for and restrain her. Margot lived on the third floor and at night was tied up in her bed in a straitjacket for her own protection.

Michael and I seldom saw her and were told later that Margot's extraordinary, almost superhuman, strength was a common compensation for her mental limitations. It was not unusual for Margot, at the tender age of two, to hurl furniture around the room and, on one occasion, she managed to push a bureau across her room and through the window.

Mother and I were sitting in the dining room when we saw the bureau fall and crash on the lawn. After that, Margot was never left alone except when tied in her bed.

Mother wanted to put Margot in a hospital but Gary wouldn't hear of it. 'You do what you please with your daughter but not with mine! Margot will not be shut away in a mental home!' Things got worse and worse but Gary, despite his continual protestations of dislike for children in general, felt very paternal toward Margot. There finally came a time when Mother was unable to keep a nurse for more than a week or two at a time and the strain became enormous. Mother and Gary began to have vicious fights over who was to blame for Margot's condition, and although Michael and I saw little of our sister, we constantly felt the effect of her presence.

Eventually Mother took Margot to New York for psychological testing. Her condition was diagnosed as mental retardation as a result of brain damage. The cause was thought to be either the result of a difficult forceps delivery or of having been dropped on her head by a baby nurse whom Mother had then fired for drunkenness.

Gary, of course, blamed the nurse, whom Mother had hired, and Mother blamed the delivery. Whatever the truth of the matter, whatever the heartbreak, it was an irrefutable fact and had to be dealt with.

Against Gary's angry protests, Mother found a small private school for retarded children in New York State which accepted Margot as a lifetime student, her brain damage having been deemed irreversible. It was quite some time before my sister was able to come home for visits, but when she did, she showed marked improvement and eventually the alternating moods of violence and lethargy waned. It was a very sad situation but Margot did come to love the school and regard it as her real home.

.........My birthday is on May 1 because, to a certain extent, Mother planned it that way. When she reached the eighth month of her pregnancy, she knew that the delivery would have to be by cesarean section and, therefore, scheduled. She hadn't a doubt in her mind that she was carrying a girl and wanted her to have her birthday on May Day. Mother had images of Maypoles and ribbons fluttering in the breeze and of organdy and lace dresses. I'm grateful to have been a girl.

Every year my birthday was marked with a Maypole dance on the lawn, with all my friends being instructed in the dance, weaving and braiding the pastel-colored ribbons around the pole. For Mother it was a regular Rite of Spring and nothing was allowed to get in its way. 'My daughter is a May Day girl and she will have a Maypole dance and baskets will be filled with spring flowers. God, Why do you suppose I planned her birthday this way?'

When I was eight we returned to California for Mother to make The Virgin Queen and Gary stayed behind in Maine. Things had again been going badly in their marriage and the fact that Gary hadn't seen fit to go to work in a long time and money was in short supply didn't help matters. My memories of those next few months are a blur of friends' houses lived in until the friends returned and of cheap rentals, all for the purpose of cutting down on expenses. The best thing was that we had got away from Gary.

.......At first Mother seemed to be able to spare the rest of us the worst of it by containing the raging battles behind the closed doors of their suite, but, as the struggles became fiercer and the anger more intense, it must have been that only her own survival was on her mind.

My room at Witch-Way was at the top of the staircase at one end of the hallway while the master suite was a long way away at the other end. As the fights got louder and louder and their door was left open, it became impossible

for me to pretend that nothing was happening, impossible to ignore it by hiding my head under my pillow. The noises penetrated and I couldn't stop myself from listening, from straining to understand what was happening. As long as I could hear Mother shouting back at Gary, I knew she was all right.

But when I couldn't hear her anymore, I would open my door and listen for her. When there was only the sound of her weeping and pleading among Gary's threats and name calling, my fear for Mother would overcome my terror of Gary and I would find myself irresistibly drawn down the hall to protect my mother.

Once in their presence, I wouldn't be able to talk. Mother would look at me, usually from the floor at Gary's feet, and scream, 'Get out! Go away!' as she rocked and moaned. Looking back, I'm sure that she only wanted to protect me from Gary but, at the time, it seemed as though she were rejecting my help and it hurt.

Gary would glare at me, face contorted into a vicious mask, and shout, 'Get away from me and mind your own business, you little slut, or I'll give you the same as your mother! Would you like that. . . huh!' Then he would lurch a step or two in my direction while Mother shouted, 'Gary, no! Don't! God, please no! B.D., run! Get out! Now!' I would scream, 'Don't hurt Mommy anymore! Don't hit her again!' and Gary would slap me across the face or knock me down and Mother would scream louder that I was making it worse.

Whatever Gary's treatment of Mother and me, he was always careful to shield Michael, whom he adored, from the worst of it. Before beginning one of his rampages, Gary invariably took my brother to his room and locked him in. Then, when the battles were over, Gary would often go to Michael and tell him that he didn't think he would be able to put up with Mommy much longer, that the two of them might have to run away soon. Gary was also likely to burst into tears and fall asleep curled up on Michael's bed with his arms around his little son

BD comes off as such a sanctimonious cunt. You're really on Bette's side, reading this book.

Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn were very smart to not have children!

One night I went to bed while a party was going on. It was very noisy and, with guests milling on the lawn beneath my windows, it was impossible for me to fall asleep. As I lay there listening to the conversations below, a heated argument broke out between Gary and another man.

The man was accusing Gary of having an affair with his wife and I recalled the few times I had walked into the living room early in the morning only to freeze in my tracks and quietly back out upon seeing Gary sprawled on the couch with his best friend's wife. I wondered if that was the wife now in question and found it rather pleasing to listen to this man raging at Gary.

There was lots of arguing and then the sounds of doors slamming and people leaving. All was quiet for a while and then I heard Mother shouting at Gary in the entry hall at the bottom of the stairs. 'You make me sick! You think you're such a hotshot with all the broads? Ha! You haven't laid me in years. The only time you touch me is when you beat me up. Bastard! That's all you're good at.'

Then came Gary's evil laugh and sneering tones. 'What are you bitching about? Getting slapped around is the only thing you enjoy, you stupid cunt! If it doesn't do anything for you, why do you beg for it all the time?'

'Oh, my God. That's what you always say and you know it isn't true. You know that violence terrifies me. All I want is to be loved like a woman.'

'Bullshit! You're no woman . . . you're a frigging ice queen. Without an audience you're not worth a shit! Maybe if I knocked you on your frigid ass on the stage of the London Palladium and then jumped you, you'd perform. Outside of that, a knothole in a tree is more exciting than you.'

'Jesus! You really are something! I suppose all the other men in my life didn't know what they were talking about? One of them even —'

'Jesus Christ! Are you going to hand me that crap about Howard Hughes screwing you on a bed of gardenias again? He fucked every two-bit twat in Hollywood and you're proud of holding out for ten bucks worth of gardenias! Poor dumb son of a bitch wasted a lot of flowers. The only people who can be around you for long without wanting to kill you are fagg*ts, so don't waste your time telling me about all the men -'

'So my other three husbands were fa*s, were they? Well let me tell you something ... at least they were men! They-'

'They nothing! They all kicked the shit out of you. You've told everybody who would listen to you about it. The first was a nothing, the second was a drunk who never left his mommy's titty and the third ran away with your slut daughter's nurse. The only thing I'll say for them is that they got airplanes out of you. You didn't have anything left when I came along.'

Has anyone read "Miss D and Me," by the personal assistant during the last ten years of Bette's life?

So you could write "cunt" but not "f*g"? What year this book came out?

Mother screamed, 'Stop it! Stop it! I can't take any more' and I heard their feet pounding up the stairs. When she reached the top Mother shrieked, 'Get away from me! Go to your whore! I don't want you.'

A stream of curses and threats filled the night and I realized that I had moved from my bed to the door, just a few feet from where they were standing. Mother suddenly whispered a plea that he not '. . . frighten the children.' But Gary shouted, apparently directly at my door, 'Maybe the little slut should come out and see what you get for starting a fight.'

'Gary, get out of my house!' Mother yelled, panic in her voice. 'Leave this instant! Leave B.D. out of this for God's sake!' I ran and jumped back into bed, but too late. The door flew open and Gary roared, 'You want to listen? You might as well have a clear view as well!'

He laughed at me and Mother threw herself at him like a crazed cat. Gary turned and knocked her again to the floor. She tried to get up and he knocked her down again. She tried to run back down the stairs, I think in an attempt to steer Gary away from me, but he caught her at the top of the stairs.

I could see her flailing at him, trying to get loose. He had her by the neck and, as she got down a couple of steps, he moved to the other side of the railing and jerked her along until her feet could no longer touch ground and she dangled by her neck while he bellowed about teaching her a real lesson.

Mother was making gurgling, choking noises and I couldn't stand it anymore. I flung myself at Gary's back, pummeling him with my fists, trying to make him let go of her. I screamed hysterically, 'You're killing her, you're killing her!' He kicked me away a couple of times. Mother was just hanging there, thrashing wildly and choking. I couldn't just give up. This time he was going to kill her

Oh, how I wished somebody would hear and come to help, but there wasn't a soul stirring anywhere despite all the noise. Suddenly Gary let go of Mother and she fell halfway down the stairs, to the landing directly below her. I wanted to run to help her but Gary spun around, hit me and flattened me against the wall. I must have passed out because I don't remember anything more until I woke up on my bed.

There were voices coming from the front hall and to my overwhelming relief I heard Mother's. Then I heard Gary's laughter and amiable tones, then strange male voices. I got up and, feeling sore all over, made my way to the top of the stairs where I crouched to hear what was going on.

Mother was pacing wildly and flapping her arms. Gary was sitting on the hall bench with his legs crossed, drink in hand, swirling the ice cubes casually around in his glass and smiling benignly at two uniformed policemen. Mother was shrieking half incoherently at the policemen, showing them her neck and accusing Gary of trying to strangle her. One of the policemen tried to explain, evidently not for the first time, that unless she were willing to press charges, which would necessitate them taking Gary off to jail, there was nothing else they could do.

Mother said that she didn't want it in the newspapers but that they should do something informally. The policeman said his hands were tied and turned his attention to Gary when Mother became increasingly hysterical. Gary explained that it had been a simple domestic argument, winked knowingly and said that he was sure they knew how that was. He said that it was really nothing for them to concern themselves with and that his wife was prone to overreaction and hysteria, and he was sure they could see for themselves. Then he offered them a drink.

I wanted to run downstairs, but then Gary would clobber me again after the policemen left. I stayed where I was and when it was all over I scurried back to my room.

I was wandering in the garden and came upon Mother sitting alone in the gazebo and crying quietly. She hadn't heard me approach and I stood for a few moments, listening to her weeping and wondering whether to withdraw in silence or go to her and try to be of some comfort. I couldn't ignore her unhappiness and continued the last steps to the gazebo. 'What's the matter, Mom?' I asked gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. 'Is there anything I can do to help?'

'No,' she replied, starting slightly and looking up at me, 'it's nothing for you to worry about.' She forced a little smile through her tears. 'Sweet of you to care, though.'

'It's Daddy, isn't it?' I suggested, sitting down opposite her. 'Yes, but don't worry. It'll all work out somehow.'

'But it won't, Mom,' I protested. 'It never does ... it just gets worse.'

'You don't understand.'

'Then tell me about it. I was there when Daddy tried to choke you. I saw it all. If I hadn't stopped him he might really have killed you.'

'Oh, B.D.!' she suddenly wailed. 'Just love and trust me. I love you more than anything. You know that I wouldn't let any harm come to you. It's just that you're too young to understand. I have to stick it out for you kids.'

'I'm not too young!' I protested again. 'I know everything that goes on, I really do. I just don't understand why you go on living with him.'

Mother pulled herself together a little. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, lit a cigarette and stared directly at me. 'You may know what goes on with Daddy and me but what you can't know, darling, is that it doesn't make any difference. All men are the same in the long run.'

What do you mean?' I asked, completely baffled by her response.

'Well. . . you might as well know it all. The others beat me up too. Men think it's their great power over us. God help you, you'll find out soon enough, my darling daughter. The bastards can't stand a bright, strong woman.' 'Ham ... his great weakness was money. He forced me to have two abortions because I was paying all the bills and he wouldn't have children unless he could pay for them. He was a brilliant trumpet player. Somehow he never got a break and he took it out on me. It broke my heart but I had to leave him. He was my first love.' Another pause and still the distant look.

'Then there was Farney. A real charmer but an alcoholic who was tied to his mother's apron strings . . . and what a mother! Christ, what a cold bitch. It was a tragedy when he died even though our marriage was headed for disaster anyway. He used me too ... he got violent at times to take out his frustrations. Ha!

Then came your real father. Brother! Sherry was a real pip ... all muscle and no brain. He boxed in the Olympics and swam in the Pan-Am Games. All he cared about was his damn physique! It was pretty beautiful, I'll tell you that much. He loathed my brightness. It drove him mad trying to prove his manly superiority.' She gave me a wan smile. 'You, my dear, were an immaculate conception.

'What's that?' I asked, not having the least notion.

'You're too young to understand, but I don't recall ever being laid by your father. You had to be an immaculate conception.

AFter reading this I could totally understand why bd turned out like this. She was abused by her step father

BD is mad!

I still had no idea what she meant but, all these years later, I still have a hunch that it was not so much another swipe at my father as an expression of her wish that she could have conceived me without undergoing the degradation of the sexual act. She wrote in her autobiography that sex was God's joke on humanity, a grotesque anachronism and an outdated testament to man's waning power, whatever that may mean.

I had heard everything that Mother said. The stuff about her husbands wasn't new and I was still puzzled. How could she say that it didn't make any difference whether or not she left Gary? Why did she say that all men were the same? It didn't make any sense. We knew all kinds of people who were happily married.

'I don't know what you mean, Mom,' I finally confessed. 'It can't be that everybody's miserable. We know lots of people who are happy together. Look at the Henreids . . . you don't mean to tell me they're pretending, do you?'

'Gawd, yes!' she exploded. 'It's all part of life's greatest farce. Paul would go for me in a minute if I gave him the chance . . . but I'm too good a dame to do that to Lisl.' This wasn't helping. I'd only seen Paul behave as a perfect gentleman, so I came back to the point.

'But why stay with Daddy?

'That's enough, B.D.!' she said in a sharp rebuke. 'I won't take any more from you. I can't! I won't face being alone again. I've been alone since my father walked out on me when I was a little girl like you. Nothing I did pleased him either. He was a brilliant lawyer and had I been a boy he'd have recognized his brains in me . . . but I was a girl... so he wrote me off. I don't blame him for despairing of Ruthie; my mother just wasn't up to him. She was a flibbertigibbet without a brain in her head. She still is. My sister, Bobby, was sweet but a bore and Daddy didn't care about any of us. Had I been a son, things would have been different. Boy, is that the truth! There's only one way for a female to be recognized in this man's world, as you'll all too soon discover, and that's to fight every inch of the way. You can never stop fighting. I fought and I'm still fighting and I'll go on fighting until my dying day'

'You see, since my daddy deserted us, I've been the father and it seems I always will be. I was the strong one. It fell to me to hold our little band together. Sure, Ruthie was a crusader and I'll always be grateful to her for her dedication. She saved my life . . . but in the end she fed off my strength too. Even Ruthie became a taker, and I became father not only to Bobby but to Ruthie and then Bobby's daughter, Fay, when Bobby's marriage inevitably crumbled. Brother!

Even my husbands expected me to be father. Sometimes I would die not to be strong, not to have to fight... it will always be my curse. You see, B.D., to survive you must learn to fight. You're bright too so you're also cursed as I was. Never relax, sweetheart, or the Lilliputians will climb up your legs and devour your soul. Be a fighter or be swallowed up with the weaklings. Never let your guard down . . . never!'

She suddenly stood up, took my hand and, with a deep breath, straightened like a soldier and said, 'Come on, daughter, let's go in. We'll fight the world together, you and I.'

[quote]Has anyone read "Miss D and Me," by the personal assistant during the last ten years of Bette's life?

Yes. It was interesting but not compelling, if that makes sense. A look at Davis in decline without a lot of gossipy bits.

Mother was thrilled to be doing The Virgin Queen. She had always said that she was too young to play Queen Elizabeth when she did The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and, now that she was playing her again, she would have the chance to really do her justice. She felt a great affinity for Queen Elizabeth, envied her her power and believed that she and the queen were very much of a kind. Additionally, this time she would not have to fight the costume battle she usually did over each character she portrayed.

Errol Flynn had played Essex the first time and Mother's longtime friend, Olivia De Havilland, had played Elizabeth's rival for his affections, Lady Penelope. Olivia and Errol had had a mad affair during the making of the film and Mother was quick to point out that 'although Errol is undeniably sexy, Bette Davis will never be a notch on his belt. No siree, bub! I'd scratch his eyes out and he knows it.' She did, however, like his portrayal of Essex despite her opinion of him as a man

......Mother didn't think much of Richard Todd as Essex and said, 'Compared to Errol he's a milquetoast. Elizabeth would have dumped him in five minutes flat.' Other than that she was pleased with the picture and prevailed upon Twentieth Century-Fox to open it in Portland, Maine, as a benefit for a local children's hospital.

There was an enormous cocktail party at Witch-Way and everyone wanted Mother to demonstrate her 'queen's walk' which was so talked about in the movie. It looked to me as though she had a rash between her legs and had to keep them apart when she walked but fortunately for moviegoers everywhere, I was the only one who saw it that way. Mother shone and was far more alive and animated than she had been at any time in the past few years

That V.D. is one piece of work. Ungrateful wretch. Wonder if Bette and Joan are commiserating somewhere.

I’m not just some KNOTHOLE in a TREE!!

Who schedules their child to be born a month early for no other reason than they want them to be born on May Day? Bette doesn't sound very maternal there. Most human beings would instinctually know the longer the gestation (closest to nine months) the better,

Mother never seemed in the least concerned about going off and leaving Michael and me with Gary. Although my fear of him was never far from the forefront of my mind, things were actually a lot easier when Mother wasn't around.

That she left me alone with Gary at all was a puzzlement; it was as though she truly believed there was no violence ... an argument once in a while, perhaps, but certainly nothing to get upset about Gary took Michael and me to California at Thanksgiving for A visit.

We stayed in a posh rental at Malibu, not too far from the studio where Mother was working. One weekend we were all invited for the day to the home of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. I recall how idyllically happy they seemed together and it amazed me when, not long after, Eddie Fisher ran off with Elizabeth Taylor. Oh, Hollywood! The Fishers and their children were extremely nice and it was a lovely day.

Mother didn't think much of Eddie Fisher, but Debbie Reynolds rated well with her as a promising young actress who's a tough customer.

.....They planned to be away together for about two months and it was obvious that Mother thought the trip was going to smooth things out between Gary and her. She even had red leather luggage made to fit exactly behind the bucket seats and seemed to believe that the pieces of her life could as easily be fitted back together.

Mother had no satisfactory movie lined up and decided that if she wanted to get her career back into full swing she would have to be in California to pursue it. She told me that since The Catered Affair had fizzled and she had played a frump to boot, Hollywood had decided that she was all washed up and had turned its back on her; she would have to be there to change their minds.

She persuaded Gary's brother, Jerry, and his family, who also lived in Cape Elizabeth, to close up their house and move into Witch-Way for the time she would be away since she wanted Michael and me to stay in Maine rather than be dragged to California again with all the uncertainty that faced her out there. There was plenty of room for all of us at Witch-Way and living with Uncle Jerry, Aunt Marguerite, Susan, Chris and baby was my first experience of normal family life. The contrast was overwhelming; no shouting, no screaming, no beatings and no fear, just kindness and love. I had found heaven

That period turned out to be one of disappointment and frustration for Mother. She was unable to get a movie of any kind and ended up doing a bunch of television shows just to survive. She did Playhouse 90 and Ford Theatre as well as a handful of others I don't recall. Even the first pilot she ever did for a TV series failed to pan out. Whenever she talked about that time in her life, it was with great bitterness and resentment toward the film industry for trying to 'dump' her

She was offered parts in two movies to be filmed in Europe. They were cameo roles but it was the only movie work available to her. She decided to accept the roles, send Michael to stay with Gary in Maine and take me with her. She felt that it was a terrible comedown but she was fed up with doing television....

Mother always had a blind belief that people were not influenced by her fame and that she was loved by 'honest' people who cared only about her as a person, not her fame. She was unshakable in this conviction, even extending it to tradesmen who grossly overcharged her and doctors who made productions out of small things in order to do the same. It happened throughout her life and she maintained an extraordinary naivete about it. Thus I learned to live with all the sycophants who worshiped the 'real' Bette Davis. They never did convince me and most of them were aware of it, even while showering me with gifts in order to please her.

She considered me very hard and often asked, 'How can you be so cynical? These people love your mother and you too. I don't understand you.' There were, of course, some true friends among the crowd, but very few. Sometimes it hurt me to see her so deceived. More often, though, it was downright infuriating to watch her stubborn blindness

Jesus God, I want to show this to my kids so that they understand how GOOD they have it.

......We took up residence in the same hotel where all the other Americans involved in the movie were staying. Since it was to be a long shooting schedule, many of the participants had brought their families with them. There were even a couple of girls my own age. John Farrow was the director and his daughter, Mia, and I became fast friends.

