Outspoken Bette Davis ‘Plays’ At Saratoga
by Bruce Husten, The Times Record, June 21, 1973
Bette Davis, the outspoken Academy Award-winning actress, talked last night about Liz Taylor, Johnny Carson, movie mogul Jack Warner and the Gay Liberation Movement before a small crowd in the amphitheater at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
There were only 650 people in the 7,000-seat amphitheater, but they loved her.
They saw film clips tracing the erratic film career of Belte Davis and then sat in on her conversation on stage with New York film critic John Springer.
The 65-year-old actress didn’t pull any punches.
She told the crowd she loves actress Glenda Jackson and director William Wylie, is jealous that Elizabeth Taylor got the part she wanted in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and hopes she never has to resort to acting on Broadway again.
And she wishes people would pronounce her first name properly. “Everyone pronounces it Betty but it’s supposed to be pronounced Bet,” she said.
She also has something to say about an old Hollywood story about how the Academy Award got the name “Oscar.” Belte’s version is that the rear view of the statuette resembled the rear view of her own husband at the time, that she gave the award his name — Oscar.
“But the Academy doesn’t believe my story and I’ve given up trying to convince them, I’ve decided to let them have their way,” she said.
She told her fans that there was no truth to reports that she and Joan Crawford had feuded during the filming of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” the film that began Bette Davis’ successful comeback.
And she doesn’t regret a crack she once made about the Gay Liberation Movement: “In not agin’ it but there’s nothing for me in it.”
Her cheekbones are still a dominant feature on her face and from a distance it’s hard to tell that she’s grown old. But she has.
“I used to think life was over at 40. Little did I know that at 65 it’s more over than it was then,” she said.
SHE DELIVERED a sharp crack in a subtle way about TV talk show host Johnny Carson. “I don’t think I did anything the last time I was on the Johnny Carson Show. I just sat…..and listened…..to him.”
Jack Warner of Warner Brothers Studios was a man that she fought during the height of her movie career in the 30s and 40s But, she recalled last night, “In the long run we respect each other. There were nasty spats, but I owe my career to him.”
And she criticized the setting for her appearance last night. The huge amphitheater, she said robbed her appearance of the intimacy it has had in other places.
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