Bette Davis Speaks - Softcover

Hadleigh, Boze

3.87

63 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1569801061 ISBN 13: 9781569801062

Publisher: UNKNO, 1997

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NonfictionLarge Print Edition(Bette Davis fans) will purr with delight . . . starred, BooklistBette Davis was both a box-office superstar and a consummate actress, whose career spanned the early 1930s and the late 1980s. Since her death, a new generation of fans has been fascinated by this woman ahead of her time. Unlike the prior biographies, this is a book of interviews conducted by the author from the mid 1970s on. Davis candidly discusses (and dishes) husbands, beaux, costars, rivals, movies and growing old. This is her story in the voice of the woman who always spoke for herself.

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From Booklist:

Bette Davis fans will purr with delight at the page after page of her very clever, clawing (and cutting) comments about costars and contemporaries that veteran movie-scene reporter Hadleigh elicited in interviews dating from 1975 to the year Davis died, 1989. Hadleigh presents those conversations in straightforward question-and-answer format, which bolsters the illusion of Davis' voice in the mind's ear (hence the title), and readers quickly learn that the legend of her prowess with the put-down is true: "What do you think of Nancy Reagan?" "I never do." And on Joan Crawford: "She did everything by the numbers--even acting." Hadleigh, a world-class interviewer, manages to word his questions so that his own personality and his feelings about Davis both come through: we get an enjoyable sense of him as well as of Davis. At appropriate junctures, Hadleigh also briefly queries many Davis associates (producer David Lewis, costar Peter Lawford, husband-costar Gary Merrill, etc.) about her to complete a funny, revealing, and confrontational Hollywood read that must be reckoned one of the best for the fans in many a year. Charles Harmon

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