Patricia Williams

Released on 31 October 1962, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? bore comparison to no other film. When the movie and cast were first announced in the trades, the habitués of West Hollywood were known to faint in the streets. A straight man, Victor Buono, actually turned gay while making the film. It’s true. In early 1962, director Robert Aldrich had accomplished what many considered impossible — he persuaded two of Hollywood’s most notoriously competitive actresses, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, to appear in the same movie without requiring the National Guard. The result was a deliciously grotesque psychological thriller about two aging sisters, one a deranged former child star and the other a wheelchair-bound former movie queen. In other words, perfect casting. Davis and Crawford had been circling each other for decades, exchanging compliments with roughly the same enthusiasm as rattlesnakes exchanging Christmas cards. Both were over 50, their glory days were behind them, and Hollywood had largely decided that women of a certain age belonged in the attic. Aldrich, apparently nursing a death-wish, decided to put them in a movie about exactly that. Bette enthusiastically embraced the role of Baby Jane Hudson, applying grotesque makeup, wearing ghastly little-girl dresses, and generally looking like Shirley Temple after a particularly unfortunate encounter with a bottle of 100 proof. Crawford, meanwhile, insisted on maintaining a certain dignity, even while being terrorized, starved, and served dead rat for dinner. Naturally, the production was not without its tensions. Embracing her idea of Method acting, in one scene Bette “accidentally” kicked Joan in the head hard enough to cause a laceration that required stitches. And Crawford soon retaliated. For a scene in which Bette had to drag her across the floor, she lined her clothes with lead weights, making herself exceptionally heavy and causing a grunting and groaning Bette to throw her back out. Whether both stories are true, exaggerations, or urban legends hardly mattered. Hollywood was having the time of its life. And after three weeks of filming, the ambulance drivers on call were told to stand down. Released on Halloween — appropriately enough — the film became an unexpected box-office sensation, earning approximately $9 million (against a $980,000 budget) in domestic rentals and proving that audiences were delighted to watch two aging legends behave abominably. Baby Jane received five Oscar nominations and won one, for Best Black-and-White Costume Design. Davis received a nomination for Best Actress. Crawford, surprisingly, was overlooked. But never one to let a minor detail like an errant nomination interfere with her Oscar ambitions, Joan arranged to accept the award on behalf of any winner who was unable to attend. When Anne Bancroft’s name was called, a radiant Joan swept across the stage on her behalf. Bette, waiting in the wings and fully expecting to win, was livid and reportedly appeared to suffer a minor stroke. In the end, the film revived two legendary careers, became a cult classic, and demonstrated that Hollywood had seriously underestimated the box-office potential of older women. Every “well-seasoned” actress in the industry soon found her phone ringing with some unctuous agent uttering “comeback” or “box office”. Even as grand a personage as Olivia de Havilland was enticed to fly in from Paris to be tortured by a bunch of psychos in a nasty little piece of cinema appropriately called Lady in a Cage. And as Baby Jane herself might have observed, you can lose your looks, your career, your marbles, and even your money — but never, under any circumstances, cross Joan Crawford. 🏳️‍🌈