Part of the filming oijohn Paul Jones was done in the throne room of the Royal Palace in Madrid. It was cluttered with all the paraphernalia of filmmaking but it was still the throne room. At the foot of the steps to the throne there was a pair of larger-than-life marble lions. They were absolutely gorgeous and during one of the lunch breaks Mia and I decided that it would be great fun to sit astride them. We climbed up on their backs and promptly precipitated an international crisis. After we had been rudely snatched down, the alarms and excursions had subsided and the shouting had stopped, we were informed that the Spanish people, who had kindly consented to their throne room being used for the movie, did in no way appreciate their sacred lions being abused.

It seemed that there was a representative of the government on the set at all times to ensure the safety and care of the palace. He was appalled by our irreverence and it took a fair amount of talking to convince him that we were really unaware of the significance of the lions and that we meant and did no harm. It all blew over but, whereas Mia and I had been allowed to roam about the palace at will, we were now strictly confined to the filming area.

Mother was furious that I should have been treated like a vandal and had quite a few words to say about it. The restriction, however, remained. Her final words on the subject were 'Brother! These damned foreigners!'

Ben Hur was being filmed while we were in Rome and since it was being directed by Willie Wyler, who had long been an important man in Mother's life..... Mother's parting comment was 'Charlton Heston is such a pompous ass. He's lousy as Ben Hur. If Stephen Boyd had played the lead the movie might at least have had some guts.'

.....Next stop England, We visited all the royal palaces within reach, were particularly taken with Windsor Castle, visited the Tower of London and Hyde Park, saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and rode on top of as many double-decker buses as we possibly could. Harrods, a store to end all stores, which has everything from a fishmonger to couturier fashions, consumed days of our time. I decided that, while Mother thought she was Italian, I was English. I stated a the time, and with absolute certainty, 'Someday I shall marry an Englishman ... I know it.' Needless to say, Mother lit a candle in St. Paul's Cathedral.

All too soon for me - and after Mother had said of Alec Guinness, 'He's overbearing, egotistical, haughty, snotty, insensitive to play opposite and a dreadful actor' - The Scapegoat was finished and it was time to go home.

R10, It's excellent. There are some great stories about Bette in it that I hadn't read before.

R28, BD is a big fat sanctimonious liar, and I am sure you could make up better scare stories. Read 'em Mommie Dearest if you insist.

Apart from tearing flowers from their roots, there were other things that gave Mother satisfaction. It was as if she gave vent to her emotions by attacking inanimate objects.

Gutting fish was another passion. She used to say, 'I love to rip the guts out of fish. I like to feel the goo and blood and think of all the people who've done me dirt. Christ! Would I like to do this to a few people I could name.' After playing Queen Elizabeth she fancied the idea of having the power to behead people. Just the thought of it could put her in a good mood for days.

Thomas and Ogleetha had come to California with us and on one of Ogleetha's days off Mother was in the kitchen cooking. I decided to surprise her with my new baking skills and make one of her favorites, apple bread, for dinner. As I set about finding the ingredients, Mother looked up and asked what I was doing in the kitchen. I beamed enthusiastically. 'I'm going to make one of your favorite desserts.'

'That's marvelous,' she replied, 'but not while I'm cooking. God! You can't have two people in the kitchen at once.'I promise not to get in your way,' I said plaintively. 'It's a big kitchen and I only need this spare counter, way over here. I thought that we could do something together. Aunt Marguerite and I always cooked at the same time. She said she enjoyed my company.'

Mother spun on me and snarled, 'I'm so happy for you and your precious Marguerite! Brother! I guess you wish you were still with her. Well, let me tell you something young lady, Marguerite was only with you because I paid her to be. You really break my heart. Jesus! I'm the one who loves you . . . not Marguerite.' Never before had I felt so crushed and I couldn't understand why Mother would say such cruel things. I ran from the kitchen, holding back the tears until I reached the security of my room

Gary continued to come and go at random intervals and was drunk far more often than he was sober. I didn't make a conscious decision about my plight, but it slowly dawned on me that if Mother had minded Gary's attacks and all the violence, she would have done something about it. I was sick not only of being slapped around by Gary, but even more of the constant fear and uncertainty his mere presence engendered in me.

I began to stay out of their fights as much as I could, no matter how much it seemed as though he were about to kill Mother. Sometimes he came straight at me without first attacking Mother and I gradually developed the ability to detect a change in the tone of his voice. When that change came and I was quick enough, I got out of the house before the fighting began.

I had several hiding places, two of which he never found, one behind some bushes on the hillside overlooking the pool, the other behind the vine-covered chain-link fence that surrounded the tennis court. He rarely failed to search for me but, more often than not, I evaded him. It entailed my sleeping out of doors in my secret places and creeping to my bed at dawn, but it was worth it. By that time, Gary had forgotten.

My practice of hiding whenever I detected the telltale edge to Gary's voice had become second nature to me. One night, while I was sleeping in the apple orchard, I was awakened by the sound of a horse's high-pitched screaming, a sound they only make when they are terrified.

Thinking that a fire must somehow have broken out in the stable, I sprinted the hundred yards from the orchard and flung myself through the door. The lights were on and Gary was in Sally's stall with a length of barbed wire in his hand. The mare was plunging hysterically around the stall, banging her knees into the walls and screaming in terror.

Gary was holding the wire in a loop above his head and making lunging moves at Sally, quite obviously bent on getting the loop over her head and around her neck. His back was to the stall door. I leaped across the intervening twelve feet, threw the bolt and flung open the door. Sally plunged through the opening, knocking Gary backward into the wall as she did so, and took off at a mad gallop with me hard on her heels. I went back into hiding, knowing that Sally wouldn't go far, and waited to see what Gary would do next. It wasn't long before he stumbled out of the stable and went to the house.

I waited five more minutes, to be on the safe side, then found Sally and led her back to the stable. Her neck, shoulders and face were badly lacerated, her knees were banged up and she was lame. I spent the rest of the night treating her wounds and poulticing her knees.

In the morning Gary drove off and I went in search of Mother. I told her what had happened and insisted that she come to see Sally. She resisted strenuously, arguing that she didn't '. . . have to walk all the way to the stable just to see a couple of scratches on a horse,' but I eventually prevailed and got her down there. She glanced at Sally and said, 'Gary's an idiot. He was roaring drunk and probably decided to go for a ride in the middle of the night.'

'If that were the case, Mother,' I demanded angrily, 'why was he in her stall slashing at her with barbed wire?'

'He probably mistook it for a lead rope,' she replied and walked away.

Summer came to an end. Mother and Gary got ready for their tour of the country with The World of Carl Sandburg, a dramatic reading of Sandburg's works which was to receive great acclaim. Mother enrolled Michael and me at Chadwick School in southern California, in second and seventh grades, respectively. This was Michael's first time at boarding school...

At Chadwick, thank heavens, we weren't outcasts. There were all sorts of film children there, including Liza Minnelli, and we were just two more.

During Christmas vacation Mother and Gary rented the house at Laguna Beach where I was born. Margot was flown in from her school in New York State and Mother, who was always very emotional about Christmas, believed that despite the almost total deterioration of her relationship with Gary, we would have one big happy reunion.

All I can recall of that Christmas is we children tiptoeing around, trying not to be held responsible for starting the next shouting match; that and the fact that I pleaded with Mother to leave Gary. Whenever we were all in the same place at the same time, it was the same story; fights, beatings, curses and screaming. If Gary was there, the rest was sure to follow

Geez, no wonder Bette aged so quickly after All About Eve. Probably turned to the bottle as well.

At Easter vacation Michael and I were flown up to San Francisco to join mother and Gary who were there doing the final performances of the northern leg of the Sandburg tour. When we arrived we found a situation which so frightened us that we locked ourselves in our rooms for most of the time. The shouting and screaming, not to mention the crashings and hangings, were enough to frighten anyone..

Tennessee Williams was in San Francisco for a meeting with Mother concerning the possibility of her doing The Night of the Iguana on Broadway. His go-between was a lady by the name of Viola Rubber. Viola was as aware of the situation between Gary and Mother as must have been everyone else in the hotel and she was nice enough to take Michael and me on outings to Fisherman's Wharf and Top of the Mark and on as many cable-car rides as we wanted.

Just before we were to go back to school, Mother told us that she had finally come to terms with the fact that she had to divorce Gary. I was immensely relieved, but Michael took it very badly.

After Mother's announcement in San Francisco, and knowing that Gary had been replaced in the southern leg of the Sandburg tour by Barry Sullivan, the last person I expected to see when I got to Maine was Gary, but there he was and nothing had changed.

Gary would argue that there was no real reason for them to get divorced and Mother would sometimes stand her ground and sometimes give in but, whatever her posture of the moment, either immediately or within a few hours they were once more shouting and throwing things. Gary would then leave, only to reappear unannounced and do it all again.

Mother was utterly miserable but was determined to put a good face on things. It was obvious to everyone who knew us that divorce was inevitable but she kept postponing the actuality. Her marriage to Gary was to have been the marriage to end all marriages and she simply could not bring herself to accept another failure.

Giving up her marriage to Gary was the most heartbreaking thing Mother ever had to do. It wasn't that there was any tenderness, let alone love, left between them. It was that she had to forsake her self-image of successful wife and mother, roles she had always held to be more important than any others. She was convinced that Gary was her last chance to maintain that image and, rather than accept the shattering of the image, she had hidden for a very long time behind an emotional smoke screen

Despite Gary, we had loved our childhood in Maine, and Mother, to her credit, had accomplished her purpose of giving us some basis in reality with a New England rural upbringing. She was convinced, with good reason, that growing up solely in Hollywood would make it impossible for us to have our feet on the ground in later life. The glitter and glamour of Hollywood were all right as a place but not as a philosophy.

The Successful wife half of her image was destroyed and mother determined never to marry again. There was '. . . no man worth a shit as a husband on the face of the earth. They all let you down . . . it's just a question of time.' She focused all of her hopes for emotional fulfillment on me, proclaiming that I was the most talented, brilliant, beautiful being on earth. I came to pity anyone who failed to rave about me in her presence.

According to her, there was nothing and no one good enough for B.D. B.D. was all that remained of her dream and, if nothing else in her life were certain, at least she could rely on that. B.D. was to be the fantasy daughter of the world's greatest mother and the presents lavished on her would know no bounds. 'B.D. is the only thing I have ever really loved.'

The fear and the hurt of the last five years were finally over. I had survived. Because Mother had been pulled too many ways at once and had not protected me, I had learned to protect myself. I never doubted that she loved me and I never had any reason to contemplate my own feelings. She was my mother and I loved her. She had always been generous with me and particularly so after Gary had hurt me. Now she loved me more than anything else and whatever I wanted was mine. I slipped into the new role without a thought. It seemed perfectly natural to equate gifts with love. Whenever I gave Mother a card or a present of any sort, I received an 'Oh, thank you, B.D. I'm so happy that you love me so much.'

It wasn't that Mother had no love for Michael. She did love him, but it wasn't clear whether she loved him for himself or just as the symbolic son. I had always been Mother's daughter and when Gary was angry with her he also vented his fury on me. Michael, on the other hand, was the apple of Gary's eye and, although Mother got custody of both of us, Michael remained loyal to Gary.

Mother, despite protestations to the contrary, deeply resented my brother's inability to accept her as his one and only parent. Whenever Michael returned from visiting Gary, Mother subjected him to merciless cross-questioning. What had Gary said about Mother? What had Michael said about Mother? Whom did Michael love better? How could he love Gary at all when she was the only one who loved him? And on and on and on.

I was a normal, healthy weight, which didn't cut it for photographic modeling, so I went on what Mother called the lettuce-leaf diet. She wasn't happy that at thirteen, I was deliberately getting skinny, but I was determined. I lost the weight and did some modeling for magazines and some live fashion shows.

I had also begun to date. Mother was convinced that every man I met was overwhelmed by me, which proved embarrassing upon occasion. She began to live vicariously through me at this point and encouraged my dating. I was five feet ten inches tall, looked eighteen and always dated men much older than I. Mother usually approved of my choices and didn't mind how late I stayed out so long as I gave her a minute-by-minute account when I returned.

If I saw the same man several times, she would become increasingly nervous and rules would come out of nowhere. She would want to know exactly where we were going and what time we expected to be home. On arriving at a specified destination I would find urgent messages that I phone her. When I called she would insist that I be home at an earlier time than had previously been agreed upon. If I failed to call, either deliberately or through not having received her message, she would greet me at the door in her nightdress and create an incredible scene in front of my date. She invariably succeeded in driving him off, sooner or later, one way or another

Gary still made the occasional appearance in our lives. He had visitation rights with Michael, but I had insisted on testifying at the divorce hearing that there was no reason for me to have to see him and that I did not wish to do so. The judge, hearing my reasons, agreed with me and excluded me from Gary's visitation rights. Nonetheless, Mother insisted that we all get together for Christmas that year, so Gary was with us. Her dream was dying hard

It was 1961 and Jack Kennedy was about to be inaugurated. Mother was invited to do a reading of Carl Sandburg as part of the gala at the Washington Armory. There was great excitement. I had never attended anything so important before and Mother behaved like a kid herself. It was the first time she had looked forward to anything since the divorce and the fact that her 'beautiful Jack' was about to be President made her world a little rosier.

Not since Roosevelt had she felt so personally about a president. The first day or two was spent rehearsing for the gala and I wandered around an armory filled with practically nothing but famous names. It was a strange feeling. Usually the notable people in a crowd stand out. You say to yourself, 'Oh, look there's so-and-so.' This time an unknown face was of interest. It might even be someone really important.

.....Because of the storm, I met the President-Elect of the United States in a wool skirt and blouse. I'm sure he didn't even notice, but I felt like a clod. Just before I was introduced to him, Mother whispered to me, 'Now, when you shake hands with Mr. Kennedy, you just watch out. He's a notorious lady killer.'

The next morning the snow had been cleared away and it was a beautiful day for an inauguration. Mother and I had on the right clothes this time. That night Frank Sinatra gave an enormous dinner party and was kind enough to put me at his table, which was where the President sat briefly when he joined us between inaugural balls. President Kennedy gave me a rose and said, 'To youth. I wish I were nineteen again.' I was tickled, but then Frank had to go and tell him that thirteen was more like it. It was a marvelous evening and an absolute tonic for Mother

Bette was a hoot! Her antics seem more amusing than abusive. Bette actually spoiled B. D. ; B. D. lived a life of wealth and privilege due to her mother's stardom. Bette allowed to to marry at age 16 to a 29 year old show business something or other. She paid for a lavish engagement party and that her wedding and the expensive wedding gown that was designed by B. D. with the finest fabrics available. She showered B. D. with clothes and gifts and helped support her and her domineering English hubby for years. I think B. D.'s book was result of some kind of mental deterioration; she definitely went soft in the head and that book seemed to be the precursor of her impending lunacy. Today she is a huge cow with long Barbie doll blonde hair who raves about the second coming of Jesus and the sin of homosexuality. No matter what Bette did she always seemed preferable to B. D. Hyman.

While Mother was at Paramount doing Pocketful of Miracles, having almost walked off the picture because Glenn Ford insisted that Hope Lange have the dressing room next to his (the one Mother wanted), I found a new distraction.

Elvis Presley was making Blue Hawaii on the same lot and I got a pass to his set which, naturally, was a closed one, A closed set permits no visitors except by special permission and no tours under any circumstances. This is a common restriction on any set where visitors can slow down production. On Elvis Presley's set, screaming, fainting girls would not have moved things along. I was not bitten by the Presley bug like most of the young people I knew.

I loved his music but didn't particularly care for his hip-swiveling antics. It was more the boredom of watching Mother every day than curiosity about Elvis that prompted me to want to visit his set.

I quickly became a regular on the Blue Hawaii sound stage. The group was very congenial and all of Elvis's sidekicks were very nice to me. I discovered, much to my amazement, that Elvis was a thoroughly charming man; moody as all-get-out but sweet. He kind of took me under his wing and made me feel at home. It was a lot of fun.

I love how BD outed Olivia de Havilland as a slut...and a liar!

Because I liked Elvis and was spending so much time on his set, Mother decided that I was in love with him. Further, since I was irresistible to the male of the species, it would only be a matter of time until he was head over heels for me.

It became very trying, particularly when she began to speculate on what it would be like to have Elvis Presley as a son-in-law.

The more I protested, the more convinced she became and I lived in constant terror of her going over to the Presley set and proclaiming to Elvis that it was all O.K., she approved of him. Luck was with me, however, and it didn't happen, but until we left Paramount the possibility hung over me like a dark cloud.

Mother living vicariously through me was all right within limits, and I was even getting used to some of her outlandish fantasies, but I wished that she would keep it to herself. I also wished, for her sake, that I looked like Marilyn Monroe to justify her opinion of me.

When I looked in the mirror I saw a healthy-looking, California-beach-type blonde with green eyes, nothing spectacular; but to listen to Mother, Grace Kelly would have lost to me in a beauty contest. It was downright embarrassing when she shared this conviction, in my presence, with a roomful of people. It would have been nice if she'd permitted others to form their own opinions of me rather than discomfit them, and mortify me, with a speech like 'I want to know if you all realize how damned good-looking my daughter is. I hope so because she's the best-looking female I've ever seen and you'd all better damn well appreciate her!'

It was a real conversation stopper. She would stand there with her hands on her hips, looking triumphant, while fixing each person in the room with a meaningful stare as I tried to be swallowed up by the carpet

That summer, 1961, Grandmother Ruthie died and Mother was devastated. She had turned her mother into a saintly legend and, in truth, suffered the loss of the image more than the loss of the actual woman.

Mother always believed that Ruthie was entitled to everything she wanted because of her years of sacrifice. The trouble was that Ruthie went well beyond the bounds of reason in her wants and her deathbed request for a solid silver casket was a classic example.

It came at a time in Mother's life when she was hurting for money. In the film industry one's fortunes can go up and down like a yo-yo and Mother was at the bottom of her string. Ruthie was fully aware of this when she left the deathbed request on her bedside table and, even though Mother seethed inwardly, she complied with the request by arranging for the casket on time payments.

Ruthie had done an excellent job of making Mother feel guilty if her every wish were not Mother's command and she had, in a gesture of royal disdain, issued her last command

Bette Davis was obviously one of those pathetic females who couldn't stand the thought of not having a man in her life. And even if it meant getting her ass beaten regularly that was ok. I've known women like that and secretly every one of them enjoyed the beatings to a certain extent. They insanely thought if their husbands slapped them around or verbally abused them it meant they cared enough about them to do it. They also stupidly think if they don't have a man in their life they are somehow lesser than other women.

.......Mother immediately began work on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? with Joan Crawford. The press was overflowing with expectations of the rivalry of the century and Mother, of course, was stating publicly that she and Joan were '. . . just two professional dames doing a job.' Somehow, no one could accept that it was quite that simple.

I knew a great deal about Joan, none of it good, and was curious myself to see how this was going to work out. It certainly was stirring lots of publicity even before shooting began.

The producers were happy . . . publicity is the name of the game. Robert Aldrich directed and it was his lot to console both of his stars at all hours of the day and night and to try to keep the situation under control.

Mother, as usual, decided that he was madly in love with her but couldn't stand Joan, '. . . but what can he do? He's stuck with Joan.' I never doubted that Joan felt the same way but in reverse. Anyway, Bob Aldrich could not have got much sleep during filming, judging from the hours that mother alone kept him on the phone at night

I spent much of the shooting schedule on the set and my first contact with Joan Crawford went like this. Mother walked over to her and said, 'Hello, Joan.' Joan answered, 'Hello, Bette.' Mother said, 'I'd like to introduce my daughter, B.D. B.D., Joan Crawford.' I extended my hand and said, 'Pleased to meet you, Miss Crawford.' She pulled back from me, putting her hand behind her back as if I were diseased, and replied, 'Hello, dear. One thing . . . my daughters, Cindy and Cathy, are going to be on the set with me a great deal. See them over there on the bench?'

I looked in the direction in which she was pointing and saw two girls about my age, dressed in identical corduroy overalls and middy blouses, matching shoes and even the same hairstyle and color of hair ribbon. They were both knitting, and, even though they were close enough to hear the conversation, neither of them looked up when their mother spoke about them.

Joan continued, raking me up and down with a supercilious gaze. 'I would appreciate it if you would not try to talk to them. They have been very carefully brought up and shielded from the wicked side of the world. You, obviously, have not. I don't want your influence to corrupt them. They are so sweet and innocent, you see? I know you will do as I wish. Thank you. Bless you, dear.'

With this, she smiled a saintly smile and walked away. Mother and I stared at each other, speechless. There really wasn't much one could say after that

Joan, with much fanfare, provided the set with an enormous Pepsi cooler. Her own bottle of Pepsi, constantly at her elbow, was always half full of vodka. Joan thought this was an ironclad secret but everyone knew about it and Mother would rage in her dressing room. That bitch is loaded half the time! How dare she pull this crap on a picture with me? I'll kill her!'

They maintained a strained politeness toward each other during shooting but in private Mother made it very clear what she thought of Joan. One thing that drove Mother crazy, aside from the vodka, was the varying sizes of Joan's falsies.

In certain scenes Mother had to lean over Joan, who played an invalid, and she would complain, 'Christ! You never know what size boobs that broad has strapped on! She must have a different set for each day of the week! I keep running into them like the Hollywood Hills! What does she think she's doing, for Christ's sake? She's supposed to be shriveling away while Baby Jane starves her to death, but her tits keep growing! Does she think the audiences are idiots? Jesus!'

I had a bit part as the girl who lived next door and Mother was delighted Somehow the movie was finished and turned out to be a success.

Unfortunately, the movie industry decided that the success of Baby Jane was a fluke and that Mother was a has-been. The only work she was able to find, once again, was in television.

