Books

Do we really need another Bette Davis bio? After all, more than a dozen or so books by or about the legendary actress line library shelves. But Ed Sikov, author of On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder and Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers, thought something was missing.

So his 496-page Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis has all the juicy stuff: her four marriages, countless lovers (including eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes and director William Wyler), galloping alcoholism and strange attempts to seduce gay men. But, film historian Mr. Sikov says, he wrote primarily for "people who love movies."

Unlike biographers who skim over her films, he says, he strives to put readers on the set as the volatile star, who supported her ambitious mother and unstable sister, storms and struggles to make great and not-so-great cinema.

"You may grow to hate her," Mr. Sikov warns readers in his prologue. (It's easy to do.) But he did not, remaining entranced by most of her screen work. If he's sometimes excessive and fawning ("mimicking Bette Davis without reverence is like staring at the Sistine Chapel without awe"), he makes us want to revisit her most luminous work in such classics as The Letter, The Little Foxes, Jezebel and, of course, All About Eve.

Three times, the actress said, she nearly underwent psychoanalysis. But each time, she pulled back, afraid of losing whatever it was that made her successful. She was the winner of two Oscars and 10 nominations and had a fiercely loyal fan base.

It's no wonder that in the acknowledgments, Mr. Sikov thanks his trusty psychotherapist and two psychiatrists for their support during the project. Getting in bed for three years with an artist as angry and driven as Ruth Elizabeth (her real name) Davis would give anybody a great thirst and writer's block.

Even unflappable John Huston, fascinated by the star, wrote in his autobiography: "There is something elemental about Bette – a demon within her which threatens to break out and eat everybody, beginning with their ears."

Despite travail, Mr. Sikov rallied his film smarts, wits and breezy style to detail his subject's 81 years and six-decade career. As the first Bette biographer I found to employ footnotes in the text, we see how much Mr. Sikov draws upon previous Davis books, especially Barbara Leaming's insightful 1992 biography and the star's own writings, including Mother Goddam, her odd 1974 collaboration with Whitney Stine.

But, happily, familiar accounts are refreshed with precious new material, such as Dame Eileen Atkins' overhearing the edgy actress ask Andy Warhol, "Why the hell don't you do something about your skin?" and dentist Ivin Prince's report of a Davis waiting-room spat with playwright Tennessee Williams. The grande dame, Dr. Prince says, even smoked in the chair.

And friends of former Dallas resident Betty Buckley, production coordinator on Ron Howard's TV movie Skyward (1980), shot in Dallas and Rockwall, will delight in her signature candor regarding its "either gracious or terrifying" star.

As Davis fans know, the epitaph on her sarcophagus in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills, reads: "She did it the hard way." Well, tracing the life and work of a raging talent who lived in 75 places by age 33, and had at least 18 agents and performed in more than 100 movies, TV and stage roles couldn't have been easy. But except for sagging a bit toward the end, Mr. Sikov succeeds memorably and well.

Jane Sumner is an Austin freelance writer.

The Life of Bette Davis

Ed Sikov

(Henry Holt, $30)

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