Stardust

[lzcutter]

Hope everyone was able to catch the Bette Davis documentary "Stardust" last night. It was very well done. Some great clips in there from various Davis talk show appearances, her AFI tribute and interviews and voices of some of the people who worked with her.

 

Made me think that some of the interview footage may have come from the Turner Archive Project.

 

Well done all the way around.

[vallo13]

I loved it, can't wait because it is included with the "Bette Davis Collection #2", coming out May 30th. Good job TCM.

 

vallo

[path40a]

I very much enjoyed it too, couldn't wait to watch this premiere and wasn't disappointed (lots of information that was new to me). I thought Ellen Burstyn (73 years old!) looked TERRIFIC, btw. I hope that TCM will continue to fund and/or support this type of excellent programming.

[lzcutter]

Path,

 

My only hope (and likely not a snowball's chance in hell of happening) is that I can look as good as Ellen Burstyn at 73 and have such a sense of style. I have seen her in a number of documentaries the last couple of years and one thing is for sure- the lady knows how to dress for the camera. She always looks so elegant in a very understated way.

 

Oh well, a middle aged girl can dream......

[inglis]

Hi I watched it twice it was really good even got my husband to watch it with me.My favorite clip was her saying" what a dump". She really new how to put a spin on certain words .Ellen Burstyn looked great and I thought Jane Fonda looked really nice too!.My Favorite film with Betty Davis is all about Eve .I am also middle aged I would be happy just to have a scarf that looked that good on me as it did with Ellen Burstyn .

[SUSAN]

TCM did a great job with this one. Almost every clip they showed, I said, oh that's my favorite one of hers...needless to say, they were all my favorites! And when my husband heard her voice from another room, he said, "that can only be one person, Bette Davis." Loved the ending, Nat Cole's intro to "Stardust" playing with the footage ending up in the stars. Just a lovely tribute.

[pktrekgirl]

I enjoyed it too.

 

But once again, the ending was cut off by TiVo because it overran it's time slot - at least the first showing (which was the one I recorded) did, anway. UGH! ;(

[hollbergsmith]

It gave a lot of insight into Bette Davis' life. It's worth seeing once. Overall, though, I came away with a rather distasteful feeling about both Bette Davis and some of the content of the special. She doesn't sound like someone I would have liked knowing. And TCM threw some stuff in there that was offensive for the time slot, especially for people who look to TCM for more restrained material. I certainly learned more about Gary Merrill's attraction to Bette than I ever cared to know.

 

Yes, I know all the So What arguments about it being real life and there really wasn't that much and all that, but still...I recommended this special to my parents, and I'm not looking forward to hearing their comments about it.

[movieman1957]

Bobbert:

 

I'm with you. I only saw the last half of it and I came away thinking she didn't seem to be the sort you would have as a friend. I'm not a big Bette fan. I tend to like her un-Bette roles ("The Corn Is Green") so I probably had a jaded take on it. Maybe she seemed so believable because some of those parts, especially late in life, were closer to what she was really like.

 

Also when I saw the Dick Cavett interview, which will like show up as part of the TCM collection, I thought of the thread recently that generated so much discussion and wondered if this changed any minds one way or another.

[lzcutter]

Re: Bette Davis and friends:

 

I think that was one of the points that the documentary was trying to make is that Bette did not have many close friends and the doc had to show us why and how she was different from not only her screen persona but from the ideal of Bette that so many of us carry around with us.

 

If they hadn't made the point that she found it difficult to make friends and she wasn't exactly an easy person to get to know (she came with baggage and a whole slew of issues in today's terms), we would have been sitting there going- what's wrong with these people, who couldn't like or want to be Bette Davis' friend?

 

Sounds like she mellowed considerably in the 1980s.

[movieman1957]

I'm glad they made the point about how her relationships were difficult as that adds to understanding her. I don't think these specials should be love fests.

 

I agree that she did seem to mellow later, maybe her stokes helped change her. I remember her seeming more accessible.

 

Maybe it's addressed in other threads but what is the screen persona you (and others) like of her? (Asked sincerely) I don't deny her talent or her star quality but I just never warmed up to her.