Joan had BD’s number at first glance.

Mother bought a tomb. One day she told me that she had something to show me. We climbed into the Cadillac and were driven to Forest Lawn Cemetery. I was somewhat taken aback, but Mother looked like the proverbial cat who had swallowed the canary..... The building itself was set in a little garden with stone benches and taped music, the whole surrounded by an iron fence. After a few moments of polite silence I turned to Mother and asked, 'O.K. I give up. Why are we here?'

'Don't you like it?' she replied in a hurt voice. I said that it was beautiful for what it was, but that tombs really weren't my thing. Mother drew herself up, beamed at me and said, 'We're all going to be buried here. I own it. No . . . don't look surprised. I really do own it. Isn't it magnificent?'

When I asked why she had bought this marble pile, she looked crushed. 'You don't understand,' she wailed. 'Look, B.D., we're all going to be buried here . . . together . . . there's room for all of us . . . God . . . I've taken care of all of it ... no one has to worry about where they're going to be buried . . . I'm digging Ruthie up and moving her here.'

She spun around and waved at the surrounding panorama. 'Look over there. You can see Warner Brothers Studios . .. and up there is the giant Hollywood sign. It's perfect. Jesus! I'll be able to see all of it when I'm here.' And then, as an afterthought, 'By the way, did you look carefully at the statue of the goddess in front? It's you . . . see?'

'That figures,' I replied, suddenly realizing why the girl had looked familiar. Mother then told me the price of this monstrosity and I nearly fainted. She hastened to assure me that she had got a good deal. 'The head salesman gave me a break because I'm a Yankee.'

She had wanted to surprise me and she had succeeded, although not quite in the way intended. 'I looked at lots of tombs before I chose this one,' she added persuasively, perhaps noticing my marked lack of enthusiasm. 'I'm sure you'll come to love it as much as I do.' At my continuing look of skepticism, she went on to explain that her funeral wouldn't be anything elaborate; she just wanted a simple pine box to be slid into her slot like a true Yankee.

'I will not fall into the trap of an expensive coffin and funeral like most people!' No sir! Keep it simple. That was Mother's credo.

At about this time Mother's housekeeper quit and no acceptable replacement was immediately available. Mother got into a terrible state because if Aunt Bobby were to take over the housekeeping chores, she would be left without her sister's services as lady's maid, companion and gofer. Since I enjoyed cooking and housekeeping was well within my competence, I volunteered to fill in until a new housekeeper could be found.

Mother was overwhelming in her gratitude. For three weeks I cooked and polished and cleaned and laundered and it was very rewarding. Not only did I find that I enjoyed it, but Mother's nonstop praise for my efforts was exhilarating. The food I cooked was the best she had ever tasted, the brass and silver I polished had never shone so brightly, the floors had never had such a gleam and the house had never been so clean. Even her bed felt more comfortable because of the way I fluffed up the pillows. When I handed Mother her usual Scotch on the evening before the new housekeeper was to begin work, she exclaimed, 'God, you're an incredible girl! I'm almost sorry that the new woman's starting tomorrow.'

I became caught up in a mad whirl of parties, dates, horse shows, fox hunting, perpetuating my tan on Santa Monica Beach and more dates. Mother's tendency to question me on every little detail of my dating life back in New York took on a new dimension now that I was fifteen and going out with all sorts of interesting people of a remarkable range of ages.

The more interesting Mother thought my date of the moment to be, the more she pumped me for every little detail of our relationship. I managed to fend off her intrusiveness quite well until I started going out with George Hamilton.

This was too much for Mother. She thought he was 'a magnificent man' and if she had ever lived vicariously through me before, now she was in a positive lather of anticipation. She always had a gleam in her eyes when I came home from a date with George but, one night when I stopped by her room to say good night as usual, her opening line was 'Well? Did he lay you?' I was terribly embarrassed and more than a little disgusted by my own mother asking such a question.

'I beg your pardon,' I foomfled.

'You know,' she persisted. 'Did he do it to you?'

'I never kiss and tell,' I answered, trying to cover up my mortification with sarcasm. 'Why don't you call George and ask him?'

'Oh, come on, B.D.,' she wheedled, 'you can tell me.'

'But I'm not going to,' I stated flatly.

'Well, he better have. I'll tell you that much,' she said threateningly. I looked at her for just a moment more, then, still blushing to the roots of my hair, I fled to the privacy of my room

Mother became, for her, very social, and the bill at the florist's soared. She usually lit into someone during the course of an evening out and it generally resulted in an unpleasant scene. Even when I had not been with her, it was easy to tell when she had been at her nastiest. The next morning would go something like 'What a night last night was. Jesus! So-and-so was a real bastard. Brother! Did he let me have it. Weeps! I'll never forget it. He went on and on. I thought he'd never let up on me. The hosts were shocked.' She would deliver such a speech while pacing characteristically about the room and puffing madly on a cigarette. Then she would collapse into a chair, exhausted. I knew from experience that she had done an Academy-Award-caliber number on some poor soul.

There was no stopping her when she got going. She thrived on being the center of attention and that was her way of doing it. It was most likely to occur when she was part of a large group and getting no special attention, even at her own house. If everyone present was having a good time but' . . . taking me for granted like I was the damned maid or something,' meaning there was general conversation but not about her, off she would go.

To make matters worse, she had an uncanny knack for selecting either a vulnerable person who was in no way emotionally equipped to do public battle with Bette Davis or a relative who wouldn't answer back for the sake of good manners.

In Mother's recollection of the event, a complete transference of roles occurred and no amount of arguing could persuade her that she had in any way been at fault.

She would then rush to the phone, the next morning, that is, and order some lavish floral arrangement to be sent to her host of the previous evening with a note to be hand-delivered within the hour. She would write something like 'Dear so-and-so, I can't tell you how sorry I am for the wretched scene last night. I don't understand why people have to give it to me like that but I guess I'll run into it all my life. I'm only sorry that you had to listen to it. It was a lovely evening. Thank you. Bette.' The chauffeur would be dispatched with the card to the florist and Mother would feel much better now that that was cleared up. The florists adored her

The best thing to do when Mother went off on an unprovoked and utterly unwarranted tirade was to bite one's tongue until she was finished and then proceed as though nothing had happened. There were times when the victims, myself among them, were unwilling to sit back and be abused and had the temerity to defend themselves. This would lead to an immediate about-face on her part.

'Don't do this to me! God! Not tonight! How can you do this to me tonight?' Whenever anyone made so bold as to defend himself against one of her tirades, he was met with some variation of this response and it was always the worst of times at which to distress her with his ill temper.

At dinner one night a typical donnybrook developed between Mother and Aunt Bobby. Mother habitually picked on Aunt Bobby for anything and everything and this time it was the roast beef. The standing rib which Bobby had cooked was a beautiful pale pink in the center, precisely the way everyone in the family, including Mother, liked it.

Mother began by insisting that the pink wasn't rosy enough and that the edges were too gray. Aunt Bobby contended that it was just the same as it always was. I chimed in to say that it was delicious, then everyone ate in silence for a few minutes while Mother brooded. Suddenly she blurted, 'Bobby has ruined this gorgeous piece of meat. None of you cares how I slave my guts out to buy you this fabulous food. It costs a fortune! The least I expect is to have it prepared the way I like it.' She pushed her plate angrily away. 'I can't eat any more . . . it's too horrible to swallow.'

Mother had pushed her plate halfway off the table and Aunt Bobby, seated next to her, put her hand out to stop the plate from falling on the floor. At the same instant Mother started to get up from the table, leaning toward her sister. Aunt Bobby's hand, outstretched for the teetering plate, touched Mother's arm. The reaction was instantaneous. 'How dare you strike me?' Mother screamed. 'You ungrateful bitch!'

'I didn't,' Aunt Bobby protested as she stood up with Mother's plate in her hand.

'You damned well did and you know it!'

again wondered why Aunt Bobby put up with it, why she permitted Mother to treat her this way. I watched as she crawled across the carpet, picking up the debris, and felt positively heartened when she spat at Mother through tightly compressed lips, 'Stop it, Bette! Stop it right this minute!'

For an instant, as a vicious expression came over Mother's face, I thought she was actually going to kick Aunt Bobby. But then her expression changed as she planted her feet apart, put her hands on her hips, leaned forward and shouted down at her sister, 'You have no idea what it's like to earn a living! You've sponged off me your whole life and you'll damn well take whatever I dish out. Don't you dare tell me to stop it. Don't you dare tell me anything.'

Aunt Bobby, saying nothing and avoiding Mother's gaze, got up from the floor and went to Michael, who had started crying shortly after all this began, and told him that he could leave the table.

'That's right!' Mother screamed. 'Mollycoddle him. Let him be a damned crybaby. Jesus, Bobby! He has to learn to face up to life sometime, you know. It's a jungle and he better get used to it.'

I got up and began to help Aunt Bobby clear the table. I wasn't even halfway to the kitchen with the first armful of dishes before Mother burst back into the room. 'B.D.! Put those dishes down this instant. That's Bobby's job. She has a job here, you know? It's something you all seem to forget. I pay her to do a job.'

As I went on to the kitchen, I snapped back at Mother angrily, 'Aunt Bobby is also family and if I want to help her, I will.'

Mother grabbed Aunt Bobby roughly by the arm and started to shake her. 'How dare you let B.D. do your job? I won't have you treat her like a maid.' Aunt Bobby tried to pull away but Mother had a vicelike grip on her arm and continued to shake her. Aunt Bobby cried out, 'You're hurting me, Bette. Let go of me!' Mother must have squeezed much tighter, or dug her fingernails into her sister's arm or something, for Aunt Bobby suddenly started to thrash around wildly in her grasp. Mother let go with one hand and hit her in the face.

Aunt Bobby took a swing at Mother. In an instant, they were pulling each other's hair, kicking at each other and screeching like a pair of alley cats. It only lasted a few seconds, then the crying began. Mother held her face, wailed about her osteomyelitis and accused Aunt Bobby of destroying her bridgework (she hadn't) before heading for her room. Aunt Bobby screamed at Mother's departing back that she had knocked a tooth loose (she hadn't) and ran to her room.

Aunt Bobby's room, referred to as 'the crow's nest,' was located above the garage and could only be reached by its own staircase at the far end of the house

....I climbed the stairs, knocked on the door and entered at Aunt Bobby's invitation. I explained to her apologetically that I just plain didn't like the way Mother treated her and was puzzled as to why she let Mother get away with it.

'You see, B.D., ever since we were children I've known that Bette was the important one. Mother geared our whole lives to my sister. Bette came first and I was just a tagalong. I never got new clothes, just my sister's hand-me-downs. I was told that she had to have new clothes because she was going places in the world. Bette was temperamental even when she was little.

If she had a tiny wrinkle in her dress she'd throw an unholy fit about it and, to make matters worse, everyone would rush around and find her another dress. If I got upset about something I was told not to be tiresome. Bette was the only one who counted. No matter how mean or nasty she got, it was fine with Mother.

It was difficult for me not to hate my own sister, and a lot of the time I hated her guts. The thing was, though, they were right and I was wrong. Everything I ever tried to do went wrong, while Bette became a great success, just like Mother said she would. I came to idolize my important big sister and to love her. It made me feel a part of her importance. Even though she's pulled some pretty nasty stunts on me, I still do love her. When I got married the first time she didn't seem to mind and basically left me alone

A few years after my divorce, when Fay was still a little girl, I married David Berry. You were too young to remember him but he was a wonderful man. He was a reformed alcoholic and very open about it. He was a wonderful man. Well, when we got married Bette was angry because she said she needed me and I was letting her down. To get even, I assume, she sent us a wedding present of a dozen cases of liquor, which were waiting for us in the foyer of our house when we returned from our honeymoon. When I confronted her with it, she pretended that she had forgotten about David's problem. Don't ever underestimate your mother, B.D. She's got a mean streak a mile wide when she's crossed.

The trouble is, you see, I can't fend for myself out there. Everything goes wrong when I'm on my own and I get scared. I really do need Bette and she knows it. She doesn't mean most of what she says. Tomorrow she'll apologize and tell me how much she depends on me. It's been this way from the beginning. Bette has pressures that she has to vent sometimes and I'm a convenient target. Don't worry about me, B.D., I'm used to it and get over it quickly. It's sweet of you to be concerned, but underneath it all I know she loves me and that's what counts.

My room was beyond Mother's on a circular balcony overlooking the front foyer. As I passed her door on my way to bed she called out, 'B.D.! Come in here.' When I entered her room she thrust an icebag at me and told me to fill it. When I brought it back she applied it to the side of her face and, sitting with her legs crossed Indian fashion on her bed, she began rocking to and fro and moaning.

'Is there anything else you need?' I asked stiffly.

'Why don't you sit with me for a while?' she whined. 'Or don't you have time for your poor old mother anymore?' Her pathetic routine set my teeth on edge and I blurted, i had plenty of time for you at dinner but you ended that rather abruptly, didn't you?'

'That damned Bobby!' she exploded. 'She gets so nasty at times, I can't stand it.'

'Aunt Bobby?' I challenged. 'All she did was cook a perfectly delightful meal which you proclaimed was inedible and threw on the floor. How can you —'

'Don't, B.D.!' she cried. 'I can't stand it! Can't you see that she deliberately ruined that beef just to get me? Brother! You always take her side. You think she's so damned sweet, don't you? Well, let me tell you something, my dear. Bobby's always been madly jealous of me. When we were little everyone saw her as the sweet, perfect little darling. She made me sick! Jesus! They soon found out who had the guts in the family, though. Let me tell you something, Bobby's always tried to drag me down . . . but she's never won. Ha! Even her bouts in the loony bin were kept from the press and didn't hurt me. But they sure cost me a pretty penny, I'll tell you that much. She was in the rubber room at P^yne Whitney more than once . . . and what I went through visiting her I can't describe.

All those horrible crazy people and my sister one of them. Well, I made it through the nightmare and Bobby always came out of it eventually. Of course, she was too stupid to even make a go of her marriages and I inherited Fay too. So, you see, I know how to handle Bobby. She's a tough customer, but she knows she has to behave in my house or I'll kick her out on her ass. Well, at least she's great with you kids ... for that I'll always be grateful.' Abruptly her tone changed. 'Good night, B.D. Please turn off all the lights before you go to bed. I hurt too much to move.

l wanted to read this book for years! thanx so much.

.........Mother's ill humor had resolved itself into more or less regular, twice-weekly tirades denigrating her son-in-law-to-be. The cause of it was probably a combination of her basic hatred of men, her natural reluctance to see me move away and her distress over the unending delays with respect to Four for Texas. She had signed to do this picture along with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, with Robert Aldrich directing. For one reason and then another, it didn't seem to get off the ground, which left Mother with nothing better to do than pick fights with me.

She had also signed to do Dead Ringer for Warner Bros, the following year, and, out of nowhere, the start date for Dead Ringer was moved up to early August. Bob Aldrich released Mother from her Four for Texas contract and she went to work. I was particularly relieved since it put an end to the twice-weekly tirades

...... 'That son of a bitch thinks he owns you! Well let me tell you something, young lady, he doesn't! And if you don't start obeying me, he never will!'

'I've got news for you, Mother!' I bellowed. 'Nobody owns me, and that includes you, whether you know it or not!' She backed away, glaring at me squinty-eyed, and moving toward the telephone she hissed, 'Well now. We'll just see who's in charge around here. You're a minor and you can't get married without my approval.' There was a pause while she lifted the receiver. 'Let's see how you like it when I tell your precious Jeremy that the wedding is off and I won't permit him to see you again.'

'Mother, you put that receiver down and take back every word you just said or, so help me God, I'll walk out of this hotel and you'll never see me again.' There was a short silence before Mother dropped the telephone on the floor, burst into tears, clasped her hands over her face and pleaded piteously as usual, 'Don't do this to me, B.D. Not tonight. You know I'm dead. You can't do this to me. God'

'The hell I can't, Mother!' I barked. 'Now I'm supposed to feel sorry for you because you're exhausted from sitting on a plane for a couple of hours. I had an operation a few days ago and you couldn't care less how J feel. All you care about is who's in charge, who gets to spend how much time with whom and your bullshit orders that never make any sense. I've had enough of your drivel. I'm going to bed. You can let me know in the morning whether you've decided to approve of the wedding. Good night!' I started toward my room but had an afterthought. 'One more thing. While you're deciding whether or not to bestow your almighty approval, bear in mind that it had better be final. Threaten to cancel the wedding one more time and I'm gone!'

With this, I stormed into my room and slammed the door, neither knowing nor caring what Mother would do next.

"[She] ended up doing a bunch of television shows just to survive."

And provide food for you to shove in your fat yap, you nasty c#nt!.

..............the last thing I expected was that she would concern herself with trying to attract my attention.

It began with a phone call in which Mother told me that she was dating a twenty-seven-year-old man and that she thought she had found true love again. In case I hadn't noticed that her new true love was three years younger than my husband, she mentioned it at least half a dozen times.

Another phone call, this time from a friend of hers, advised me that the young man was a homosexual and suggested that I do something before Mother made a public spectacle of herself. Mother's next call was to let me know that she was moving into her young man's Malibu beach house. Another of Mother's friends called to make sure that I knew that the house was a totally dilapidated dump used by the young man's transient friends and that many of the friends were dopers.

The flow of news continued for ten days or so. I heard that Mother was prancing about the beach in a bikini, going to hippie parties and generally disporting herself like a stereotypical teenager. I was never sure whether Mother's so-called friends who provided me with the running commentary were really her friends or simply people she had had call me as part of her overall game plan.

Whatever the truth of the matter, I maintained a strictly neutral tone with everyone, including Mother, avowing that she was an adult and that where she lived, with whom she lived and what she did were entirely her business and that I had absolutely no intention of interfering in any way.

Next, Mother called to announce that she was going to marry her new love. I had to say my piece. 'Frankly, Mother, I find your behavior ridiculous and rather sad,' I said formally. 'It is, however, your right to lead your life as you see fit and I haven't the slightest intention of letting you get me involved.'

'Oh, B.D.!' she wailed. 'Can't you see that I need your approval? You're the only thing I love and I wouldn't do anything to upset you.'

'In that case,' I replied, 'you have my approval. I have to admit, though, that I find it odd that I'm the only thing you love when you just got through telling me that you're about to marry the new love of your life.'

'Christ, you're a cold bitch! You know perfectly well what I meant. I love him and I'm going to marry him no matter what you say!'

'I don't know why you're going on about it. I've already told you it's all right with me. If you want to marry a homosexual, it's entirely up to you. Maybe it'll work out.'

'Brother!' she shrieked. 'You really want to spoil things for me, don't you? Well, maybe he was once, but he isn't now. All he needed was a real woman.'

'Mother,' I said, moving to end it before I lost my grip on my self-control, 'I have now said everything I intend to on this subject. Right this minute, I have to admit, I find myself more concerned with having dinner ready on time. So ... if you'll excuse me, I'll say good-bye and wish you the best of luck in your new adventure.' For once in my life, I hung up on her

Bette supported this spoiled rotten bitch and her useless husband for TWO decades, and this was the thanks she got. And she supported them so that they could live at an upper-middle class level, too. Bette would take a role in a shitty movie just to get money to BD, and this was the thanks she got. Awful.

You envious bitch.

It was only a few days before Mother was on the phone again. It seemed that she and her young man had had a desperate lovers' quarrel and broken up. 'Don't worry about me,' she sniffled. I'il get over it. It's not the first time I've been kicked in the teeth and it probably won't be the last. Men are shits . . . you'll see.'

Where Love Has Gone had begun in animosity and it ended the same way. Sometime after Mother had finished filming and had turned her thoughts to her next project, the picture which was ultimately titled Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (after an assortment of aborted titles like What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte? and, less politely, The Return of Baby Jane)...........

Mother phoned during early April to announce that she was coming to New York to see our apartment. I carefully explained that Jeremy and I tended to be quite busy at times and tried to pin her down as to just when she was coming. She remained as vague as ever. A couple of Mondays later, with no advance warning at all, she phoned to say that she had checked into the Plaza for an indefinite stay. I invited her for dinner the following evening.....

Mother had an obsession about being on time, almost a religion in fact. Promptness was right up there with honesty and being a Yankee and she would frequently arrive way early, beaming at her hosts as though she had accomplished some miraculous feat. I called Jeremy at the office to let him know that Mother was coming at six instead of seven. When he got home I warned him about her tendency to arrive early.

'She won't do it to me more than once,' he commented, grinning over his shoulder as he went to take a shower.

At five-fifteen Jeremy was getting out of the shower when the doorbell rang. 'I'll get it,' I called to him, putting on a robe and starting for the door.

'No, you don't,' he said, wrapping a towel around his waist. 'This one's mine.' He went to the door, dripping wet with towel around him and opened it wide. There stood mother and Leonard Sillman.

'Oh, hello!' Jeremy said, exaggerating his English accent. 'How nice of you to come three quarters of an hour early.' He made a motion ushering them in. 'Please help yourselves at the bar. B.D. and I will join you as soon as we're dressed.' With great poise he turned and strolled sedately back toward the bathroom, closing the hallway door behind him.

It was the last time ever that Mother arrived early at our house

Huge boxes of clothes began to arrive from Bergdorf Goodman. I kept the first two, not because I needed the clothes but because I knew that refusing them would upset Mother. I made a great point of finding them lovely and thanking her but I also asked her to stop sending them.

When the third box arrived, despite my best efforts to head it off, I phoned her without opening it and said, 'Mother, I really do appreciate your kind thoughts and the fact that you love me, but I've nowhere to put all this stuff. The closets and drawers are jammed full and I can't wear it all as it is.'

