Loved the chemistry between Bette Davis and Maggie Smith. Does anyone know how they got along off screen? I'd be interested to know if Bette got along with Angela Lansbury and the rest of the cast as well.
I understand that due to the working conditions, Bette, Angela and Maggie had to share a dressing room. If Olivia had her very own dressing room, maybe that's what Bette had a real issue with, rather than the music.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that they grouped the younger actresses in one dressing room (Farrow, Hussey, Birkin, and Chiles while she was needed), and the older actresses (Davis, Lansbury, and Smith) in another.
I read a biography of Bette Davis last year. There was some quote indicating that she had the UTMOST admiration for (specifically mentioned) Lansbury, Smith, and Farrow as fellow actors.
I also recall that Davis brought her own makeup mirrors along to the shoot in Egypt, fearing (for SOME strange reason) that these items would be somehow unavailable.
According to an interview I once saw with George Kennedy, Davis was always the first actor to arrive on the set, and was nothing if not professional.
Angela Lansbury paid tribute to Bette Davis when she was honored by the Kennedy Center in 1987. In her speech, Lansbury recalled the time they were filming Death on the Nile. She mentioned the cramped dressing room they had to share and the stifling heat in Egypt. At one point, she saw Bette lean back on a chair and sigh in exasperation. Lansbury said she watched Bette and said to herself, "This is it. She's going to raise hell. This is going to be death on the Nile!"
But they were all relieved when Bette didn't raise hell after all and Lansbury praised her for being so professional work to with.
In her book, Mia Farrow said Bette really felt uncomfortable during the location shoot and mentioned she usually worked well with a stronger director.
I read Anthony Shaffer's biography and he mentioned that in the exposition scene the cast were all told to keep quiet while Ustinov got on with it. However, shot after shot was ruined by a mysterious flash which was eventually traced to Bette Davis who had a small mirror in her hand and was deliberately sabotaging the end scenes because she was allowed no lines to speak. Shaffer understood that Davis was used to Hollywood and realised that in order to get to the top she had had to be pretty ruthless, but nevertheless she was told to put her mirror away and to behave herself.
That's a very bizarre story, and I really wonder about its veracity. What exactly was Bette Davis supposed to be gaining by sabotaging the shot? Overtime pay for herself and everyone else?
It certainly is a bizarre story but I am only repeating what Anthony Shaffer wrote in his autobiography. He was the writer of the screenplay and was present at the time and I can see no reason why he would have lied about this matter in print. Apparently Miss Davis objected to the fact that all the cast had to remain silent while Peter Ustinov did his exposition scene and her motives were apparently a desire to sabotage the film in some small way.
Here is a link to the book in question if you would like to check it for yourself:
I think Ms. Davis hard a hard time adjusting to playing these supporting roles as she aged. She was used to being the center of attention on her sets, and thirsted for a certain level of attention.
She clashed with Faye Dunaway on the set of THE DISAPPEARANCE OF AIMEE and was only nice while rquesting that the final scene be rewritten to give her most of the lines (that didn't go over well), and was also very insulting to Lillian Gish while filming THE WHALES OF AUGUST. Earlier she had antagonized Susan Hayward making WHERE LOVE HAS GONE.
Basically, Davis was a STAR...and only professionally happy when being regaled as a star. Aside from that she sounds to have been a decent human being; a great many of those Golden Age of Hollywood legends were the same.
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44yrs later and after watching the campy direction of this again I am completely convinced he was try to lay blame wherever he thought it would stick. Perhaps she did this and upset one take. I hardly think it happened more than that, if at all.
Don't get me wrong, this type of movie should be played for camp but whenever you do this you have to delicately balance the playing field. Here Shaffer failed miserably. GREAT story. GREAT actors. GREAT production values. But badly directed and just enough truly bad dialogue to sink it.
Still watchable though not on par with Murder On The Orient Express or even And Then There Were None.