Bette Davis (17 page)

Two days after Bette's suspension, on the evening of June 21, Jack Warner called her at home to offer what he described as "fatherly advice" to change her mind before popular opinion turned against her when news of her "breach of contract'' appeared in the press. He cautioned that in hard economic times, Bette's rebellion over a $1,600 weekly salary was unlikely to play well with the public. From first to last, Warner controlled the conversation. Each time Bette raised specific points about her contract or the suspension

letter, Warner admonished that that was not why he had called; he only wanted to warn her to discontinue her belligerent and self-destructive tactics "before it became too late."

That night, Bette dashed off a handwritten, undated seven-page letter, in which she told the studio boss everything he had kept her from saying on the telephone. (Neither the typed version prepared by Warner's assistant nor the versions subsequently read aloud in court and reprinted in the international press possess anything like the raw passion of Bette's handwritten original.)

In reference to our talk today—it seemed to me our main problem is getting together on the money. You as Head of your firm, naturally know what your concern can afford and what they can't.

I have no desire to be "off your list" and I feel sure—you do not wish it either. I agree lots of harm can be done through publicity. Believe me when I tell you I have thought and prepared for every angle of this for a long time now. I also know you have the right to keep me from working—a great unhappiness to me because I enjoy working—especially after my long vacation. I am so rested it hurts! However, there comes a time in everyone's career when certain things make working worth-while. I am now referring to the very few rights I have asked for. . . .

As to the "loan-out clause," I am the kind of person who thrives under change. I have never wanted this clause because I wanted to feel I was my own boss—have authority of my own-quite the contrary. I like a boss—someone to look up to whose opinion I respect as I do yours. Mentally—a change does me good—makes me do better work, I like working with new directors, new casts, etc. I am also ambitious to become known as a great actress—I might, who can tell. Every once in a while a part comes along particularly suited to me. I want to feel, should a role come my way, I am at liberty to take advantage of it. If no such part ever appears in five years, then I will not take advantage of my right. In that case I am very anxious to travel, thus the request for three consecutive months of vacation. Travel is also change—good publicity for you and me both and particularly important to me during the next five years as I have never been out of this country—it is broadening to one's intellect and will help me I'm sure in my work and thus help you. I am an essentially high-strung person—for that reason—change means rest and I must have rest.

To get back to our call and the purpose of this letter, I would be willing to take less money, if in consideration of this, you

would give me my "rights." You have asked me to be levelheaded in this matter. I feel I am extremely and I hope that you can agree that I am. I am more than anxious to work for you again, but not as things stand. . . .

As a happy person, I can work like Hell—as an unhappy one, I make myself and everyone around me unhappy. Also I know and you do too—in a business where you have a fickle public to depend on, the money should be made when you mean something, not when the public has had time to tell you to "go to hell." . . .

Unmentioned was the Toeplitz offer, which Bette's representatives had already virtually accepted on her behalf: thus her sudden willingness to take less money from Warner if only he would give her a ' 'loan-out clause.'' But when—in a June 24 letter—he refused even this, Bette perceived herself to have little choice but to turn to the press, in an attempt to win public sympathy to her cause.

1 'I 'm ready to quit for good,'' she told reporters at the beginning of July. "There are certain things I'm entitled to, and I'm darned well going to get them—or else!"

But what precisely was her cause?

She could hardly argue that she was fighting for better roles, when the film she was clamoring to appear in this time was the banal comedy I'll Take the Low Road (about an American girl who seeks a title), to be directed at Ealing Studios by the hack Monty Banks. Nor, as Warner had admonished, would she win much sympathy complaining about her weekly salary, when $1,600 would have seemed like a small fortune to most Depression-era Americans.

Hence the persistent vagueness of her public declarations: "It's a mess of little things that need adjustment—they Ve been wrong for a long time"; "I would hate to tell you how little the studio pays me—much less than many of the new players, especially men.''

By contrast, Warner's pronouncements focused on one issue: the actress's repudiation of a contract whose validity even her own representatives seemed to recognize.