'Oh, B.D.,' she sniffled. 'You know you're my life. Don't do this to me.'

'Mother, please understand what I'm saying,' I pleaded. 'I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. It's that I have absolutely no room in the apartment for more clothes, and that's all there is to it.'

'So that's it, is it?' she flared. 'Jeremy's jealous! He doesn't like me sending you presents.'

'Jeremy has nothing to do with this, damn it!' I snapped. 'It's exactly what I said it was ... no more and no less.'

'All right, B.D., have it your way. But sooner or later you'll realize what a bastard he really is! Good-bye!

Mother, Jeremy and I went to a cocktail party at Joshua Logan's. Among the assembled notables were Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. During the course of the evening, while Jeremy was paying rapt attention to a dissertation by Richard Burton on the several ways of reading a certain line of Shakespeare, Mother, Elizabeth and I all found ourselves sprucing up in the master suite at the same time.

'Bette,' said Elizabeth, 'I'm dying to know the truth. How did you and Joan Crawford get along during Baby Jane?'

'God!' Mother replied. 'That monster woman! How do you think we got along?'

'Is it true she's as fixated with germs as everyone says?' asked Elizabeth.

'Jesus!, Mother replied. 'I take it you've never been treated to a tour of her apartment. It's true ... all of it. Everything's covered in plastic and the toilet seats have sanitized paper slipcovers. The woman's quite mad!'

When Elizabeth finished laughing she said, 'It really must have been interesting with both of you on the same set.'

Mother retorted. 'The crew had it rough with Joan. At least with me they had a pro, and brother did they know it!' A minute or two passed while we powdered and primped, then Elizabeth said, 'I've always promised myself that if I ever had the chance, I'd ask you a personal question. May I?'

'Of course,' Mother replied. 'I'm an honest Yankee dame.' Elizabeth looked slightly ill at ease, but then came out with it. 'I've heard it said that you and Mary Astor had an affair years ago. Is it true?'

'God!' shrieked Mother. 'Every son of a bitch in the world's been asking me that for twenty years. Shit! Everybody knows I adore men! I married four of them, for Christ's sake!'

Even though it didn't have as much impact as Christina's book, I found this to be even more vicious -- at least Christina waited for her mother to die before butchering her image. Must have sent Bette to an early grave. However, Bette had the benefit of defending herself, and rebutting the allegations.

When Mother called one day, I had a cold and it was impossible to disguise the congested sound of my voice

'You have a cold, haven't you?' she asked, as though expecting me to deny the obvious. I chuckled and said, 'I sure have.' 'Well, what are you doing about it?' she demanded. 'Taking aspirin, keeping warm and drinking orange juice like a good little girl.' 'Don't be flip with me, young lady! Has Jeremy sent for the doctor?' 'Oh, come off it, Mother!' I snapped. 'It's only a cold. If it doesn't go away by the weekend I'll stop by Jeremy's doctor in Westport when we're there, but I seriously doubt I'll have to.'

'You're crazy! You can't go out with that cold. You'll get pneumonia. Christ! I'm sending someone over!' 'Oh no you aren't. Just calm down. It's only a head cold, for crying out loud.' 'Only a head cold? Ha! If Jeremy doesn't know how to take care of you, at least J do.' Click, dial tone.

I dialed the hotel immediately but it was no use, Mother's line stayed busy. I didn't know what to expect next.........

My husband's desire to 'explain a few facts of life' to Mother had more to do with what had gone before that what was happening now. After the Leonard Sillman dinner, there had been a strange dinner with Mother in her suite at the Plaza. She spent the entire evening hiding in her bedroom, pretending to make and receive 'very important calls that just can't wait,' and then popping out to say something rude to Jeremy before retiring to the bedroom again.

We'd written it off at the time as a reaction to all our business-related engagements and her proving to me that she was busier and more important than my husband. Worse than that by far, though, had been my seventeenth birthday party. Mother had insisted on giving one and had inveigled me into providing a guest list to augment the people she wanted to invite. There were sixty people present in a banquet room at the Plaza.

Everyone who had been on my list, I was to learn, had been called by Mother and virtually ordered to bring an expensive present. On top of that, she got roaring drunk, insulted some very nice people, swore at the top of her lungs and tried to force grown men to do a Maypole dance. Yes . . . there was a Maypole. Jeremy had become so livid that we left before the party was over.

Bette had Jeremy's number from day one. She knew he was an asshole and a layabout.

...........No sooner had Jeremy mixed us each a drink than the doorbell rang.

'Are we expecting anyone?' he asked. 'Not that I know of,' I replied with a sinking feeling. He went to the door and opened it. Mother elbowed him out of the way, swept into the apartment and placed herself in front of me with her jaw thrust forward and her hands on her hips. 'What are you doing out of bed?'

'I was never in bed, and anyway, why are you here?'

'Because I knew something like this would happen,' she snarled. 'Now, you get into bed and stay there!'

'You'd better hold on for just a minute, Mother. I'm a big, grown-up, married lady and the only person around here who can order me to bed is my husband.'

'Oh, my God. r she howled. 'You mean he makes you do that, even when you're sick!'

I was so taken aback that I just stared at her, giving Jeremy the chance to speak for the first time.

'I think that's about enough, thank you, Bette. B.D. is not the sick person here . . . you are. It would be best if you left now.'

'He's right, Mother. If you keep this up, someone's going to regret it. Besides, I have to finish preparing dinner. The steak-and-kidney pie will be ready in half an hour.'

Mother, who had grown completely popeyed while we spoke, spun on Jeremy and spat, 'You English bastard! You're going to kill her!' She whirled toward me. 'And you! You're like a lamb going willingly to the slaughter. God! I can't stand it!' She grasped her head with both hands and looked more than a little crazed.

Jeremy opened the front door and said icily, 'Like I said, Bette . . . you'd better leave.' She started for the door, then stopped, apparently realizing that she was doing as she was told.

'Good night, Mother,' I said forcefully, but it didn't stop her from taking one more shot. 'You've cut out my heart!

Jeremy took her firmly by the arm, steered her the few remaining steps to the door and, ushering her through it, She was spluttering a garbled imprecation even as he closed the door on her.

Two days later I received a call from Tom Hammond, Mother's lawyer-manager. 'B.D.,' he began, 'you've got to stop upsetting your mother like this. You know you hold the key to her state of mind. How can you be so careless in your responsibility to her? How-'

'Whoa!' I said. 'What on earth are you talking about?'

'What I'm talking about, as if you didn't know, is the awful way you treated your mother when she sweetly, with nothing but maternal concern, sent a doctor to treat your illness and then stopped by to see how you were.'

'Surely you jest!' I cried. 'First she presumed to send a doctor to my apartment to diagnose a head cold, which is exactly what I told her it was. Then —-

'She was worried, B.D. You know how your asthma complicates your colds.'

'Nuts, Tom! I outgrew that with puberty eight years ago. That was only an excuse, and she didn't stop there, you know. Oh, no! After the fancy specialist and her attending nurse left in a huff because I only had a cold, Mother . . . dear concerned Mother, had the nerve to barge in, not stop by as you suggest, but barge in, hurling all sorts of nasty, rude accusations at Jeremy in his apartment with his wife and presume to tell me how I'm to conduct myself with a head cold. It was a real thrill, Tom!

'That may well be. Your mother is neurotic and we all know it. . . all the more reason for you to be sensible and understanding. She needs you . , . you hold her emotional state in the palm of your hand. You can't afford to be cavalier with her. When she feels rejected by you her whole world crumbles and it affects her career as well. You know full well she depends on you.'

'Oh, swell! Am I supposed to let her dictate my every move and Jeremy's as well? That's absurd and you know it.

Please, B.D.! She's in a terrible state and in this mood she could do anything . . . have a nervous breakdown . . . maybe worse. She can't sleep or eat because of what you did. You must call her and convince her you still love her and that everything's all right.'

Tom, you can't lay all this at my doorstep. It isn't fair. I do my very best to avoid confrontations with her. ... I hate them. However, there is a line to be drawn.'

'Perhaps, but now is not the time to draw it. She can't handle any more rejection. She needs you, don't you see that? This lady is one of the world's greatest and most famous stars and all she needs is your love. She'll calm down once she gets used to your marriage. Right now, it's still an open sore ... let it heal and then draw your line if you must. . . but if you do, be very, very careful. You have a responsibility.'

'O.K., Tom,' I sighed. 'It still doesn't seem fair, but perhaps you're right. She isn't around that much and I guess I can do my best when she is.'

At a dinner party for a dozen or so people, including Olivia De Havilland, Mother's bosom fixation reared its ugly head. She had grasped every opportunity to comment on mine during my adolescence and frequently had much to say about other women's cleavage. It was not uncommon for her to tiptoe in when I was taking a bath and giggle coyly while remarking on how amply endowed I was, or try to fiddle with my neckline if I was wearing a low-cut dress. It gave me the willies.

Olivia's bosoms were always a matter of major concern to Mother. Olivia had a beautiful figure and usually dressed in very flattering, low-cut, square Dior necklines. This style suited her well and it is safe to assume that catching Mother's eye was not what she had in mind when buying her clothes.

During cocktails Mother began to look ostentatiously back and forth between Olivia's decolletage and mine (I was wearing a low-cut pink silk blouse and wishing that I had chosen something else), much as a spectator at a tennis match. When she was satisfied that her odd behavior had attracted everyone's attention, Mother emoted, 'Well, my dear Olivia, you've finally met your match. Until now, you've always had the most beautiful bosoms in the room . . . but you've been surpassed!' A lewd expression came over her face. 'B.D.'s are better!'

V.D. said she wrote the book to "reach out" to Davis. Reach out and smack her.

......Mother played Charlotte, an old southern belle who during her youth had carried on with a married man........The picture found its way to Twentieth Century-Fox. Olivia De Havilland, to Mother's great joy, replaced Joan and Mother was able to say of Joan, over and over again, 'She was petrified of competing with me again. Ha!'

....Mother came to New York after finishing the picture and invited me to lunch at the Plaza. Conversation was general in nature and perfectly pleasant until she said, 'B.D., I want you to have a picture taken in your wedding dress.' I was completely at a loss and said, 'You what?'

'I want you to go to Bachrach and have a formal wedding picture taken.' She said it as though taking formal wedding pictures six or twelve months after the event was an everyday occurrence.

'But you have dozens of them,' I protested. 'Larry Schiller took the best set of wedding pictures I've ever seen. You have pictures of me coming, going and everywhere in between.'

Yes, but none of them are of you alone. He's in all of them!

'You've got to be kidding! I thought that's what weddings were all about. . . two people getting married.'

'Well! I only care about you. I'm not going to stare at a picture of him every day. Jesus!'

'Then why don't you take the one you like best and cut him out of it?' I asked acidly. 'I'm fed up with all your crap about my husband! I don't give a damn what you think of him ... just keep it to yourself! You don't even know Jeremy. You made up your mind that nobody I married would be good enough and you refuse to be confused with facts. Well I have news for you . . . Jeremy has his opinion of you, but I don't bore you with it, do I?'

'What do you mean, his opinion of me? What the hell does that bastard have to complain about, I'd like to know?'

'Don't get me started, Mother,' I hissed through clenched teeth. 'Let's just skip the whole topic. You wouldn't want to hear what he thinks of you any more than he cares what you think of him!'

'Well, isn't that just ducky!' she shouted, jumping up and glaring at me with her hands on her hips. 'You two obviously don't appreciate what an incredibly considerate mother-in-law I am! I never interfere with you! I'm not like all those parents who try to ruin their children's lives. I respect your rights. Obviously you don't give me any credit for letting you do everything your way. You don't give a damn about my feelings!'

Had Twitter existed, I wonder if Bette and B.D. would have been tag-team tweeting accusations against Gary Merrill throughout his career. I think not. Back then, actresses were tough old broads. Mia Farrow didn't acquire that gene, obviously.

In October of 1965 Jeremy and I moved to Weston, Connecticut. Earlier in the year we had concluded that we were stuck in the east and had bought a house.

Not only were we getting out of the city, which we both detested, but I had my own house for the first time in my life. I had been concerned that Mother would invite herself to stay with us whenever she came east and the only cloud in my otherwise cloudless sky was my dread of the scene which would follow my refusal to be her motel.

As it turned out, Mother using my house as a motel would not be the problem. Within a couple of weeks of our taking up residence at Wildwoods, Mother developed a pressing need to live in Connecticut. Her reasons were not compelling. 'Everybody knows that the movie business has moved to New York. Anyway, I'm fed up with California . . . I've always wanted to live in Connecticut.'

I knew why she was moving and no amount of public utterance would persuade me otherwise. She actually managed to convince one of her biographers that she had moved to Connecticut first and I followed her there.

Mother sold Honeysuckle Hill, shipped her furniture to storage and moved into the guesthouse of a lifelong friend, Robin Brown, in Westport. She stayed there through the winter until, in the early spring, her real estate agent found a satisfactory house located on the Westport-Weston line, just two miles from our house. She named her new house Twin Bridges, moved her furniture in and started calling me to discuss all the fun we were going to have together. High on her list of 'fun' things to do was staying overnight at each other's houses

It was time for Jeremy and me to discuss coexistence with Mother again. There really wasn't much to discuss. Our agreed-upon plan of reducing Jeremy's exposure to her to absolute minimum had worked well enough and we would have to keep on with it. The only difference would be that now I would have to see her two or three times a week all the time instead of only when she was visiting the east. I began to make a point to drop by Twin Bridges at least twice a week for lunch, coffee or a drink.

It didn't solve all our problems but it did reduce major unpleasantnesses to a tolerable infrequency.

Nineteen sixty-six was a slow year for Mother. No movies came her way but she did do a week as cohost on The Mike Douglas Show, an episode of Gunsmoke and she made an appearance on The Milton Berle Show.

In October she phoned and said that she wanted to have us over for dinner on Jeremy's birthday in November. I reminded her that my husband didn't like birthday parties in his honor.

'Couldn't you let me do it this once?' she pleaded. 'Jeremy and I have had a lot of trouble getting along and I want to do something for him ... so he'll like me.' She sounded so sincere about wanting to bridge the gap between Jeremy and herself that I began to feel bad about denying her the opportunity. 'Do you mean just us?' I asked warily. She was too quick with her reply. 'Yes, anything you say.' It was to be one of many, many occasions when I should have been more suspicious. I said, 'O.K., then, if it's just Jeremy and me at your house

A few days before his birthday, though, Mother rang. 'I've invited someone else, but don't worry, you'll approve.'

I knew that a disaster was unfolding right before my eyes, but I didn't know how to stop it. To do the obvious —

Mike and Shirley were getting out of their car as we pulled into the driveway at Twin Bridges. After the usual hugs of greeting we knocked on the door. Mother seemed to be in a pretty good mood, greeting our cousins effusively, giving me a big hug and telling Jeremy how nice it was to see him without a trace of insincerity in her voice. She dispatched Jeremy to the bar to mix drinks for us, but not for her as she already had one in her hand. She was about to take Mike and Shirley on a guided tour when Jeremy said, 'Before you disappear, Bette, could I trouble you for a couple of Anacin?'

'Does being in my house give you a headache so quickly?' she retorted. 'B.D., why don't you show Mike and Shirley around while I find something for your husband's headache? I wouldn't want him to suffer on my account.' So much for her good mood, I thought.

'That's very considerate of you, Mother-in-law,' Jeremy said, ignoring her jibe. I appreciate your concern.

We finished our drinks, Mother downing yet another one while we were still on our first, and filed out to get in my station wagon. Jeremy drove and Mother was in the front passenger seat. The restaurant was only a ten-minute drive but, before we got there, I noticed Jeremy's head drooping and snapping up again. I leaned forward and asked, 'Are you all right, darling?'

'I don't know,' he replied. 'All of a sudden I can't keep my eyes open. It's weird.'

'Do you want me to drive?' I asked, not alarmed but definitely puzzled.

'No, it's O.K. We've only a couple of minutes to go. I certainly feel strange, though.' Mother started cackling and rocking back and forth on the front seat.

'What the hell's so funny?' I barked at her. 'What did you give Jeremy, anyway?' She went on cackling. 'I knew he didn't really have a headache . . . he's just so nervous about everything.' Chuckle, chuckle. 'I gave him a Mil town ... to calm him down.'

'What's a Miltown?' Jeremy asked.

'It's a bloody tranquilizer!' I bellowed. 'What in God's good name is wrong with you, Mother?'

'Oh, don't fly off the handle, B.D.' She turned to Jeremy. 'Your headache's gone, isn't it?'

'No, it isn't,' he replied as we pulled into the restaurant parking lot, 'and now I feel strange as well. Thank you very much.'

'That wasn't very nice of you, Bette.' Shirley ventured. 'You really shouldn't give other people your prescription medicines, you know. It can be dangerous.'

'She's absolutely right, Mother,' I fumed. 'You've no right-'

'Oh, shut up, all of you!' Mother shouted. 'Let's just drop it, shall we? Jeremy will be just fine. Why don't you all stop worrying about him so much?' She got out of the car and started walking toward the entrance. Realizing that she was alone, she turned, spread her feet and placed her hands on her hips. 'Are you coming or not?' she shouted. I was worried about Jeremy; he had never taken a tranquilizer before, and not only were Mother's probably strong but he had had a drink too.

'Do you feel sick . . . would you rather go home?' I asked him. 'I don't feel sick,' he replied, 'just sort of light-headed and sleepy. Perhaps food will help . . . let's go and eat.

.........Again we sat and fidgeted, saying nothing. First, Mother's drink arrived and quite quickly thereafter, thank heavens, our appetizers. I nudged Jeremy into wakefulness. When he noticed the clams in front of him he mumbled, 'Oh, great. . . clams,' then just stared at them. The rest of us started to eat while Jeremy stared blankly at his plate and Mother stared blearily at Jeremy.

A few moments passed, then Mother shouted at him, 'Wake up and eat your clams, for Christ's sake! You ordered them ... eat them!' He blinked his eyes, looked at her across the table, looked down at his plate and, sounding much more lively than before, said, 'Oh, great. . . clams ... I love 'em.' To my immense relief, he started to eat

We ate as slowly as possible, trying to prolong the availability of something to do. Mother was getting drunker by the minute and none of us dared speak for fear of giving her another reason to shout at us. Every time she opened her mouth at this point it was to bellow something at somebody. Each time she did, the whole restaurant fell silent as everyone stared at us. It was like being in an E. F. Hutton commercial

To Be Continued....

OP, Thank you, I think. That is one wacko kid. Are you typing this all in? If so, that's very impressive.

This reads like a tiresome itinerary.

And I never believe anyone who claims to remember whole dialogues word by word decades later.

But thanks for posting, OP!

[quote]In October of 1965 Jeremy and I moved to Weston, Connecticut. Earlier in the year we had concluded that we were stuck in the east and had bought a house.

Oh, those POOR THINGS! "Stuck" in Fairfield County, one of the poshest Zip Codes in the country. No doubt Bette paid for much of that house. God, BD was such an ungrateful cunt.

It's obvious that most, if not all of the scenes B. D. describes are made up. NOBODY remembers conversations and incidents with that amount of clarity. And the words she puts in people's mouths are hilariously fake, like that phone call she said she got from Bette's lawyer/manager, telling her that "You know you hold the key to her state of mind. How can you be so careless in your responsibility to her?" and 'What I'm talking about, as if you didn't know, is the awful way you treated your mother when she sweetly, with nothing but maternal concern, sent a doctor to treat your illness and then stopped by to see how you were." NOBODY talks like that, except in novels and in the movies. Actually, it seems like that's what she's going for, snappy dialogue to hold people's interest as if they were reading a novel or watching a movie. Only thing is she expects people to believe it really happened. I don't much of it actually did.

BD was so stupid, she should've written that book as a roman à clef, Jackie Collins-style. Change the names, slightly alter the actual events. She could have had a huge bestseller and nobody would've been pissed off. Bette herself would've loved it.

Christina Crawford had a better ghostwriter.

Perks from a narcissistic parent actually worth something. Not cheap tsoscktkes

The down side would be the narcissistic parent mother who was constantly verbally abused. Sported a house coat and slippers (Italian version), watched Mike Douglas and Dinah shore. Couldn't bother driving up you to school if you missed the bus and made Sunday gravy too lazy to remove tomatoes seeds from Dad's garden. Lazy and no posh. I'd take Better any day. At least your Christmas presents weren't bought from sleazy flea markets. How to sweat and then freeze to death in an acrylic sweater. She made up for it by buying sweaters from Iceland &Norway later on.

OP, more!

I'm pretty sure Jeremy most of wrote this, not B.D.

R93 I've always said exactly the same thing. If it were called a novel, not presented as non-fiction, it would be funny, not vicious. Bette would probably have wanted to play herself.

Sounds believable to me. Bette was text book narcissist, a blood sucking emotional vampire. She used money to have iron clad control over her kid, treating her like an object she owned. What a nightmare,

Continued...

.......I continued to stop by to see her, but it was increasingly difficult to ignore her state of intoxication and the deterioration of her house. She had stopped keeping things tidy, but resented my trying to pick up for her. She said that now she was alone, there was no reason to worry about it. 'Who cares anyway?' she asked one day.

'I care,' I replied, 'and so do a lot of other people. I know you're feeling down, but you've got to pull yourself together and go back to work. That's what you really need.'

'What the hell do you know, B.D.?' she asked resentfully. 'You deserted me years ago. Just get away from me! I don't have to do a goddamned thing!'