[bansi4]

Top notch documentary, to say the least. Great clips, no matter how minute at times, especially those on the sets and at home with the family. Her transformation over the years (from starlet to grand actress to golden age) were amazing. Bette Davis was a trouper at heart.

Interesting tid-bits, other than the 'Stardust' were:

Her domeering, although beloved mother Ruthie.

Her manic depressive, overshawdowed sister Barbara.

Her numerous affairs with Hollywood honchos.

The possibility of her involvement in the death of husband #2.

Her sudden outbursts on the set and at home.

Her drinking problem.

And how at times, she stretched the truth.

 

I come to have no respect for her ungrateful daughter Barbara aka BD, who would break her heart.

I read the book 'My Mother's Keeper" and it's a bunch of hogwash, if you ask me. Money had to be the total object for writing it. Too bad.

 

Yet, it didn't dim the admiration of the millions of fans that the grand actress Bette Davis still has. And I'm one of them.

 

Can't wait to see "The Dick Cavett" interview in it's entirety with Miss Davis, when the program is presented on TCM in the future.

[Bunderful]

I agree with the poster who listed the new insights about Bette. I loved two pictures in particular that they showed at the end: The one of Bette and her son Michael as a child, and the one of Bette and her sister Bobby as young girls.

 

I also agree that Ellen Burstyn and Jane Fonda looked terrific. It's not every woman who allows her hair to go white; I applaud Ellen for that. She probably looks younger than she would if she had darker hair (the lighter hair framing the face is more youthful, hands down.)

 

A wonderfully done feature.

 

BLU

[daddysprimadonna]

Ellen Burstyn is 73???!!! WOW! She looked fantastic for any age!

[daddysprimadonna]

I watched "Stardust", and actually the documentary made me warm up to her,as opposed to before. The documentary made her seem more human and vulnerable,as opposed to the way I always thought of her from her movie roles.

 

 

BTW,THANK YOU TCM, for all the great upcoming documentaries,especially the one about Irving Thalberg,as it's as close as possible to learning more about the beautiful and talented Norma Shearer(hint hint-please consider an original documentary about the lady in the future!)

[GeorgeOBrien]

Some of the people responding here are pretty naive. Ellen Burstyn does not look great for 73.She has undergone extensive and expensive plastic surgery. She has had her face painfully pulled and peeled. That is not her real hair you are admiring, that is a wig.

 

Hollywood has always been obsessed with youth and beauty, but now it is enshring the exalting of the unnatural. What an odd feeling it must be to live in a 73 year old body surmounted by a face resembling one from a Greek statue.

 

Rowlands and Fonda look as if they have had their faces ironed with heavy starch.

[daddysprimadonna]

I never said that I assumed that she looked that great naturally-that's why all the exclamation at her looking so good at that age. Nonetheless,however she achieved it,she looked great on the television screen to my eyes. That's all I could possibly know about how she looks,as I don't live next door to her:) I've seen other women in her age range on television,and they did NOT look as good. Ellen Burstyn did look that good, however she managed it.

[pandorainmay]

TCM did a great job reviewing the career and revealing the alternately touching and repulsive side of this very fallible human being who seems to have taken a lot of the pain and drive in her life and translated it into her exceptional work on film. I was somewhat surprised that Miss Davis shared my belief that her best work may be found in Dark Victory(1939). She's touching and, in her quietest moments, as in the scene when she comes across her prognosis among her doctor's papers, quite beautiful. I also like her lovely, muted performance as a loving wife and mother in Watch on the Rhine(1943), where Davis imbued each gesture and quiet word with an everyday sort of heroism. Despite her massive private insecurities, she made herself a frame to show the performance of Paul Lukas here--and proved that she could, occasionally be a generous performer.