"We have been more than fair with Miss Davis," said Warner. "A year ago we rewrote her contract, which had considerable time to run, and gave her a new long-term one at considerable increase in salary. She expressed herself as satisfied with its terms and we proceeded to select outstanding stories for her and to launch a campaign to build her up. Now she is endeavoring to repudiate the contract and has refused to report for work unless demands for an

exorbitant salary and other impossible stipulations are met. It is high time something were done to make people under contract to the studios realize that a contract is not a mere scrap of paper, to be thrown aside because they happen to make a good picture or two. We do not repudiate our contracts with our players and we don't intend to let them repudiate their contracts with us."

Fearful that should he learn of her negotiations with Toeplitz, Warner would seek an injunction to prevent her from leaving the country, Bette and Ham quietly boarded a midnight flight for Vancouver, Canada.

On August 3, when the Warners branch manager in Vancouver, Joseph Plottel, chanced to learn of Bette's arrival, he innocently rushed to her hotel to see if he could be of help in arranging publicity. Burbank, however, promptly wired him to keep his distance from the errant film star, who—much as Warner feared—was soon on her way to England, sailing on the Canadian Pacific liner Duchess of Bedford.

"At the moment I am one of the unemployed, for I am still under suspension by Warner Bros.," Bette told reporters on August 17, 1936, when her ship paused in Scotland on the way to Liverpool. "It is rather a long story to go into details. I am still bound to them by contract. I have five more years to go, and how or when the dispute will be settled I do not know. I should love to make a picture in Britain but cannot do it. I am completely tied up with Warner Bros."

That same day in Burbank, appalled at Variety's speculation that Bette was headed to England to make a picture for Gaumont-British, Roy Obringer directed Morris Ebenstein in Warners' New York office to notify major English producers—including Gaumont, Toeplitz, and Alexander Korda—that Bette Davis remained under contract to Warner Bros., which fully intended to prevent the actress from working elsewhere. Meanwhile Ebenstein brought to Obrin-ger's attention a New York Times report that named Toeplitz as the true culprit; whereupon Warners' English attorneys, Denton, Hall and Burgin, promptly sought Toeplitz's assurance that he would respect the studio's exclusive right to Bette's services.

Instead the worried Italian producer submitted a copy of Bette's December 27, 1934, Warner Bros, contract to two English counsel, as well as to an American attorney practicing at the English bar. All three confirmed the document's validity. In their opinion, Warners would have no difficulty obtaining an injunction in the English

courts to restrain the actress from working for Toeplitz Productions Ltd

As even Bette now admitted, there existed no evidence to substantiate her earlier claims to Ludovico Toeplitz that Warners had blatantly and repeatedly breached her contract.

While James Cagney had successfully broken his Warners contract in court, it wasn't dissatisfaction with his screen roles that won the actor's freedom (although that had been the principal motive behind his suit) but a minor billing error: a marquee at Warners' Beverly Theater that read: pat o'brien in ceiling zero, in clear violation of Cagney's contract, which guaranteed top billing.

As Jack Warner had understood well in advance, all Cagney had to do to prove breach of contract was produce a photograph of the offending marquee. Nonetheless, Warner had dragged out the legal proceedings to punish Cagney for his disloyalty and lack of gratitude and to warn all future insurrectionists of the lengths to which he would go to snuff them out.

If Warner had done all this against Cagney, whose case was open and shut, what would he do with Bette, who all too clearly had no legitimate case at all?

On August 27, Toeplitz Productions Ltd. notified Bette, at the T\idor Hotel in Rottingdean, that their lawyers' findings compelled them to recast her role in III Take the Low Road and to assure Warner Bros, that they were breaking off negotiations with her. This was a devastating blow for Davis, who pleaded with Toeplitz not to abandon her now that she had come this far at his behest.

Tbeplitz calculated that even if Warner hauled Bette into court, a British judge would probably allow the studio to restrain her only until the end of the year, when her option next came due. After that she would be free to work for him as she wished: hence the option for future services he tacked on to the two-picture deal he made with her now, with the understanding that should all else fail, Bette would join him in Rome, where Jack Warner and the British courts had no influence.