'For your own sake you must. You can't be happy living like this . . . it's a pigsty. Look around you.'

She peered about her blearily and started to whimper like a frightened child. 'Happy? Happy? I've never been happy. All my life I've had to fight the world. Everyone has always tried to get me. Well, I had the last laugh ... I fixed them. They're still trying but I won't let them.'

'Mother, nobody is trying to get you. If you'll just stop drinking, you'll see things in a better light.'

'Oh, is that so? I suppose you think I'm drunk?' She suddenly screwed her face into a frighteningly vicious mask and shrieked, 'Get out, you bitch! Get out of here!'

But I was determined to at least try to penetrate the alcoholic fog. 'I won't get out until you listen to me. Even if you never work again as long as you live, do you want the whole world to say that Bette Davis disappeared into a whiskey bottle? You have to stop this drinking. I'll keep on coming to see you, more often if you like, but you've got to promise me that you'll try to pull yourself together.'

While I was speaking she pushed herself out of her chair, fixed a sickly smile on her face and assumed a shakily defiant posture. When I was finished, she hissed, 'You just go back to your cozy little life, why don't you? Go back to the husband and son you say you love so much and leave me alone. You don't approve of me, so get out of here.' Then in a scream, 'I don't care! Get out!'

no it would not be funny as a novel.the whole thing is unbearably cruel.

Mother's phone rang and, since I was next to it, I answered it. It was her agent and I said as much as I held the phone out to her. She lurched forward and snatched it away from me. 'Yes? What is it, Robby?'

She listened for a minute, then shouted, 'You can tell him to go fuck himself! I won't make that piece of shit! I don't care what he's offering!' She slammed the receiver down.

'What was that?' I asked

'Some piece of crap that Robby thinks I should do. Well, I won't. . . they'd better get that through their heads. I throw all their scripts in the garbage.'

She cackled wildly at the thought, but I was startled. All this time I had been under the impression that no work had been offered her, yet here she was hanging up on Robby and bragging about throwing unread scripts in the garbage.

'Mother,' I said sternly, 'you really must stop this. You have to work and you know it. You can't just insult everyone who's trying to help you.'

'Shut up! I'll work when I get some good scripts and not before!'

'How do you know whether they're good or not when you don't even read them?'

'I just know. I've done pretty well so far without your advice. Stop giving it to me now ... get out of here!' She stared at me, then screamed, 'Get out of here!'

She stumbled over to the bar, laughing and talking to herself. I left

Mother's drinking got worse. There didn't seem to be any time of the day or night when she wasn't staggeringly, slurringly drunk. Understanding her speech was extremely difficult, but since she repeated herself many times over, one could eventually figure out what she was saying.

She called me every day and begged me to come and see her, forgetting completely that I had been there the day before. Each time I went I hoped to get through to her, but each time it was the same. Within minutes of my arrival she began to curse me and heap abuse upon me. All of her life, she had had someone on hand to berate. In the early years she fought with Ruthie; then, in succession, Aunt Bobby, Viola and Vik were her whipping boys. Now, there was no one for her to scream at and abuse except me when I visited. I have no doubts that she treated her husbands similarly. I know this was so with Gary.

I ran errands for her a couple of times each week, mostly to buy food. She refused to call the market to have food delivered, although, of course, the liquor supply was constantly replenished. Somebody was delivering that, but she didn't seem to care if there was no food in the house.

My stomach had been causing me more and more distress throughout all this and one day Jeremy dragged me to the doctor. Before we left the house, I phoned Mother to tell her that I wouldn't be over until afternoon

'If you don't come right this minute, when I need you,' she said, 'you can go to hell!' I said that I would see her later.

The doctor diagnosed colitis, gave me a prescription and told me to avoid stress. On the way home, Jeremy and I discussed my dilemma. He agreed that I couldn't abandon my mother at a time like this, but urged that I stop trying to be her psychiatrist.

'You aren't qualified and, so far, all you've done is make yourself sick. I don't think anything you say will make a bit of difference. Your physical presence and assurances that you love her are all you can offer. She really ought to have professional help.'

'I know, but the thought of trying to convince Harold of that is worse than being shouted at by Mother.'

'You're probably right, but you mustn't fight with her anymore. Just be there and mumble inanities. If you keep fighting with her about the drinking, you're going to wind up in the hospital yourself.'

I went on visiting Mother and did my best to heed my husband's advice. It wasn't easy to do nothing but assure her that I loved her and 'mumble inanities.' The colitis grew a little worse but I didn't have any violent attacks. Mother's condition remained the same.

One day, Harold called. He said that Mother seemed to be having a drinking problem and asked whether I knew what was causing it. I told him that she had had a drinking problem for several years. It was just that now, being alone, she didn't have anyone from whom to hide it and it had become much worse.

He said, as I had known he would, that I was imagining this, that she had never drunk to excess before, that this was something new and that I should do something about it. He said that Robby had told him that Mother was hanging up on people, refusing to read scripts and insulting producers when they tried to talk to her. Nor was she answering her mail

I did tell Harold that Mother should have professional help. He said that she would never accept it and, anyway, if word got out about it, it could be disastrous for her career.

At the end of the conversation it was still my problem. A new secretary-companion, even if one were found, would never accept the job with Mother in this condition and outside help was categorically ruled out. I was the one Mother loved, he told me again, and I had to help her, I owed it to her. I agreed to keep on trying

.........'Mother!' I shouted. 'I will not watch you drink yourself to death! Think of your professional pride, if nothing else. You're a great actress . . . your fans don't want to read that Bette Davis is now a sad old drunk, rotting away in Connecticut.' I thought that by shouting I might be able to shock her into a reaction: tears, anger, anything.

'So you think I'm a sad old drunk,' she said as calmly as before, but maneuvering herself with great difficulty to her feet. 'How very interesting. Good-bye. You don't need to come and see me anymore, since I disgust you so.' She shoved me toward the front door and, though far bigger and stronger, I didn't resist.

'Mother, face it,' I pleaded as we reached the door, 'it's not a question of what I think . . . it's a fact. You've become a pathetic drunk. Pull yourself together before it's too late.'

'I like it this way, B.D.' She pulled open the front door and leaned heavily against the wall. 'I have no daughter. That's the way you want it and it's fine with me. I won't stand here and be insulted.' I was wondering whether to tell her what I really believed when she screamed, 'Get out!'

Her white cat strolled into the doorway and she managed to bend over to pick it up. 'That's my Belle,' she cooed, leaving the door open and lurching away from me down the hall. 'You love me, don't you?'

I made certain the door was locked and closed it as I left. During the short drive home my vision blurred with tears, but I didn't know for whom I was crying. I hadn't experienced anything like this before and I hadn't the least notion of what to do next. I wasn't even sure that I still wanted to do anything. I regained my composure by the time I reached home and described it all to Jeremy. 'I don't know where to go from here,' I finished. 'She told me that if I thought she was a drunk, she no longer had a daughter

You wouldn't have believed the state of the house. A pig wouldn't live in it. I cleaned it up because I couldn't stand not to and because it was easier than trying to talk to her. She's so far gone she thinks the cat I gave her is the only thing that loves her.

[quote]She refused to call the market to have food delivered, although, of course, the liquor supply was constantly replenished. Somebody was delivering that, but she didn't seem to care if there was no food in the house.

Bette was a true WASP, lol!

I told Harold about my visit. I also told him that I didn't think there was anything more I could do, that her attitude was wholly different than it had ever been before. He said that I owed it to her to keep trying until I succeeded. He reminded me of all the gifts Mother had given me over the years and asked if I didn't think I owed her something in return.

I pointed out that the gift-giving had begun back in Gary's days and that it was Mother's way of apologizing for her bad behavior, just as were the floral arrangements she sent to hosts whose parties she had ruined. I suggested that he had it backward and that it was dirty pool to throw it in my face, reminding him that he, himself, had occasionally asked me to accept a gift I neither wanted nor needed just to make Mother feel better. Harold refrained from comment, but reiterated Mother's desperate need for my help. I finally gave up the struggle and agreed to try again.

When I arrived at Mother's house the next day, I could hear her inside but couldn't get her to open the door. I walked around the house shouting for her to let me in, but it was no use. I went home and called her on the phone but, when she heard my voice, she hung up.

I went to Bailiwick again the following day and Mother let me in. I cleaned up as I had before and again began my litany about her drunkenness and self-destruction. For a little while she shouted back at me and I thought we were making progress. Then, as suddenly as if I had flipped a switch, she became very quiet again. 'Go home and leave me alone,' she whispered.

'I don't want to leave you alone, I love you,' I said, remembering Jeremy's question, 'and I want to help you.'

'Don't bother. I won't be around to trouble you from now on'

'What do you mean? You seem much better today. Just cut down on the drinking and everything will be O.K. . . . you'll see.'

'All right, B.D.,' she sighed. 'Go on home. I'm tired now. I'll think about what you've said . . . now go away and let me rest.' When I got home, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I thought I'd made some progress but I couldn't be certain.

That night the phone rang. Her voice was hoarse. 'B.D. ? Do you really love me?'

'Of course I do. I love you very much.'

'I love you too, more than anything, but there's nothing left for me now. Tomorrow I'll be gone.'

'What do you-

Just remember me with love,' she interrupted, then hung up. I dialed her number several times but there was a perpetual busy signal. I told Jeremy what had happened and what I suspected and said that I would be back in half an hour.

When I arrived at Bailiwick, the curtains were drawn and there was no sound from within. After all these years, I found it hard to believe, but there was no escaping the obvious: She had done it again. I sat down on the front steps as long-suppressed memories from my childhood flooded in on me

The first time Mother staged a mock suicide, I was eight years old and Michael three. She required an extraordinary quantity of verbal declarations of love and devotion from us and, because she constantly demanded them, it hardly ever occurred to us to render them voluntarily. The first 'suicide' came about when Mother decided that she had suffered intolerably callous treatment at Michael's and my hands

'Neither of you care a damn about me!' she bellowed. 'Well, we'll just see how you feel about it after I'm gone.' She had made this speech so often that even Michael was immune to it.....

for a moment, then ran down the hall clutching the empty prescription bottle. 'Mommy, Mommy, please open the door!' I screamed, pounding on the door with all my might. 'I do love you ... of course I love you . . . you know that! Let me in . . . don't die . . . oh, please don't die! I love you, I love you! Mommy . . . Mommy!' There wasn't a sound from the other side of the door.

Michael had heard the commotion and came running down the hall. Although he was too young to understand what was happening, he was crying again.... I tried pounding on the door some more, then, exhausted at last, slid down onto the floor and cried myself to sleep, my back against the door.

I was rudely awakened the next morning when Mother opened her door. I fell back and banged my head on the uncarpeted floorboards. She looked down at me with a triumphant expression on her face. 'I hope that taught you a good lesson. I deserve better from you. I love you more than anything and I expect you to love me in return.'

As I sat there on the floor and watched Mother walk sedately down the hall, I realized what she had done to me and vowed never to fall for it again. I had believed her . . . she was very convincing. Why shouldn't she be convincing? It was her business. Never again, I promised my eight-year-old self, never again ... no matter how convincing she might be.

Mother committed 'suicide' several times a year after that. Michael believed her once or twice, despite my assurances. He cried outside her door once, which must have thrilled her to bits, but then he too got used to it and stopped paying attention It had been a dozen years since she had last tried it on me, but I wasn't going to break my vow. I hadn't then ... I wouldn't now.

The only thing she had forgotten was the empty pill bottle . . . she had always left one outside her bedroom door. I dare say there was one on the kitchen steps now, but I couldn't be bothered to go and see. I couldn't be bothered with any of it anymore.

The day after that, my curiosity got the better of me. I dialed Mother's number. The phone rang ... so it was back on the hook. After three rings she answered . .. sounding chipper, hale and hearty. I gently replaced the receiver in its cradle. I didn't call Harold. He would probably say, 'I told you so,' or accuse me of having made things out to be worse than they were. Despite his having been wonderful to Mother over the years, even unto lending her money when she was broke, I wasn't feeling very kindly disposed toward him either just then.

A week passed, then Mother called. 'Hi.' Very cheerful.

'Oh, hello,' I said stiffly. 'You certainly seem to be feeling better.'

'Yes. It's been rough. I've been through hell!' 'Well, I'm glad you're better. I'll stop by and see you soon.'

How do these people REMEMBER all this? There are very few incidents with my mother that I could recreate even remotely accurately. Who did what, when, and what was said.

Then again, I try to leave that stuff in the past.

'I thought you could come over for lunch today.'

'Not today, Mother. I've too much to do. Soon, though.'

'Oh, I see,' she snarled, and hung up. Well ... to hell with you too, Mother! Business as usual won't work this time. I'm damned if I'll let you pretend nothing has happened

A day later I found an unstamped letter in our mailbox. It was one of the abject, soul-rending apologies at which Mother was so brilliant, in writing that is. If I hadn't seen so many of them before, I would have been deeply moved. It ended with '. . . I want you to know how grateful I am that you love me enough to have helped me through this. It's been a terrible time for me. All I ask is that you keep on loving me.'

Isn't it marvelous, I thought, how in Mother's game of life, she could strike out and immediately claim another turn at bat? Oh well, I shouldn't be surprised . . . she would never change. I suppose I kept hoping that she would realize I was a human being, not a fantasy daughter to be pushed, pulled and toyed with as her mood of the moment dictated. It was a foolish waste of time though.

For Mother, reality was a script, and her personal script was reality. I called her and made a date for lunch the next day at Bailiwick

I ate my lunch, letting her run on and marveling yet again at her ability to pretend. When the meal was over and we were having our coffee, I brought the conversation to the point. I began very quietly. 'Mother, I want to talk to you and I want you to listen very carefully, please.'

'B.D., don't! I don't want to talk about it. Can't you see that I've suffered enough? You were pretty rough on me, you know? But I took it. .. because you love me ... so let's just drop it.'

'No! We will not drop it until you clearly understand and acknowledge my feelings in the matter. You say I was rough on you . . . you've no idea what you put me through!'

'That's very sweet, but let's drop it, shall we?' She was getting an edge to her voice.

'Not until I've had my say. If I leave without having it, it will not be on friendly terms.' I waited for a response and when she folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them, I went on, 'First, I am extremely relieved to find you sober. I sincerely hope that I never see you that drunk again.' She shot me an angry look and made as if to start arguing, but I cut her off. 'It's no use pretending, Mother. You must face the brutal truth and fear lest it recur. It's over . . . but not forgotten.'

'O.K., B.D., that's enough.'

'No! It is not enough . . . not by a long shot. I want you to keep one fact firmly fixed in your mind: I will not go through anything like this again. If you pull another of your phony suicides, I'll walk away. To use your own words, you'll no longer have a daughter.' She began to splutter a protest, but I cut her off again. 'I mean it, Mother. I won't play your sick games anymore. You got away with them when I was a child and you got away with it this time, but never again. I know what it was all about, even if you won't admit it.

I paused, giving her the chance to say, perhaps, something of value, but she didn't. She only glared at me and blurted, 'I always knew you were a cold bitch. Jesus! There was nothing phony about it. I wanted to die. I —

'Bullshit!' I shouted. 'All you wanted was for me to feel totally responsible for you . . . to leave my family, like Aunt Bobby left hers, and come home to keep poor Mommy company. I know it and you know it and I won't allow myself to be put into this position again. I can't and won't handle it anymore. You've given me colitis and I wound up at the hospital once, but that's where it ends. It should be enough to satisfy even your craving for attention.'

'I didn't know,' she stammered, and I thought for a moment that she was actually going to apologize and ask how I felt - but the moment quickly passed. 'How can you stand there and accuse me of not trying to kill myself? You deserted me . . . how would you know?'

'That's a good one,' I retorted, laughing despite my anger. 'You made your charming phone call, locked all the doors, drew the curtains, took the phone off the hook and hid . . . probably in your bedroom watching television. The only thing you didn't do was take any sleeping pills, try to shoot yourself or anything else, You staged it and it didn't work, so you got bored and pulled yourself together. I knew it stank at the time, but you confirmed it when you answered the phone a couple of days later. I was the one who hung up on you.'

'O.K., B.D., you've stated your opinion and I won't say any more about it. I'm just glad that you love me.'

'That's another thing,' I said. 'I may be your daughter, but I'm also a human being and human beings have emotions which they can't control. Right this minute I'm none too fond of you. The love will undoubtedly return but, for the time being. I have no more to give. And I meant what I said . . . don't ever play sick games with me again.'

She stared at me and I stared back, neither of us speaking. Then she shifted her gaze and said, 'I listened. What else do you want?'

'I had the strange idea,' I admitted, 'that you might feel some slight remorse for putting me through all this ... I see I was wrong.

'O.K., B.D.,' she said without a trace of sincerity, 'I'm sorry. Can we forget it now?'

'Since that's obviously the best you can do, we'll put it aside. But forget it? Never!'

'Fine, fine,' she said impatiently. 'Would you like another cup of coffee?'

'No, thank you. I've a lot to do and I'd better get going. Thank you for lunch.'

Mother followed me to the door. As I kissed her on the cheek and said good-bye, she said, 'I'm glad you were so worried about me. It helps to know that you love me so much.'

In the summer of 1974, Mother began rehearsals for Miss Moffat. Joshua Logan was directing the musical stage version of Mother's 1945 movie, The Corn Is Green. A marvelous new young actor by the name of Dorian Harewood played the pupil and Mother had nothing but praise for him. Unfortunately, Dorian was the only person or thing about which Mother had anything good to say.

She and Josh Logan fought tooth and nail from the beginning. She complained bitterly that Logan was working the cast like slaves and claimed they were all dropping from exhaustion. When she called me, she said that Logan expected her to 'dance like a young kid,' that she would strangle him if she could, and that if he didn't 'let up' on them he would kill them all. She predicted a disaster for the show because of Logan's slave-driving......

In March of 1975 she went to Sydney, Australia, with An Informal Evening with Bette Davis ...... Almost immediately, she was offered another thriller, Burnt Offerings, with Oliver Reed. She was still struggling to avoid such vehicles but, circumstances being what they were, she had to accept it.

She went to San Francisco in September to begin work on the film she was later to describe as 'a hideous mess' and the worst film she had ever made. On the phone from San Francisco, she told me she was 'cowering in her room, terrified of Oliver Reed,' who, she said, '. . . got blind drunk and rampaged up and down the hotel corridors late at night, bellowing for me to come and talk to him.'

In October she was off again with An Informal Evening, this time to England and Scotland. The show was successful again and Mother loved the applause and her rapport with the audiences. For her, there was nothing like it... it was a tonic for her artist's soul.

Early in 1976, Jeremy and I sold Wildwoods and bought a farm in Pennsylvania. We were eagerly anticipating chickens and ducks and sheep, vast vegetable gardens and wide-open spaces, making our own hay and keeping our horses in our own fields. Also, having two hundred or more miles between ourselves and Mother, and living in a place to which there was no earthly way she could follow us, was not without appeal.

Being only a few minutes away, I was always at her beck and call and had permitted myself to be trapped into spending three or four mornings a week either at her house or running her errands. It had started so innocently, lending a hand until she found a replacement for Vik, that I was fully ensnared before I realized it.............

Back in February I had discovered, to Jeremy's and my great joy, that I was pregnant again. My obstetrician's best estimate was a September 1 due date. Mother spent the six or so intervening months telling me all about her plans for her personal participation in the birth of my daughter. The phone conversations were unending and her plans bore a remarkable resemblance to those which had preceded Ashley's arrival in the world.

As she had with Ashley, Mother missed out on the birth of our second son, Justin, who made a sudden, totally unexpected appearance on August 7. Mother was convinced that we had done it on purpose. She arrived at the farm when Justin was five days old and was quite taken with him despite his not being a girl.

Jeremy and I had agreed in advance that, since I ought to be taking it easy for a few more days, I permit Mother to do whatever she wanted, bite my tongue until she left and then clean up the damage. Jeremy found pressing business elsewhere at dawn each day and I watched Mother at work

Watching Mother work was more tiring by far than doing the work oneself, particularly if it happened to be cooking. When Mother cooked in her own house, one didn't see the production she made out of the simplest things (largely because no one was ever allowed in her kitchen), but now she was in my kitchen and pure nervousness forced me to watch her every move.

Rather than try to describe her technique in general terms, I'll detail in full her preparation of lunch on the first day.

Stouffer's frozen Macaroni and Cheese - the directions on the box read 'Place in oven, uncovered and still frozen, for 35 minutes at 375° and serve.' Here are Mother's directions, based on the way she did it that morning:

Cover a counter with several layers of paper towels and place frozen casseroles thereon; remove covers and allow to thaw.

Cover another counter with several layers of paper towels, slice a large tomato and leave slices on towels.

Sit on stool, smoke nervously and sip from drink hidden behind flour canister while you watch casseroles thaw. WARNING - Do not take eyes off casseroles or they will fail to thaw properly.

When casseroles are fully thawed, get large casserole dish and tip thawed casseroles into it. Thoroughly mush around with forefinger until satisfied.

Sprinkle with bread crumbs and arrange tomato slices around edge.

Hold lengthy debate with interested parties as to exact time dish is to be served. WARNING - Macaroni and cheese is very tricky and must be done just right.

Preheat oven for 45 minutes at 375°, meanwhile moving casserole dish around counter and to different counters to facilitate blending.

Place casserole dish in oven for 35 minutes. Announce lunch loudly and serve, chewing bottom lip in concentration.

Fidget until praised for efforts, then remind diners that macaroni and cheese is tricky and requires some little work.