 

As I believe an astute James Woods commented during the documentary, though she's universally remembered for her outlandish gestures and verbal tics, her silent moments on film, as in the scene when Herbert Marshall struggles upstairs in the background in The Little Foxes(1941), are often most effective. Another wonderfully telling scene that illustrates this capacity is in The Letter(1940), when James Stephenson as her attorney, comes to her in prison to discuss the implications of the title's letter. During part of this sequence, the audience simply sees the back of her head and her hand while her lawyer speaks to her---believe or not she steals the scene and communicates a swirl of conflicting emotions to the audience without saying a word--all the time while her character struggles to manipulate Stephenson and retain something of an upper hand in this, as in all her character's relationships with men. It's extraordinary. Of course, it helped that she had William Wyler to guide her in both films as well as the cinematography of Gregg Toland and James Wong Howe to show her work at its best.

 

The only aspects that I found a little discombobulating were the insertions of Ellen Burstyn and Jane Fonda--I didn't think that either lady had much that was insightful to add--though James Woods did seem to have shed his oily hustler persona for this occasion--and revealed a thoughtful, refreshingly iconoclastic view of acting and Miss Davis. I particularly liked his comment about Davis rejecting, (and I'm paraphrasing here--), "nacissism in a business that was all about narcissism".

[MarkMiller]

I agree that the interviews showed a softer side of Bette. Maybe that's why "Stardust" avoided or toned down some of the harsher aspects of her life and career.

 

I have read three bios on her (none by her daughter) and all went into detail on her failed marraiges and fueds with co-stars and directors. I have read different accounts of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane." According to the books Jack Warner didn't want to make the film and told Robert Aldrich that he wasn't going to give him much money for it. He also warned Aldrich that he would regret casting Davis and Crawford whom he considered to be has-beens.

 

I have also read different versions of how her second husband (Farnsworth) died. Her third marrainge was probably the worst because of the physical abuse, yet she stated that at least it produced a child. Again "Stardust" accentuated the positive and played down the negative.

 

There's no doubt that Bette Davis was a pioneer and inspiration to other actresses. Unfortunately, her catty behavior may have equaled her acting. Celeste Holm, Miriam Hopkins and Joan Crawford were not the only actors who complained about her.

[path40a]

Excellent post, and welcome back moira!

[lzcutter]

Some of the people responding here are pretty naive. Ellen Burstyn does not look great for 73.She has undergone extensive and expensive plastic surgery. She has had her face painfully pulled and peeled.>>

 

What ever happened to good genes. Why is it that any woman over a certain age who looks good has to have had plastic surgery?

 

Could it be good genes? A woman who knows how to wear make up and clothes? A good make-up artist? A good cameraman? All four?

 

I don't know that Ellen Burstyn and Gena Rowlands have had plastic surgery. If they have, that's okay.

 

But before jumping on the plastic surgery bandwagon, I'd like to give them the benefit of having good genes.

 

There was a time when actresses grew older and still looked great without the help of the scalpel.

[nyoka1]

... and here I came to this thread thinking it was about one of my favorite Linda Darnell movies ...

 

http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot.com/

[hollbergsmith]

TCM is also showing a documentary on Bette called The Benevolent Volcano. It showed on 5-4 and is appearing again on 5-18. I liked it much better than Stardust. It told me just enough about Bette to understand the person and the movie star. It was done by BBC in the early 1980s and was narrated by the wonderful Ian Holm (much better than the provocative and politically charged commentary by Susan Sarandon on Stardust). Its film clips were also the best parts of Stardust.

 

My parents yesterday told me their reaction to Stardust: "Disappointing", "More than we really needed to know", "Probably 1/10th of one percent of what her life was really like, but TCM decided to focus on certain things." My parents have good judgment, and probably represent many people who watch TCM, but don't participate in the Message Boards.

 

Also, for what it's worth, I don't have much respect for B.D. Hyman, either. She too should have left things alone and taken a more principled stand--like not taking advantage of the fact that her mother was a famous movie star.

[lzcutter]

but TCM decided to focus on certain things>>

 

 

I don't remember the credits exactly and am traveling so can not check my Tivo, but I don't think this was a TCM Original Production. It was written and directed by Peter Jones and his production company.

 

I think TCM may have co-produced this documentary with Warner Bros as Stardust is likely to be an extra on a Bette Davis box set in the future. I

 

I don't think TCM had creative control of the piece.