Bette and Ham were in Paris for wardrobe fittings for I'll Take the Low Road when she learned of the September 9 temporary injunction Warners had won in the British courts, restraining her from doing any film work in England without the studio's permission.

"We consider the matter of the writ entirely one between Miss Davis and the Warners," Toeplitz announced in London, presumably to shield himself from legal action. "There is no question of enticement on our part. We intend to go right ahead with the film.''

* * *

"Where are you?" Ruthie screamed into the telephone when Ham Nelson called from New York. "Let me speak to Bette!"

"She isn't here/' Ham replied. "She's in England."

While Ruthie tried to suppress her anger over Ham's having left Bette to confront her court case alone, he explained that, having decided to abandon his career as an itinerant performer, he had returned to the United States to seek steady employment as a musicians' agent in New York, so that he could earn enough money to finance Bette's legal battle.

From this point on, Ruthie used Bette's ambivalent feelings about her husband's departure to turn her against him—as if he had forsaken her when she needed him most.

"Mother?" said Bette when Ruthie wasted no time calling London to commiserate about Ham's departure and propose coming to England in his place. Aside from her daughter's uncharacteristically tiny voice, the fact that Bette addressed her as "Mother" rather than the customary "Ruthie" spoke volumes about Bette's loneliness before the Wednesday, October 14, court hearing— Warner Bros. v. Nelson— before Mr. Justice Branson in King's Bench Division.

Further, on September 9 and October 1, Obringer had furnished Sir Patrick with copiously detailed accounts of Bette's skirmishes with the studio, dating back to her April 1934 refusal to report for wardrobe fittings for the by now long-forgotten Housewife.

u 'In reference to our talk today—it seemed to me our main problem is getting together on the money,' "Sir Patrick read aloud in court from Bette's June 21, 1936, letter to Jack Warner—than which a more damning piece of evidence was scarcely imaginable.

Although Bette's camp seemed not to have realized it, Warners had quiedy severed the matter of the actress's suspension clause from their case against her. Technically it was the studio's right to add the time she had been out on suspension to the end of her contract. The Warners' legal department preferred not to bring this up, lest Mr. Justice Branson rule the standard Hollywood suspension clause unenforceable (thereby opening a Pandora's box of dissension and complaint back in the States).

Sir Patrick asked only that Mr. Justice Branson recognize the straight amount of time Bette owed the studio under her current contract; and prevent the actress from working for Toeplitz or any other producer during that period.

"What this young lady is seeking to do is in effect to tear up her contract and say that whether she is right or wrong the court will not grant an injunction against her," said Sir Patrick of Bette's much-publicized charge that her Warners' contract was a form of "slavery."

M 'Slavery' has a silver lining because the 'slave' was, to say the least, well remunerated," he went on, rattling off Bette's salary history at Warners (and concluding with the weekly $3,000 she was to earn in the final year of her current contract). "If anyone wants to put me in perpetual servitude on that basis of remuneration, I shall be prepared to consider it!"

Even Bette—he argued—could hardly believe her own spurious claims, the real reason for all the brouhaha being the $50,000 offer to appear in Vll Take the Low Road: ' 'There is a gendeman whose name I cannot pronounce," said Sir Patrick. "A Mr. Toeplitz, I think. I suggest Miss Davis has been bribed and has been unwise enough to be flattered by the offer and say, 'I'll take it if I can get away from Warner Bros.' "

There followed testimony from Jack Warner, who, in typical fashion, wrung his hands over Bette's lack of gratitude to the studio that had built her up "from obscurity." Testifying on behalf of Warner Bros., Alexander Korda (Toeplitz's former associate and rival at London Film Productions, where the Italian had cut his

teeth before founding Toeplitz Productions Ltd.) dismissed Bette's claims against her studio with the remark: "An actress does not always understand her will or what she wants to do."