So it went for three days. I did the cleaning, with some help from Ashley, now eight, since Mother never had time to leave the kitchen. Jeremy stayed away until dinnertime each day and Mother was deliriously happy. Barely a cross word was spoken during her entire stay

The moment we moved to the farm, Mother had fallen into the habit of announcing visits every three or four weeks. That we were buried in renovations and that the house was a shambles, with torn-up floors, walls and ceilings, were no deterrents. She stayed at a nearby motel and showed up at the farm every morning for three or more days at a time.

She always brought someone with her and she always stayed all day, plopping herself down in the house and complaining that I didn't spend enough time with her, that the place was a mess, that she didn't see why 'that bastard' had to go on sawing and banging when she was there and so forth.

Jeremy's practice later on of disappearing for the entire day whenever she was around couldn't be done during renovation; we were on a very tight schedule to finish everything we wanted to do within the six-month sabbatical Jeremy had granted himself, and we simply couldn't afford to lay down the tools for days at a time

During one visit, when Mother and I had had a particularly bitter argument about her being there, not only uninvited but unwanted and in everyone's way, she returned to the motel in the evening and got drunk in the restaurant. She sat at a table with a bottle of Scotch and regaled the locals — who increased rapidly in number as word spread through the village of Wyalusing that Bette Davis was in the motel restaurant getting blotto — with her view of my new life-style: 'My daughter's a slave . .. that bastard's killing her . . . they're living in filth like pigs . . . how could she let this happen to herself?' seems to have been the essence of her thesis, as reported to me over the ensuing months

Early in 1977 when our renovation was completed, Jeremy and I had been on the point of wondering whether moving two hundred miles away had been a ghastly mistake for which there was no cure but to tell my mother never to darken our doorway again . . . then live with the consequences. The latter would be dramatic and continue for a very long time. When word reached us that Mother was returning to the West Coast, it was a fantastic relief. She didn't go peaceably, though.

Before she left we were paid a final visit compared with which all the others paled in beastliness. She stayed for four days, was constantly drunk, dropped lighted cigarettes all over everything, thus keeping me in constant fear that she would set the house on fire (as she had done with her own bed a few times in her life), was rude to everyone and then, and then, having tormented me for the entire four days and made it a period of abject misery.......

Mother had found a new friend in New York by the name of Terry Brown and she fell into the habit of bringing him to the farm with her.

Terry was a dead ringer for Truman Capote, irrepress-ibly effervescent and an indefatigable Bette Davis fan. We all adored him. Everything Mother did or said amused him and, with Terry on her team, Mother never seemed to become more than momentarily irritable. Even when she pounced on him for drinking white wine and other such dastardly deeds, Terry was able to totally disarm her with a retort like I'm a terrible beast. . . what can I say?

Once when we were having dinner, and Terry Brown was with us, I brought up the subject of Death on the Nile and asked Mother what being around Ustinov for a couple of months had been like.

'You/ she replied huffily, 'would undoubtedly have found him completely hilarious. Everyone else did . . . though God only knows why. Nothing but clever remarks and endless anecdotes. Shit! He thinks he's so-o-o-o-o amusing and has to be the center of attention all the time. Brother . . . he's a bore! And all those Englishmen are just too charming to do anything about it. If Pd had to listen to one more anecdote I'd have puked right in his face!'

'You're kidding?' I exclaimed. 'You didn't find him the least bit funny?'

Mother assumed a very haughty expression. 'English actors seem to think they can get by by being witty and charming. They all make me sick!'

Terry dissolved into laughter, but Jeremy maintained a straight face and said, 'I doubt that Laurence Olivier feels wit and charm to be the be-all and end-all of good acting, and I shouldn't think that even you, Bette, can argue that Olivier is anything less than the best.' Jeremy was wrong . . . Mother could argue anything she wanted. She drew herself up and scornfully replied, 'Larry Olivier, my dear, is not an actor. He's a chameleon. He wears all that makeup and all those costumes and just disguises himself. Shit! Half the time you don't even know it's him.'

Terry was reduced to holding his sides, tears of mirth streaming down his face, while my husband and I were laughing harder at Terry than at Mother. Mother, instead of getting into her usual antilaughter snit, said, 'You're right! It is funny. Larry Olivier an actor? . . . Ha!'

Mother visited once, having led me to believe that Terry was coming with her, but she appeared at the farm without him. When I asked where he was, she answered, 'I do love Terry. I agree he's marvelous and sweet and he certainly loves your mother, but there's only so much of his silliness I can take. All that laughter gets to me after a while.'

Later in 1978, Mother made her first film for Disney, Return from Witch Mountain. At first she was reluctant to do it. It was a fantasy and she did not approve of fantasy. She was persuaded to accept the job partly because Disney was a 'class' studio and partly because of the top, top money she was being offered, but more compelling to her by far was Ashley's reaction to the news.

Mother had always been somewhat frustrated that her grandson didn't seem to comprehend her stardom, so his wide-eyed awe upon hearing that his grandmother could appear in a Walt Disney movie, if she wanted to, proved irresistible. She did the film, therefore, with misgivings but, while never admitting it, she thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Ashley went to see it with some friends at our local cinema and loved it. When he called to tell his grandmother how impressed he was, she said, 'I'm glad. If you hadn't liked it, it would all have been a waste of time. I only did it for you

.......Mother was on the second day of a four-day visit to the farm when Fay phoned with the sad news that her mother, Aunt Bobby, had died. She had succumbed to a cancer-induced coronary. Mother dropped the phone to the floor, collapsed into a chair, grasped her face in her hands and began to rock back and forth, wailing piteously. 'What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Oh, no! Bobby's dead. I can't go on. I want to die too.'

I picked up the phone and told Fay how sorry I was and how much we had all loved Bobby. I explained that Mother was upset and said we would call back as soon as she got hold of herself. Fay said what a shame it was that Mother and Bobby had seen so little of each other in recent years.

Mother, still weeping, withdrew to her room to grieve alone, leaving me to think back over the years and how much Aunt Bobby had meant to Michael and me. It had been a decade since I had last seen her

Mother came back into the kitchen. 'I shouldn't hide. After all, Bobby didn't leave me on purpose. She was so ill; had been ever since her mastectomy. It's better this way.'

She sat down and began to rock again. 'Oh, my Bobby. What am I going to do without you? Bobby dead. Bobby dead. First Ruthie and now Bobby. Dead. She was so good to you kids. She loved me so much. Oh, my Bobby!' I suddenly remembered that terrible night when Mother so viciously attacked her sister over the roast beef; how I, furious with Aunt Bobby for taking Mother's abuse, demanded an explanation. Aunt Bobby's tearful reply came back to me now, 'Underneath it all I know she loves me and that's what counts. ... I still do love her.'

Mother continued weeping and rocking for a while, then told me to get Harold on the phone for her As soon as he was on the line, she took the phone. 'Harold, Bobby's dead. I want you to call Fay right away and make all the arrangements. I'll pay for everything, of course.'

It was a quarter of an hour before Harold called back and Mother sat in gloomy silence. When the phone rang, she jumped up and answered it herself. 'Yes, Harold. . . . She what? . . . What? . . . Jesus I don't care about any deathbed shit; it's my dough, not hers for Christ's sake. J'm in charge of this whole deal. She will not be burned up. You tell Fay that Bobby will join Ruthie in my tomb just like I always planned. She's known all about it for years. Christ! You tell Fay that I'm in charge.' She hung up and turned to me.

'Can you believe this shit? Fay says that Bobby wanted to be cremated. Brother!

The phone rang again and Mother answered. 'Yes? . . . Right. . . . That's more like it. Now, Harold, I don't know how I can go out there. It's impossible with only three days. I'd be crazy to try . . . You mean you think I should go? I can't, I'll be dead! . . . Well, of course I want to be at Bobby's funeral, but I just can't. It's too much . . . Right. I'll tell Fay. Send a big wreath from B.D. and me. Make sure there are mums, lots of mums. Bobby loved mums.'

Mother called Fay. 'Fay, darling. It's all arranged. You don't have to thank me. . . . You're a very brave girl, sweetheart. Now, I won't be able to be there, not with only three days before my movie starts. ... It is a shame, but life goes on. You know that I'm with you in my heart. It'll be a beautiful service. I love you, sweetheart. Goodbye.

...........Mother gave a small dinner party in her suite, after which Terry Brown took Ashley to see Brigadoon on Broadway. Before they left, however, Ashley found himself the center of a lot of adult attention. The ham in him took over and he told an off-color joke which he had memorized after having heard his father tell it.

Apparently he told it well and got a big laugh, or so Terry informed me later. Thus encouraged, Ashley pulled out an entire repertoire of jokes, not one of which was overly imbued with socially redeeming features, and entertained the assembled company until he ran out of material. That an eleven-year-old is out of line doing what Ashley did is beyond dispute, but I have to admit that I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall while he was doing it.

Mother phoned the following morning. 'B.D., I have to tell you that I am horror-stricken!'

'Hello, Mother. Why are you upset now?

'Your son, naturally. God! Last night, with a room full of elegant people, including the producer, Jackie Cooper and Harold Schiff, for Christ's sake, Ashley sat there spewing out one dirty joke after another. No one could stop him. Christ! It was a nightmare. What can I do? I can't have this sort of thing going on while I'm trying to make a movie. Shit! I don't know if I can go through with it after last night. I'll just have to think about it.'

'Mother, let's take one thing at a time. First of all, are you trying to tell me that with all those adults in the room there wasn't one, let alone you, who could tell an eleven-year-old child to put a sock in it? Why didn't you simply march him out of the room and read him the riot act? This is the silliest thing I've ever listened to. Something tells me I'm not getting the whole story.'

'You don't understand, B.D. He has a very forceful personality. I asked him to stop but he ignored me.'

'Mother,' I said, laughing aloud, 'do be serious. In my entire life I've never known anyone who could ignore you. I ask you again, if he was behaving so terribly and everyone was so aghast, why didn't you stop him? You were perfectly able to if you'd wanted and you know it.'

'Let's just drop it,' Mother flared. 'I can't stand this! Don't you dare give it to me! Christ! I'm telling you there was nothing I could do, that's all. Since you won't believe me, there's nothing more to say. I'll just have to give this whole movie thing some more thought. I just don't know.'

The certainty was that Mother wasn't going to play on-again-off-again-Finnegan with Ashley and this movie. I had had enough of her threats

'Mother,' I said, measuring my words, 'listen to me carefully. I have no idea what your problem is, but I want you to understand one thing. I will not stand idly by while you play yo-yo with my son. This is far too important for the playing of games. Now, you either decide that you're doing the picture with Ashley or you don't. Whatever you decide, it's final. No more "I'll just have to think about it" whenever you feel bitchy. If your decision is not to go ahead, that's fine with me. I'd rather explain that to Ashley now than explain a lot worse to him later on.'

'Don't do this to me,' Mother whimpered. 'I can't stand it, B.D., not today. That boy of yours is a rough customer and I just don't know if I can deal with him at my age, that's all.'

'Don't do what to you? It's not a question of what I'm doing to you. It's a question of what you're trying to do to Ashley. He won't even be your responsibility once the movie starts shooting, except to the extent that you're his grandmother. Kathryn is being paid out of the budget to be his companion and surrogate mother, there will be the tutor to take care of his schoolwork and Jackie Cooper to direct him on the set. If you leave him alone to do his thing, there won't be a problem in the world for you. Why do you have to interfere with everything? Hell, you won't even let the poor child speak to his mother without getting on his case about it!' Mother hung up on me.

That evening she called again and gushed, 'Of course Ashley will do the movie. I'm not a monster, you know. I wouldn't hurt that boy for the world; we're chums. So don't be angry with me, please don't. Everything will be fine.' Nothing about staying off his case, of course, but that speech was a waste of time anyway. Mother had never stayed off anyone's case.

'I'm glad to hear that, Mother,' I replied, 'but let's not have a replay. I want your word that you won't threaten to call it all off again.

Commencement of principal photography was delayed by all the usual problems plus the departure of Jackie Cooper from the director's slot. No reason was given me and, not knowing Mr. Cooper personally, I couldn't ask him, but I had strong suspicions. Shooting finally began in January and Ashley's part, which was supposed to have entailed him being on the set for three or four weeks, wound up keeping him there for the entire twelve-week schedule. He loved the actual work and had no trouble keeping up with his schooling, but there were plenty of other problems.

There was Ashley's underwear. Even though he had his own living expenses and his own paid companion, Mother decided one day that it was an insupportable extravagance for him to send his socks and underwear to the laundry. Since Kathryn did Mother's lingerie for her, Kathryn could also do Ashley's socks and underwear.

As anyone who has done laundry knows, there is a significant difference between lingerie, which is light, rinses quickly and dries almost immediately, and doing a boy's white gym socks and underwear. Add to that the fact that bleach is not used for lingerie and, therefore, wasn't used for Ashley's things, and what do you get?

'Ashley!' Mother shouted. 'I don't know why you can't take better care of your clothes. They don't look dingy and gray at home. Why do you do that to them here?' Try as he might, and did, he was unable to convince his grandmother that there was any correlation between the dingy grayness of his socks and underwear and the fact that they were not being properly laundered.

She came up with a novel solution to the problem. She forbade him to change his socks or underwear without her permission. Thereafter, he had to smuggle clothing in and out of the bathroom in order to change and hide the dirty items in a bottom drawer, whence Kathryn would have to retrieve and launder them when Mother wasn't around. All because the very same woman who once thought nothing of sending a bottle of nosespray across New York in a limousine professed to believing that Ashley sending his underwear to the laundry was a waste of money.

......The real problem, which I had failed to foresee and which underlay all other problems, was that Mother's love of all the attention Ashley was receiving, and her satisfaction with the role of proud grandmother, had worn thin very quickly indeed.

No one is paying nearly enough attention to my performance!' she complained to me on the phone one day. 'Jesus! All Fielder seems to care about is rehearsing Ashley. I guess I'm all on my own. Brother!' Fielder Cook had replaced Jackie Cooper as director and, apparently, was very supportive of Ashley.

'Since you keep telling Mr. Cook how to direct Ashley, perhaps he thinks that he'd best leave you alone as far as your own performance goes,' I suggested.

'I do not keep telling him how to direct Ashley!' she blustered. 'Maybe a helpful suggestion now and then, but that's all.' I could well imagine her 'helpful suggestion now and then.' 'Anyway,' she went on, 'that isn't the point. All anybody around here seems to care about is Ashley. God, it's boring! "Isn't he marvellous?" "Great, Ashley, you got it in one take." 'Terrific, Ashley, you're a natural!" Jesus! It's all I hear. It's getting on my nerves. My performance is the crucial one. Brother!'

'They're only trying to instill a little confidence in a newcomer,' I said soothingly. 'You've been at it for fifty years and have every award known to man to prove that you know what you're doing. I think it's just that simple.'

'You're right!' she exclaimed. 'That's all it is. They're being nice to him because he's my grandson. God knows I don't need any direction. Shit! I direct half the films I'm in anyway.'

Kathryn had been instructed to make sure that Ashley didn't call us when Mother wasn't around but, one day when Kathryn was out too, Ashley called. For the first time in weeks we enjoyed a family chat. He told us that he was thoroughly enjoying the work and only wished that he had more of it to do instead of sitting around so much of the time. As I found out later, Mother had returned unexpectedly.

'What were you doing behind my back?' she yelled at Ashley.

'I was-'

'You were calling your mother, weren't you? I know everything that goes on, Ashley!'

'Yes, I called Mom, just to say hello and chat.'

'What did you tell her, eh? That I'm a monster? That things are real tough? What lies did you make up that you couldn't say in front of me?'

'I didn't say anything except that everything is fine and that I like acting. I -'

'Oh-h-h-h-h, I can just imagine. You're a damned liar, just like your mother always was!' she ended in a shriek, thrusting her face into his and almost deafening him.

'My mother?' Ashley asked, dumbfounded. 'You've always said that she's the world's only perfect person. How can she be a liar?'

'You're the liar, not your mother!' she screamed. 'You leave her out of this!'

'But you said that I was a liar, just like my mother. Now you say that I'm the liar, not my mother. Well, I'm not a liar either.'

'Oh, so you think you can trick me, do you? Well, isn't that interesting? Let's just drop it, shall we? Just keep in mind that if I ever catch you sneaking another phone call to your parents, you're off this picture. Got it?' She stormed out and slammed the door behind her

Ashley didn't try to call again. Whenever I called to speak to him, Mother said that he was 'unavailable' but that she would have him call me later '. .. if I can convince him. I just never know with him.' Occasionally he was in her room when I called and we got to exchange a few pleasantries before Mother snatched the phone away but, whenever I tried to call him directly, I was told that on Miss Davis's orders no calls could be put through to, or placed from, his room.

I kept my cool for Ashley's sake, figuring that he had enough troubles without my adding to them but, one day, Mother phoned me and said that the switchboard had told her that a woman identifying herself as Ashley's mother had tried to call him several times.

'I want it stopped, right now!' she stormed at me. 'I'm in charge here and Ashley will call from my room when he wants to talk to you.'

'Mother,' I said, struggling to stay calm despite my rising bile, 'Ashley's expenses are sufficient to cover a few phone calls to his parents. I don't know why you're so obsessed with this. It's really most unfair.'

'Unfair? Unfair?' she shouted. 'That boy of yours is a rough customer. He's not to be trusted for one second. What did he say to you the day he sneaked a phone call to you alone, anyway? What did he say, eh?'

'If you're referring to the time he called me from his room, we chatted about the farm and Justin and his animals and so forth. And since you seem determined to keep on with this unpleasantness, why, may I ask, are you playing Gestapo with this switchboard nonsense?'

'Nonsense, huh? Let me tell you something, dear daughter, I'll manage this boy as I see fit! I'm sorry I ever agreed to this whole thing, I'll tell you that, right now.'

'It was your idea, Mother, and I've never regretted anything so much in my life. It won't happen again and that's a promise.

Ashley's last great crime was actually very funny. Mother, of course, saw no humor in it at all and jumped at the opportunity to mete out punishment for a heinous offense. One day my phone rang. 'B.D.,' Mother began, a peremptory edge to her voice, 'something terrible has happened.' I froze, horrifying possibilities tumbling over each other in my mind. 'I have to let Ashley tell you about it. It's so horrible, I can't bear to speak of it. I can't believe that he did such a thing.' I relaxed.

'Hi, Mom,' came Ashley's voice.

'Tell her what you did and forget the "hi" bullshit!' roared Mother in the background.

'Hi, Ash,' I said. 'Who've you killed?'

'Well,' he began, unable with his grandmother hovering, to respond to my attempt at humor, 'I'd taken my shower and had a towel around my waist. I went into the bedroom to get dressed, but I couldn't find my jacket or white dress shirt. Kathryn said she'd taken them to Grandmother's room to press them and went to get them for me. It seemed like she'd been gone a long time, so I went down the hall to find her. It's off-season and there aren't many people in the hotel besides us and I forgot that I was only wearing a towel.'

'Did anyone see you?' I asked.

'No. There was no one around.'

'Give me that phone and go get dressed!' I heard Mother yell. 'Not in your dress clothes either. Oh, no! In your cords and sweater . . . you'll eat in your room tonight.'

Mother came on the line. 'I've never been so humiliated in my entire life! Your son was invited to dinner tonight by a very elegant old lady who lives here. He will not be allowed to go now. Christ! Mrs. Whoozy-poo's been very nice to him and he looks forward to his dinner with her once a week. I hope he's miserable. It serves him right"

I kept on trying, but it was quite obvious that Ashley was not going to have dinner with 'Mrs. Whoozy-poo' that evening. The truth of the matter, undoubtedly, was that Mother had been looking for an excuse, which Ashley had now provided, to mess up his dinners with the old lady.

When Mother visited the farm again that spring, it was during the time of the Emmy Award presentations on television. She spent the day bitching about how absurd the TV awards were. 'It's fine to give awards to movies, but to give them to series is ridiculous. It's the same every year, year after year, and I'm damned if I'm going to sit through another few hours of that crap.'

Mother was one of those who, for some reason, won't admit they watch television. No matter what show was mentioned, she would announce that she had never seen it, had no intention of doing so and that it was probably 'crap like everything else on television these days.'

I told her that I planned to watch the Emmys that night. She said that she would go to bed and read a good book,' . . . which anyone with a grain of sense would do.'

In the middle of dinner, Mother suddenly jumped up from the table and began running around the house, checking the time and searching frantically for the TV Guide to find out what time the Emmys began. 'We can't miss them. Christ! They're a big part of the industry.' I managed to convince her that the show wouldn't begin until eight and that there was plenty of time to finish dinner, it being but seven-fifteen at the time.

Well within the time limit that had suddenly become so critical to her, we were comfortably ensconced in the living room, drinking our coffee and awaiting the awards show. As soon as the preliminaries were over, the presentation of technical awards began. Mother immediately jumped up and began to pace about the room, irritation written all over her.

'Shit! Why the hell they have to bore us with all this crap is beyond me. It used to be just the insiders who watched the technical awards. Who cares who lit what or who accomplished the best sound mix or who was the best photographer, for Christ's sake? It's just plain stupid! The whole show's stupid!

By the time the technical awards had all been presented, Mother had smoked a half pack of cigarettes and almost worn out my carpet with her spastic pacing. 'Thank God that's over!' She sat down with a great sigh of relief.

For the next few moments, categories were announced and lists of nominees read out. As each list was completed, Mother said, 'See? What did I tell you? All the same damned people, over and over, year after year!'

From time to time I pointed out that one show or another was a newcomer and Mother replied, 'Oh! Right... at least that one's a good show.'

When I asked how she knew that, since she never watched television, she explained that she had had to watch that particular show because of some young actor or actress in it whom she had been told to watch as a possibility for some part or other in some project or other that she couldn't right at that moment recall. Each time we went through this routine, I simply said, 'Oh' at the end of her more and more complex explanations.

Mother eventually awoke to the fact that I was making fun of her and informed me in no uncertain terms that my sarcasm was '. . . inappropriate and unappreciated. Stop being so rude . . . you know perfectly well what I mean.'

A seemingly endless stream of categories came and went and then the soaps arrived. Soaps are shows in which I have no interest; even when trapped in a hospital room once, I found staring at the blank walls preferable to watching the afternoon soaps. I made mention of these feelings to Mother.

Her indignation was quickly voiced. 'Soaps are the only things on TV that are worth a shit! If you knew anything, you'd know that! They're brilliant, the scripts are fantastic, the actors really act! If you don't like the soaps, then what in hell do you like?' I mentioned a few shows I liked - All Creatures Great and Small, M*A *S*H, Hill Street Blues. 'M*A*S*H? she roared. 'That junk! I don't believe it! It's horrible, pointless crap.'

I asked if she ever watched it. 'Of course I don't watch it. I already told you I don't watch TV.' I asked how it was possible to hate something she'd never seen.

'I just know how bad it is. After fifty years of experience, I know what I'm talking about.' She felt the same way about the other shows I mentioned, so I suggested that our tastes were so far apart, we had best try not to convince each other of anything

'How many times have you watched a soap?' she asked suddenly.

'I've sat clean through one a couple of times. Why?'

'That's not a fair test,' she charged angrily.

'What do you mean, not a fair test? You condemned all the shows I like without ever having seen them.'

'Of course I've seen them! I just can't bear to recall them.'

We heard an announcement that the movie awards were coming up and Mother was greatly relieved. During the commercial break, she vented what appeared to be a major anxiety. 'God! In the old days, time was really spent giving the important awards . . . the cameramen, lighting people, mixers, all the really important people. Now ... no one cares about them. It's just awful!

Awards were presented to an assortment of movies and Mother watched in silence. Then she became bored with those also and proclaimed how thrilled she was not to have been nominated for anything this time. 'I'm so sick of getting awards. Shit! I can't begin to tell you. Every time I turn around I get an award for some goddamned thing or other. It's really horrible. Brother!'

She mused for a moment, then continued, 'First I have to pay a hundred bucks for the makeup man, and a few hundred more for a new dress. Then I have to hire a limousine to haul me there so I can sit like a stuffed pigeon on a dais all night. I can't have a goddamned drink because by the time it's my turn to speak, I'd make a bloody fool of myself. Christ! So I sit there all night, dying, being gawked at and bored to death, so that I can finally get up and thank everyone present for the great privilege of being there and for the simply incredible honor being paid me . . . thinking all the time that I'd give anything for some comfortable clothes and a drink.

Then I go home with another piece of crap that goes on my shelves which are already too crowded, so I'm soon going to have to hire a carpenter to build more shelves to add to the cost of the makeup and dress and car. They're usually brass or silver and have to be polished all the time. I shudder to think how many hours of labor I pay for each week, just keeping the tarnish off my awards. Probably while I'm out receiving one, the rest are turning black and I have to start all over again. Jesus!'

When I had more or less recovered from the convulsions of laughter into which this diatribe had thrown me, I suggested in all sincerity that she put her awards, except for the really important ones, in a closet. That way, I pointed out, it wouldn't matter if they tarnished. Mother stared at me in blank astonishment and replied, 'I can't do that! In this life, one has to respect the honors one is paid!

The only thing more interesting to read than the uber manipulative Bette's crazy actions.....

.....is how many posters seem to be on Bette's side.

Early in our marriage I had thought her behavior toward Jeremy and me was the result of a new mother-in-law's jealousy, but it wasn't that simple. Nor did attributing everything to her craving to be the center of attention account for everything. These things unquestionably contributed to her behavior, or lack thereof, but they didn't complete the picture. They did not explain why she treated Michael' wife Chou as she treated Jeremy.

Michael had never been the only thing she loved. Every time Chou was out of the room Mother would mutter that Chou pushed Michael around and Michael had better learn to stick up for himself. It was the same as her saying that Jeremy had taken me over. Michael and I were her children and therefore expected to be the bosses, even if there was nobody in need of bossing. Michael and Chou had a very loving partnership, just as Jeremy and I had. Michael was easygoing and they got along splendidly, just as Jeremy and I did.

Perhaps that was what so infuriated Mother. Perhaps she found a happy marriage upsetting ... a threat to the validity of her lifelong views on the subject. Coupled with her love of high drama, this would account for some of her behavior but failed to explain why she was so unpleasant to all our children. Why did she pounce on Justin to the point of frightening him, shout at Ashley for every little thing and find fault with baby Matthew? I was undoubtedly missing something but I just kept coming back to her love of nastiness, tension and hysteria.

I was finding it increasingly difficult to ask my husband and children to tolerate my mother.

r134 my grandmother was the same generation and personality type as Bette Davis, and we all adored her. We thought she was a riot. BD was a sanctimonious, humorless cunt.

[quote] Thomas and Ogleetha had come to California with us

Ogleetha? Is that a white woman's name?

.........At the beginning of 1983 Mother was signed to do a cameo as the grande dame of the Vanderbilts in the television show Little Gloria...She phoned the next day to tell me how depressed she was about her new commitment.

'I need to talk to you, B.D. I've signed to do a part in a series called Hotel. I play the owner and have to appear in seven episodes a year. It's at Fox Studios on a sound stage instead of location all the time and I only film for one day per show, but I hate it. I'm broke and I have to do it for the money. Shit! They're paying me a hundred thousand bucks for each show and I can do more than seven a year if I want to, but I'm doing this for Harold because I need the dough. Christ! I'm sick about it.'

'First of all,' I said, 'I read the book and enjoyed it. I think it'll make a great series.'

'You would!'

'Come on, Mother! Seven days a year for seven hundred thousand dollars and you expect sympathy? That's a bit much, isn't it?'

'I detest doing things for money. You know that.'

'Mother, we've been over this countless times before. People work for money . . .

'I know what I'll do!' she suddenly exclaimed. 'I'll marry some rich old fart and retire.'

'Spare me, will you?' I groaned. 'You've had your chances to do that too and passed them up. What the hell does that have to do with playing an elegant lady in a classy series a few days a year? Where's the hardship? It doesn't make sense.'

'Let's drop it, shall we?' she snapped. 'I'll put in my sweat labor like a pro and shut up. I can see I'll get no understanding from you. Shit! I'm just delighted with the whole stinking mess ... all right? By the way, are you watching The Thorn Birds on television?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Did you read it?'

'Twice.'

'What do you think of it?'

'Fabulous! I think Richard Chamberlain is magnificent!

'Yagh! He's not even vaguely believable. He's totally sexless. And Stanwyck! God! She was awful! She wasn't the least bit sexy. Mary Carson was supposed to be a sexy broad, for Christ's sake! J should have played Mary Carson. You know I wanted to. Brother! Then the audience would have known about sex appeal!

Mother! Mary Carson was seventy-five years old and had delusions of sex appeal, not the attributes. That's what it was all about. . . her jealousy of Father Ralph's devotion to Meggie, even as a little girl. I liked Barbara Stanwyck tremendously.'

'Oh, you did, did you? Traitor! Well, anyway, all Chamberlain's Father Ralph seems to think about is sex. He's supposed to be a priest, for Christ's sake!'

'Make up your mind, will you? You just finishing saying that you thought he was sexless. He can't be overtly sexy . . . he's a priest. The point of the whole thing is his torment between Meggie and his love of the Church. He's living a kind of hell.'

'I'll tell you who could really have played Father Ralph . . . Burt Reynolds! Of course he's ruined himself with all that crap southern comedy he does, but —'

'Burt Reynolds? The same of Smokey and the Bandit fame? I adore Burt Reynolds, Mother, but surely you can't see him convincing a fly that he's a tormented priest. I can picture him choking with laughter at the suggestion. And he's hardly ruined himself . . . he's probably the most popular male star in the country. He's a good actor but, good grief, not Father Ralph!'

'Well, I can see we're not going to agree on anything today. We'll talk soon.

........Mother's next visit did have me worried. Jeremy had tried to discuss Mother's future visits with me, but I had put him off by saying there would be time enough to worry about it when it happened, and asking him not to make things worse for me than they already were........

.......'Stop! Be fair about this . . . please! You're telling me that I have to shut my mother out of my life completely. I can't do that... I just can't. When your mother stayed with us and drove me crazy with her incessant complaining, I didn't tell you she would never be welcome again, did I?'

'There's a slight difference, Beed, and you know it as well as I do. My mother can be pretty damned aggravating, but she doesn't presume to clobber or threaten other people's children, let alone frighten her own grandson half to death.'

'But it won't happen again,' I pleaded. 'I won't let it happen again. I told you . . . I'll never leave Justin alone with her.'

'If your mother ever again lays a finger on Justin, or even threatens to, it's all over. He's my son too and I love him just as much as you do. I want you to remember that if my mother had done what your mother did, there wouldn't have been a need for this conversation.' I knew he was right. He wouldn't tolerate such behavior in his own mother, so how could I go on finding excuses for it in mine? I had no choice but to accept his offer. 'You have my word. If she goes after Justin again, it's over. But don't worry,' I added bravely, 'it'll all work out. I'll be able to keep it under control. . . you'll see.

.........For the rest of the day we concentrated on keeping Justin cool and giving him liquids. Mother paced angrily about the house, smoked like a chimney and wandered in and out of the kitchen to tell me that Justin was'. . . fine, my dear, just fine, or to say, on one occasion, 'I find it fascinating that Justin was well enough to go to the circus yesterday, but can't so much as sit up today.' I didn't bother to reply. By dinnertime, Justin's fever was down to 102 degrees. He felt alive again and was managing to smile.

I had recently heard Gary's voice both in TV commercials and as a cartoon character. In the attempt to find a topic of conversation, I asked Mother why, in all her years, she had never done the voice for a cartoon character'

'It's not that it hasn't come up,' she replied. 'They've been after me forever to do a voice, but I've always told them to go to hell. Only people who can't get a decent job do that shit. Look at Gary ... he does them all the time because he's too lazy to work. It would be humiliating.'

'I don't know,' I mused. 'I'd have thought it would be great fun.'

'Fun? Christ! Do you know what work that is? It's hours and hours of looping. They pay peanuts for the sweat that goes into it.'

'Well. . . now I know why you've never done a voice.'

'Right! Gary's done practically nothing else for years. He's made a fortune out of it.'

'You just said that it didn't pay much. How could he -'

'I hate cartoons. I hate commercials too. Jesus! They make me sick. Anyway ... no one ever asked me.

By Saturday morning, Justin was definitely on the mend. His temperature was hovering between 101 and 102 degrees and he still had to stay quiet and drink a lot of fluids, but I could at least devote more attention to Mother than to him. It didn't make much difference, though. The only acceptable topics that morning were how good the lobsters had been, how good the salmon would be, what to do with two extra artichokes and how incredible it was that Mother had brought all this food. Whenever I was ministering to Justin in any way, she came and stared at him, much in the way one stares at a foreign object in one's soup. She didn't speak to him . . . just stared for a while and then walked away.

At lunchtime Justin expressed a desire for some canned peaches. This was good news indeed and, coupled with his new temperature reading of 100 degrees, was reasonable evidence that the worst was over. I opened a can of peaches, fixed him a bowl and told him to leave what he didn't want on the table to nibble at when he felt like it. I left him sitting at the table and went to the bathroom. Within two minutes at the most, Justin was screaming and sobbing and pounding on the bathroom door. I rushed out and he flung himself into my arms, clinging to me with all his might.

I finally got out of him that the moment I left the kitchen, Grandmother told him that if he didn't finish every single bite, she would give him a spanking. He still remembered New Year's Eve too vividly not to panic.

Leading him by the hand, I went to the kitchen to confront Mother. 'What's your excuse, this time?' I demanded angrily.

She struck a belligerent pose. 'What's my excuse for what? What's that little liar been telling you, eh?

Shit, Mother!' I exploded. 'Spare me the little liar crap! You know perfectly well that you threatened to spank him if he didn't finish his peaches. It's the same garbage you were handing him in California and I want to know why.' Her eyes narrowed to a squint and her expression became venomous. 'You coddle him too much . . . he'll be a sissy when he grows up . .. you'll see. A good whack now and then will do him good. Shit! You're just too much of a lily-gut to do it.'

'Mother,' I said, restraining myself with great difficulty, 'listen to me and listen very carefully . . . I'm never going to tell you this again. You keep your whacks and your spankings to yourself, and don't you dare threaten Justin again. I'm giving you fair warning . . . one more time will be your last.'

'Fine,' she sneered, face contorting with emotion. 'Justin deserves better than that, but have it your way!' She stormed upstairs, slammed the door of her room and wasn't seen again for hours.

Justin had clung tightly to my hand and half hidden behind me during my altercation with Mother. I took him to his chair and sat down with him on my lap. 'I'm sorry, sweetheart, I really am. I didn't think she'd behave like this in our house.'

'I knew she would,' he stated simply, lower lip quivering. 'She hates me.'

'I wish I could disagree with you, but she certainly behaves as though she does.'

'She hates everyone. I told you that before.'

'I know you did, but she's leaving in the morning. We'll worry about it after she's gone.'

When Mother came downstairs in midafternoon, I had difficulty maintaining even a semblance of civility. She began to place a series of phone calls, the routine for each being the same. She was trying to use her new telephone credit card and didn't know how. It took her three or four tries with each call before she got a connection and, each time she messed up, she slammed down the receiver of my antique kitchen wall phone. By the time she was making her third attempt at her third call, I'd had enough. Not only was she getting on my nerves, but I feared for the life of my lovely old phone. 'Why don't you let me do it for you, Mother?'

'I know how to run this machine,' she snarled, placing her hand possessively on top of the phone. 'Leave me alone!' 'Then why do you try so often with each call?'

'There are a lot of stupid operators, that's why! Now leave me alone!'

'Mother, please! You're slamming the phone down so hard you're going to break it. Let me act like your secretary and place the calls for you. It'll be easier.'

She spun round on the barstool and screamed, 'Get off my back! I can dial the phone myself! You can't tell me what to do!'

'Don't you bloody well scream at me, Mother. Do . . . not. . . scream ... at me. If you know what you're doing, then do it. . . but stop crashing my phone to bits every time you screw up.' She squeezed her eyes into narrow slits.

'You'd better just watch it, B.D. You'd better be damned careful.'

'What exactly am I being threatened with this time, Mother? Are you going to give me a spanking?' She slid off the stool and headed for the stairs again. I followed her. 'Well? What are you going to do if I don't watch it? I'd like to know, Mother. I guess you only hit children, so what are you threatening me with? You've done it often enough . . . you must have something in mind.' By this time she was at her bedroom and I was at the top of the stairs. She turned in the doorway. 'I don't know ... I just don't know. Leave me alone! Jesus! I can't stand any more! Don't do this to me!'

BETTE IS SUCH A CUNT!

Mother went directly to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee and boil an egg. I was in the den and had seen her pass through the dining room, moving quite normally but, as soon as I set foot in the kitchen, her shoulders slumped forward and she started the mincing little steps again.

'Good morning, Mother,' I said formally.

'Good morning,' she whimpered in a frail little-old-lady voice. ... In the tiniest of tiny voices, she said, I'm sorry we argued, B.D. We mustn't argue. I can't stand to have you angry with me. ... I just can't bear it.' She reached toward me, arms apart, as though expecting me to leap straight out of the chair and embrace her.

'I only want you to love me . . . just love me a lot.' I remained seated.

'Arguing is the least of my concerns, Mother.' She dropped her arms and began to take little steps back and forth in front of me, alternately sighing and wringing her hands. 'What? Then why -'

'It's your treatment of all of us, Mother. I don't know why you even come here. You drive my husband out of the house by being as rude and unpleasant as you possibly can. You provoke endless arguments with me by consistently doing things you know will annoy me. You're furious when I won't let you mess about in my kitchen, but you got hysterical when I even walked toward yours to get Justin a glass of apple juice. And, as far as Justin is concerned, I'm absolutely at a loss. It's inconceivable to me that you could be so jealous for my attention that you would treat your own grandson so bizarrely.

'I don't know what you mean, B.D. I love you ... I love all of you. Please let's stop this. All I want is that you love me back. Let's not fight when I have to leave . .. you know I'm sad when I'm leaving. Just tell me you love me.' It was no use. I'd had to try though, one more time.

I rose wearily to my feet. 'O.K., Mother, I love you. Does that make you happy?'

'Oh, thank you, B.D.,' she whispered. 'I can't stand it when we fight. I need you to really love me.'

For a few days after Mother left, I kept postponing the inevitable. Jeremy knew, of course, everything that had happened during his absences. Whatever details I had omitted in the telling had been more than filled in by Justin. My husband was being very patient with me, permitting me time to come to terms inwardly with what I had to do. I knew that I had to confirm to him my intention of doing it, but I was having trouble saying the words. I kept picturing myself saying to my mother, 'You can't say I didn't warn you, but you're no longer welcome in my house.'

I was two people. I was a wife and mother who couldn't knowingly do anything to harm her family, and a daughter who could only make her mother happy by permitting her to be cruel to that same family. I loved my husband and my children and they loved me. That should make the choice very simple but it wasn't. My mother loved me more than anything else in the world and whether I loved her or hated her at any given moment in time, I had never really doubted that love. I might not understand her kind of love, let alone want it, but I couldn't convince myself that it didn't exist.

I had tried for nineteen years to combine the two roles, to permit this woman who was my mother to come and go as she pleased and, at the same time, be myself a loving wife and mother. Somehow, through all of it, the love between my husband and me had grown and deepened, but seeing Mother trying to victimize little Justin was another matter.

Mother returned to California and did the pilot episode of Hotel. In June she called to tell me that she had gone for a physical to Vincent Carroll, her lifelong physician and friend.

A breast lump and a vein dysfunction behind her eyes had been discovered. At Harold's urging, she came east to have the lump removed and her circulation checked. Harold wanted her in a New York hospital because he thought that it would be easier to maintain secrecy and keep it out of the press.

She arrived on June 24 and checked into the hospital on the twenty-seventh under the name of Barbara Bailey. The cyst was removed but was found to be malignant. A mastectomy was performed the following day. Mother cried a little but basically behaved stoically. I was terribly shaken and very worried about her. There is something about cancer that is different from any other affliction; even the word itself is terrifying.

Tests were run to isolate the problem with Mother's veins, but her recovery from the operation was going very well indeed. It was intended that Mother stay at Harold's apartment for her recuperation, again in the interest of secrecy, but everything went wrong at once

On July 2, the day before she was due to be discharged, the sedatives and pain killers were discontinued. On July 3, Mother suffered a mild stroke. When I spoke to her late in the day, she told me the doctors didn't know what they were talking about; they kept telling her that the stroke had been very mild and that there were no aftereffects when, in fact, she was itching all over.

One of her biographers interviewed a lot of people, including B.D.'s friends, about this book. All agreed that it was highly fanciful. Even he stories based on fact had been changed and exaggerated.

Still, if you read it with that knowledge, it's an amusing read in places.

On July 4 she suffered another stroke and again I spoke to her late in the day. This time she was absolutely incensed with the doctors; the itching had become overwhelming and being touched was painful. On July 5 she had a third stroke and I managed for the first time to exchange a few words with Kathryn. While Mother was distracted by a therapist, Kathryn took the phone into the bathroom to talk to me.

The itching, she said, had become so acute that Mother was scratching herself raw; she screamed when anyone touched her, claiming that it was painful beyond bearing; she couldn't sleep, she was hungry but couldn't eat. Kathryn said it was horrible to watch and no one seemed to have the faintest idea what was causing it.

Apart from everything else she, Kathryn, was exhausted from lack of sleep since Mother screamed all night from the itching and the pain and shouted continually that she was being starved to death, even though she was unable to eat anything offered her.

Vincent Carroll called and said he was unable to reach Harold and, therefore, didn't know where or how Mother was. I told him the cyst had been malignant and that a mastectomy had been performed with complete success. I told him about the strokes and described the itching, the pain and the hunger as best I could.

Vincent became very agitated and asked whether I knew the names of any of Mother's doctors; he wanted to get in touch with them to apprise them of certain facts of which they might not be aware. I told him I didn't know, that Harold was running a complete mystery show and the best I could do was give Kathryn his number and have her call him. I asked whether he had any idea what the itching, pain and hunger were all about and whether they were stroke-related. He said that was precisely why he wanted to talk to Mother's doctors; she was going through alcoholic withdrawal and would have to be handled carefully.

He also said that Mother's stroke were the direct result of many, many years of alcoholism and that he had been begging her for just as many years to cut down on her drinking

Your mother is in the hospital for cancer surgery, then suffers several strokes and you don't even bother to go and see her until a little while afterwards? And before you get there you have a list of demands?

C-U-N-T!

I made one more attempt. I called Mother and told her that Vincent was most anxious about her welfare and greatly wanted to speak to her; would she call him or accept a call from him? She raved, ranted, called me names and said she never wanted to hear Vincent Carroll's name again. Within the hour, Harold called and said that I had gravely upset Mother and was impeding her recovery with my interference.

My family and I went away for the weekend and I left the phone number where I could be reached with both Harold and Kathryn. I spoke to Mother before we left on Saturday morning.

Harold called on Monday evening, just after we got home, to tell me Mother had had another stroke at midday on Saturday, this time serious. Her left arm was paralyzed, her face was sagging and there was weakness in her left leg.

Mother was now suffering hallucinations in addition to the itching, pain and inability to eat. She told me she was constantly being given different medications to relieve the itching. Kathryn told me Mother had become so abusive toward the nursing staff and the therapists that they were turning over daily, refusing to return after one or two sessions. She was making so much noise, screaming and throwing tantrums, that the hospital had had to move her to a room in the tower structure at the side of the building and set up a soundproof screen in front of the door.

On the fourteenth, despite Mother's continuing protests that she didn't want visitors, I went to see her. I took many deep breaths in the elevator on the way up to her floor, determined not to permit any reaction to her appearance to show on my face. She looked frighteningly small and sad and my heart went out to her.

Kathryn, very tense, was keeping herself busy with Mother's mail on a card table and seldom looked directly at me. When she did look my way, it was to comment on things like the flowers in the room or the view of the river from the corner window. The room was huge with a very high ceiling, a private bathroom, a large couch, upholstered armchairs, bureaus, a coffee table and a tiny kitchen facility in one corner. It was decorated brightly in green, yellow and white. There were paintings on the walls and even the curtains were lovely. If it hadn't been for the hospital bed and the equipment around it, I would have thought myself in a hotel suite.

While we waited for lunch, I asked Mother why she was chain-smoking. She screamed at me to mind my own business and claimed the doctors had said it was perfectly all right. She constantly dropped ashes all over herself and the bed and frequently dropped the lighted cigarette itself into the confusion of her rumpled nightgown and bed linen. Each time she did so, Kathryn or the nurse rushed to retrieve it and make sure all the sparks were out.

Kathryn and I had chef's salad. Mother pushed her lunch tray off the bed and onto the floor for the nurse to clean up. Conversation when I arrived, despite my best efforts to be warm and caring, had been rendered stiff and stilted by Mother. Now it was limited to her complaining about the nurses, complaining about the doctors, complaining about the food and complaining about the therapists.

I know that B.D. has made much of this up, but I can soooooo see Bette in many of these scenarios.

Once in a while, she interrupted the litany with a comment on how nice it would be to be . . staying at the farm with her beautiful family.' After lunch, a therapist arrived and I was witness to a scene straight from hell.

The therapist was a charming lady who was endlessly patient with Mother. She carefully explained, over and over again, why Mother had to move her leg a certain way and her arm a certain way and say certain words. She repeated in a sweet, even tone that the doctors had to know if there was any improvement. Mother screamed profanities at her.

Everytime the therapist did or said something, Mother screamed profanities. 'Don't touch me, you bitch! . . . Jesus! I'll kill you if you touch me again! . . . You fucking idiot! . . . None of you are worth a shit in this place!. . . Get your fucking hands off me! . . . You don't know what you're doing! . . . Keep your filthy hands to yourself! . . . Get the fuck out and leave me alone! . . . Shit!. . . Christ! . . . Jesus!. . . Fuck! . . .'

My consciousness faded out and I was back in another time . . . back at Honeysuckle Hill in my early teens. Mother was in bed with a cold. Aunt Bobby was trying to get her to eat some hot soup.

'Jesus, Bobby! Can't you see I'm going mad with hunger? I can't eat that! I'd choke on it! Don't you know anything? Can't you see I'm sick? I've got the worst cold in the history of man. Christ! You've no idea the agony I'm in. You don't care. Shit! All you care about is your precious soup. What's wrong with you? Leave me alone! Get the fuck out of here! If I want you, you stupid bitch, I'll ring for you! Now get the fuck out of here!

Poor Aunt Bobby, she was such a sweet lady. She wouldn't harm a fly, and I really think she loved her sister despite everything. Marriages messed up. Life messed up. Having to park her daughter all over creation because Mother wouldn't have Fay in the house while Aunt Bobby worked for her. Wouldn't let her own niece live in because it would have distracted Aunt Bobby.

Poor Aunt Bobby . . . she's gone now. Why did she do it? Why did she let her sister convince her she was useless, that she'd starve to death without Mother's benefaction? Aunt Bobby worked her heart out for Mother. She was loyal and good and nice . . . and what did she get for it? Abuse, abuse and more abuse.

I was brought back to the present by the lack of noise around me. The therapist had gone and Kathryn was helping Mother into an upright sitting position in a chair. Then she brought out hair brushes and makeup and helped Mother get spruced up. I was completely at a loss. A few minutes ago, Mother had been a helpless invalid who couldn't stand to be touched, who spewed filthy invective at the therapist and screamed that she wanted to die. Now this — hair brushing and makeup and no complaints at all while Kathryn moved her to the chair. It didn't make sense.

Minutes after Mother was robed, slippered, lipsticked, seated and had her hair arranged, the mystery unraveled itself. A handsome young doctor strode through the door. He was very charming and, as he sat down to chat, he explained that he had nothing to do with Mother's case but liked to stop by each day during his rounds.

Gone the vicious, crumpled, foul-mouthed invalid . . . enter the wide-eyed, gutsy star. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it. She smiled bravely, she joked with him, she told him about my beautiful farm and how she wished she were there instead of in the hospital. No wonder Harold was so smug and complacent whenever I spoke to him. This must be what he saw when he visited his client every evening. When the young doctor left, so did the wide-eyed, gutsy star. Within seconds, the surroundings were disgusting, the doctors and nurses were trying to kill her and she wished they'd succeed

Wondering if Bette was manic-depressive or bipolar.

Joan was a cunt and a vindictive one at that, but her motivations or catalysts (drunkenness) seem to have been a bit more clear.

Bette Davis was a psychotic alcoholic. Some of what BD wrote in this book may be exaggerated but the message is clear and believable, especially with what is publicly well known by people who knew Bette Davis for many years. Of course many (if not most) of the gays are going to side with Bette Davis against BD 100% because NO ONE says anything bad about our gay icons, even if what they're saying is true.

It does make you love Bette all the more.

I stayed a short while longer and then stood up to leave.

Mother was lying flat on her back, eyes squeezed shut, muttering to the nurse who had just come in. 'Why won't anybody help me? None of you give a shit. Jesus! Just keep away from me!'

Kathryn walked me to the elevator. She said it was the first time in sixteen days that she had been outside the room. She was telling me again about the nurses and therapists refusing to work more than one shift each when we heard Mother screaming, 'Kathryn! Kathryn!' Kathryn looked at me wanly and said, 'See?'

I did have a long talk with Harold that night. I told him Kathryn needed some time off regardless of Mother's tantrums. I related the incident of the handsome young doctor. I mentioned the smoking. I again suggested that he talk to Vincent Carroll. I told him what Kathryn had said and everything I had seen for myself. He said he didn't know why Kathryn would say such things, that he had no intention of speaking to Vincent Carroll again and that I didn't know what I was talking about. He said he saw Mother every day and that she was being quite remarkable. He suddenly changed the subject and said that he and I had to make a decision about where to put Mother. I suggested that since he and I were discussing two different people, he had better make the decision on his own.

Vincent continued to call me frequently, despite the fact that my efforts to have someone consult him had come to naught. Harold phoned one day and said that the hospital had released Mother as a surgical patient and wanted her to leave.

A month later, she was still there. Harold called many times during the intervening weeks to enlist my help in convincing Mother that she was well enough to move out of the hospital. I tried, but all she did was argue that the doctors were incompetent idiots and that she was the only one who would know when she was well enough to leave. When I pressed the matter, she hung up on me.

I volunteered to go to New York and move Mother, whether she liked it or not, to any place designated by Harold. He didn't like my attitude and told me to leave it to him. Finally, late in August and only a few days before the date upon with Harold had told me the hospital was going to evict Mother, she moved to the Lombardy.

For the next couple of weeks, Mother was irritable and rude whenever I asked how she was coming along. She said there was no improvement and that the therapists came every day to torment her for nothing.

Harold said she was making a miraculous recovery. She was walking, her face muscles had almost returned to normal and her face and arm were improving daily. I told him that Mother had not admitted any of this to me and he said that I must have misunderstood her.

At the very next opportunity, I told Mother what Harold had said. She grunted and replied, 'It's just fascinating how everyone in the world knows how I am better than I do.' Whenever I volunteered to go see her which, I have to admit, I was not overly anxious to do after the first time, she said she didn't want me to just then.

On September 2, Mother called, 'B.D., I'm going back to California on the thirteenth and I have to see you before I leave.'

'That's terrific,' I said. 'I know you'll be much happier in your own home.'

'I know that's what you think,' she retorted sharply. 'Christ! You've said it often enough. Anyway, when are you coming in?'

'Why don't you tell me what days are convenient? I'll check with Jeremy and see which is best for him.'

' Jesus! You mean you can't drive yourself yet?' She was referring to my back ligaments, about which she had inquired virtually every time I spoke to her, which I had ruptured a few years earlier and which became inflamed if I drove a car for too long.

'Of course I can't,' I replied. 'We've discussed it often enough.'

'Shit! How are you going to get here then?'

'The same way I got there last time,' I answered patiently. 'I just told you. Tell me what days are good for you and I'll check Jeremy's availability.

'I don't want that bastard to bring you in. I don't want to owe him any favors.'

'Mother,' I said, having trouble with the concept, 'I don't know where you got the idea, but you don't owe Jeremy any favors. I can assure you he doesn't bring me to see you as a favor to you. He does it because I ask him to, that's all.'

'You mean that's the only way you can get here?' she yelped. 'If he doesn't bring you, J can't see you?'

'That's right.'

'Christ! I'll have to call you back.' Click, dial tone.

It was a revelation. I had been to see Mother only once in all this time because every time I mentioned coming, she had got upset. It had been a far cry from the demand that I become a New York commuter which I had expected. I hadn't been sorry, just puzzled. Now I had the answer.

Mother called again. 'B.D., I'm going to call Josie and ask her to go get you and bring you in to see me.

'Are you out of your mind?' I exploded. 'Josie is two hundred miles from here and I'm two hundred miles from you. By the time she came here, went to New York, came back here and then went home, she'd have driven eight hundred miles. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.'

'She'd do it for me J Mother stated imperiously.

'I doubt it very much . . . but even if she would, I wouldn't let her . . . so forget it.'

'Jesus! I'll have to figure something else out.' Click, dial tone.

...........It was an interesting visit. Mother commented on how much she liked my long, layered haircut (Jeremy liked my hair long and Mother had been complaining for years that I only looked well with it tied up in a bun), how beautiful the farm was, how wonderful Jeremy and the children were, how grateful she was that I was so indispensable to my family and what a marvelous feeling that must be.

She told me about a phone conversation she had had with Aaron Spelling, head of the company producing Hotel. She had called him and said, 'I never did want to do your lousy show. Now I'm not up to it anymore . . . and don't let anybody tell you I am . . . you can take your show and shove it!' She laughed uproariously as she told me about it, but laughed even harder while mimicking Harold trying to convince Aaron Spelling that she was really just fine and would be back to do another episode any minute now.

Then she said, 'I'll tell you one thing . . . Aaron Spelling knows who is the fighter now.' She said that Kathryn was unofficially engaged to a Frenchman and commented that she seemed to lose all her daughters in France. She extolled the virtues of Englishmen and Frenchmen. She cried copiously over not being able to return to the farm with me and apologized for having been so boring all afternoon.

........It triggered my memory of a conversation she and I had when I was eight. She told me her view of her father and men in general, and her philosophy of how to deal with life and the world as a whole. Lots of what she said was about fighting. Oh, don't get me wrong. I know she's always talking about her fights, but what I was missing was that fighting is done for its own sake; not just to win an argument, but to prove who's strong enough to win. Fighting has its own justification and is its own reward.

And I was supposed to be just like her; I was supposed to fight with everyone to prove that I was one of the strong ones too. You see? At the end of that conversation years ago, she said everything would be fine because we'd fight the world together, she and I.

The disparity between me and the fantasy daughter we all talk about derives from my unwillingness to fight. I don't fight with my friends, I don't fight with strangers at cocktail parties. To make it worse, I do occasionally fight with her, the one person I'm not supposed to fight with at all. She and I are the dominant ones and on the same team, while the rest of the world, particularly husbands and children, must be made to toe the line.

I thought back over Mother's favorite heroines, the ones who occupy a special place in her heart, the ones she always contended were "good dames": Jezebel, Aggie Hurley, Mildred and so on. Most revealing, though, is the role she didn't play. The greatest disappointment in Mother's life was that she didn't get the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. It meant more to her than I did, any of her husbands did or any role she ever played did. She often said that she and Scarlett were twins. There's no doubt in my mind that she was absolutely right

So here it is, Mother, the story of you and me, not as you would have it but as it really was. You wanted me to be like you, a fighter, but I never wanted to fight. Fighting and grand drama have brought you some kind of satisfaction, I hesitate to say happiness, but they bring me misery.

Love and laughter have brought me my happiness, but they bore you to tears. I let you have your way and tried to understand you for all those years because, for the most part, I loved and respected you. My husband clenched his teeth and stayed out of the way most of the time because he loved me and understood my dilemma. He also liked the real you, the Ruth Elizabeth you so seldom exposed to any of us.

Ashley was able to cope, somehow, during Family Reunion and can now take care of himself. But you've gone one step too far; you've carried your fight to Justin, and he's too young to take care of himself. So just as you picked on him to compensate for what you saw as my weakness, J finally have to fight to prove my worth as his mother. Not with the Lilliputians as you would have me do, to stop them from devouring my soul, but with you to protect my child and,make you realize you're wrong about everything except your career.

You've consistently refused to hear me. You tear up letters you don't like without finishing them. You hang up the phone if you don't like the words you hear. You've used friends and lawyers to bring pressure to bear when you've wanted something I've been unwilling to give. You've played many roles during my life, some of them brilliantly, some of them basely, but you were only willing to be yourself for a couple of years some fifteen years ago.

Therefore, Mother, I'm bringing the fight to your doorstep; my word is pledged that it won't be fought on ours again. It seems to me that you have two choices. Neither of them is to say you forgive me for writing this book and only want me to love you.

You can go back to Tara, confident in the belief that you're in the right but forced to beat a strategic withdrawal. That's okay. It will permit me the privilege of remembering my mother with some love and much respect, and your grandchildren to recall the legend in years to come with the awe it deserves. While you're back at Tara, you might well, without the self-imposed distraction of trying to make me into something I'm not, find the time and inclination to plow some fertile ground and harvest another Oscar.

Or . . . you can hear, at long last, what I have been trying to tell you all along: Yours isn't the only way. It may work for you (although I don't really believe it has), but that's not my concern ... it doesn't work for me. I have found true happiness by leading my life my way. I don't try to convince other people that mine is the only way and neither should you. If you wish to be part of my life, you must accept me as I am, and my family along with me.

It's your choice, Mother ... go back to Tara or hear me at last. Regard this, Mother, as my cry in the wilderness, to prepare the way and make straight your path. There have been many miracles in my life lately and, if the one for which I now pray should be granted, you'll see that path. All that's asked is that Ruth Elizabeth, no roles and no fantasies, follow it to the door. The door will always be open to her.

THE END

After those last few posts I am so totally Team BD it's not even funny.

Sounds like her emotional issues weren't limited to home.

Bette was a strong, independent woman who earned her own way and was pissed beyond belief that her daughter was a useless layabout who became a doormat to her domineering husband, who was also a useless layabout. Bette supported them financially for many years. She was very disappointed in the whole situation with her daughter and son-in-law.

I'm not saying Bette wasn't an alcoholic bitch - she was - but you have to put things in context. She had reasons to be angry with her daughter. The various Davis biographies go into detail about what a couple of lazy-ass grifters BD and her husband Jeremy were.

Bette Davis was pain in the ass, But BD was NO victim here, There was no purpose of this book as than humiliating her old ailing mother.

other than..

It was believed by many that BD only wrote the book because after her mother's strokes the doctors thought Bette was going to die, so there would be no more money for that leech to suck up.

"Christina Crawford had a better ghostwriter."

I think Christina did most of the writing of her book. She was much better educated than B. D. Hyman. Did B. D. get any education at ALL? She became a slavish housewife at age 16 and seems quite dumb as a brick.

BD might have been taken more seriously if she didn't look so fucking ludicrous. She looks like a crazy loon in the clip at R172.

She talks about her father here...

Sorry, it's in part two of the interview

BD is ridiculous

I had to stop reading this one. It's honestly just not that interesting. A lot of the stuff that was supposed to make Bette look bad came off as no big deal to me and so much of it just sounds made up. Those conversations don't sound the way people actually talk and are really specific while at the same time some of the accusations against her mother are vague.

BD saw the success of Mommie Dearest and wanted to cash in, plain and simple. I don't doubt Bette could be difficult but this all just seems like BD exaggerated events and still couldn't make it all worth reading. Maybe there were some damning incidents detailed after I gave up on this but I'm glad I never bought a copy of this because it isn't worth spending any money (or time) on.

R110, the kid always had a flair for fiction.

[quote]I know that B.D. has made much of this up, but I can soooooo see Bette in many of these scenarios.

Me too. And I don't think it's been embellished.

Thanks OP

[quote]The only thing more interesting to read than the uber manipulative Bette's crazy actions........is how many posters seem to be on Bette's side.

Only because they hate BD for being a bible thumper and a homophobe. It's very clear that BD is an articulate, clear eyed observer. I find her completely credible.

Her description of some of the men of that era is sickening. The way they manipulated, abused and bullied Bette and BD is gross to read.

R9 "'Bullshit! You're no woman . . . you're a frigging ice queen. Without an audience you're not worth a shit! Maybe if I knocked you on your frigid ass on the stage of the London Palladium and then jumped you, you'd perform. Outside of that, a knothole in a tree is more exciting than you.'"

BRUTAL

Gary Merrill was an absolute piece of shit, and an abusive drunk. That's been well-documented in many sources. In today's world, he would've been arrested and thrown in jail.

Gary was indeed quite an asshole. He wrote a book "Bette, Rita and the Rest of My Life". Because other than the women he was with there really wasn't anything noteworthy about him.

A lot of the women from Hollywood in that era picked the absolute worst men. Bette certainly wasn't alone in that.

r187 I wonder why that was. You read about the husbands/boyfriends so many of the women from classic Hollywood had, and they were total abusive shits.

BD had a pretty face, but that tragic 80's hairstyle is... tragic.

Bette Davis's only public response to the allegations was an open letter published in the Davis's own book This 'N That (1987):

"Dear Hyman, You constantly inform people that you wrote this book to help me understand you and your way of life better. Your goal was not reached. I am now utterly confused as to who you are or what your way of life is. Your book is a glaring lack of loyalty and thanks for the very privileged life I feel you have been given. If my memory serves me right, I've been your keeper all these many years. I am continuing to do so, as my name has made your book about me a success".

What did/does BD's husband do for a living? In all these excerpts there is no mention of him working except on rehabbing the farm house. He has zero internet presence. I can't find a scrap of info on him. All I know is they are still together, which is pretty amazing considering she married him at 16 y/o. He was 29, so a pedo-perv by today's standards.

R191 BD' husband was probably a bum living off his mother in law' money. Bette had bought that farm to BD and her husband. A fact BD Never mentioned in her book.

BD's husband didn't really work at all, that's a big reason why Bette couldn't stand him. James Spada's bio of Bette "More Than A Woman" goes into detail about Bette's relationship with BD and Jeremy and how Bette supported them in lavish style.

Wow, is that why BD kept trying to get her to sober up and work? She had to keep her meal ticket earning,

From Gary Merrill book :

"All her life, B.D. had accepted her mother's money. Bette had bought a farm for her and her husband, had paid the bills at a private school for the grandchildren, and continued to give until there was little left for herself. I surmised that B.D. must have wanted something Bette couldn't afford.

Perhaps, as a family, we were more volatile than most, with turbulent disagreements on occasion, but by and large we were fairly ordinary.

Although most of the time Bette was too permissive with B.D., I was a gratified witness once to a good slap she administered to B.D/s behind. It was Christmastime and we were on a shopping trip in Portland's big department store, which was crowded. B.D. had fastened on an item on display which she thought she must have, but Bette refused to buy it.

Aware that people were noticing her famous mother, B.D. decided a tantrum might help change Bette's mind—and proceeded to perform. Bette yanked her around, gave her a good one, and marched B.D. out of the store. It was a mother's appropriate reaction to an embarrassing scene created by a manipulative eight-year-old. For this Bette was crucified.

Upset by the book, I placed ads in The New York Times and in the Portland newspaper, urging people not to buy it. I made a placard and marched up and down outside a Falmouth bookstore, and explained to anyone who asked what I was up to: "If you feel you must read the book, please don't buy it. Visit the local library instead."

If bette really pulled faux suicide flame outs on her young children, it's hard to feel sorry for her

Lol, R116!

Bette Davis was a histrionic drama queen. She learned from an early age that to get what she wanted all she had to do was throw a fit. She was an 8 year old girl in a grown woman's body. All too typical actor type. Loaded with talent, but also loaded with insecurities.

Thanks for your expertise, Dr. Freud.

What a read.

Poor B.D. The stories of the 'suicides', incredibly violent fights/rages, and the thing with the horse... just dreadful.

Thank you so much for this, OP.

Why on earth would we believe that this homophobic, Bible-thumbing, self-aggrandizing boorish bore would be a reliable historian?