Greek God he was. Now he’d run up fresh from the sea with the water still glistening on his mahogany tanned skin. He was in navy trunks, and with a physique that would do for Atlas, stood before me, muscles rippling evenly under a firm skin, young, strong, and handsomely male. He has an even, confident, ingratiating smile, kindly but masculine as a left hook.”
Bette was starving, and here was her banquet.
But someone might just as well have sprinkled gunpowder on the bridal veil, for during the honeymoon trip to Mexico City Bette nagged and taunted, the bridegroom exploded, and somewhere in the middle of a cactus desert he shoved her from the car. A quickie Mexican divorce was the obvious solution, but the unhappy couple seemed determined to live miserably ever after.
The air was sulphurous. Other disputes ensued, one of which climaxed with the new husband hurling a steamer trunk at his cowering helpmate. But love caressed the turbid waters; the tempest subsided. And on May 1, 1947, Bette Davis gave birth to Barbara Davis Sherry—B.D.—who in years to come would be both the apple of her mother’s eye and the dagger in her heart.
In October 1949 Bette filed for divorce. The next day Sheilah Graham headlined: BETTE DAVIS ACTS TO RUB OUT 3 RD MARRIAGE . Graham, better remembered today for her liaison with F. Scott Fitzgerald than for her prose, continued: “Screen tragedienne Bette Davis chalked up another real-life setback late today when she filed suit for divorce from her artist-husband William Grant Sherry, accusing the muscular one-time masseur of rubbing her the wrong way.” The flippant tone of the column infuriated Bette, and she later retaliated by having Sheilah Graham barred from the set of her next picture.
Tempers cooled, and a few weeks later Bette and Sherry announced a reconciliation. Their riotous marriage lurched forward. On December 31, 1949, to celebrate New Year’s Eve, they went to the movies. They saw Twelve O’Clock High , starring Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, and Gary Merrill.
In the spring of 1950 Bette started filming The Story of a Divorce , a more fitting title, under the circumstances, than Payment on Demand , which the picture was eventually called.
One night during that crowded month of April 1950, Bette didn’t make it home to dinner. The cast and crew of Payment on Demand surprised her with a forty-second birthday party two days before the actual date, April 5. Waiting at home for his wife, Sherry, by turns worried and annoyed, decided to pay a surprise visit to RKO. The studio gateman who let him in informed Sherry about the surprise party for Bette in the commissary. This was news to her husband. He hadn’t been invited.
By now the party was over, so Sherry made his way to Bette’s dressing room. There he found her and co-star Barry Sullivan in a very jovial mood, relaxing with post-party drinks and cigarettes and bursts of laughter. A terrible row took place. Sherry, perceiving Sullivan as “the other man,” slugged him, and the next day Bette filed for divorce again. It was while Bette was in the midst of this marital commotion that Darryl Zanuck phoned to offer her All About Eve .
Gary was married at the time to Barbara Leeds, a blue-eyed actress who wore her blonde hair in bangs and had a wide-open smile on a friendly face. Leeds was a Doris Day look-alike. Gary was thirty-six; his wife was thirty-three. They had married in 1941.
After his first encounter with “the Star” that Sunday for the makeup tests, he returned to his beach house in Malibu and entertained his wife and their Sunday-afternoon guests with stories of meeting Bette Davis. “I was appalled,” he said, describing the callous treatment she got from the makeup artists. He had developed a big, protective feeling toward her, as though she were a lamb loose in the Hollywood jungle.
He was right to call her “the Star.” Certainly Bette deserved the uppercase that he, a character actor, couldn’t
Bette was starving, and here was her banquet.
But someone might just as well have sprinkled gunpowder on the bridal veil, for during the honeymoon trip to Mexico City Bette nagged and taunted, the bridegroom exploded, and somewhere in the middle of a cactus desert he shoved her from the car. A quickie Mexican divorce was the obvious solution, but the unhappy couple seemed determined to live miserably ever after.
The air was sulphurous. Other disputes ensued, one of which climaxed with the new husband hurling a steamer trunk at his cowering helpmate. But love caressed the turbid waters; the tempest subsided. And on May 1, 1947, Bette Davis gave birth to Barbara Davis Sherry—B.D.—who in years to come would be both the apple of her mother’s eye and the dagger in her heart.
In October 1949 Bette filed for divorce. The next day Sheilah Graham headlined: BETTE DAVIS ACTS TO RUB OUT 3 RD MARRIAGE . Graham, better remembered today for her liaison with F. Scott Fitzgerald than for her prose, continued: “Screen tragedienne Bette Davis chalked up another real-life setback late today when she filed suit for divorce from her artist-husband William Grant Sherry, accusing the muscular one-time masseur of rubbing her the wrong way.” The flippant tone of the column infuriated Bette, and she later retaliated by having Sheilah Graham barred from the set of her next picture.
Tempers cooled, and a few weeks later Bette and Sherry announced a reconciliation. Their riotous marriage lurched forward. On December 31, 1949, to celebrate New Year’s Eve, they went to the movies. They saw Twelve O’Clock High , starring Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, and Gary Merrill.
In the spring of 1950 Bette started filming The Story of a Divorce , a more fitting title, under the circumstances, than Payment on Demand , which the picture was eventually called.
One night during that crowded month of April 1950, Bette didn’t make it home to dinner. The cast and crew of Payment on Demand surprised her with a forty-second birthday party two days before the actual date, April 5. Waiting at home for his wife, Sherry, by turns worried and annoyed, decided to pay a surprise visit to RKO. The studio gateman who let him in informed Sherry about the surprise party for Bette in the commissary. This was news to her husband. He hadn’t been invited.
By now the party was over, so Sherry made his way to Bette’s dressing room. There he found her and co-star Barry Sullivan in a very jovial mood, relaxing with post-party drinks and cigarettes and bursts of laughter. A terrible row took place. Sherry, perceiving Sullivan as “the other man,” slugged him, and the next day Bette filed for divorce again. It was while Bette was in the midst of this marital commotion that Darryl Zanuck phoned to offer her All About Eve .
Gary was married at the time to Barbara Leeds, a blue-eyed actress who wore her blonde hair in bangs and had a wide-open smile on a friendly face. Leeds was a Doris Day look-alike. Gary was thirty-six; his wife was thirty-three. They had married in 1941.
After his first encounter with “the Star” that Sunday for the makeup tests, he returned to his beach house in Malibu and entertained his wife and their Sunday-afternoon guests with stories of meeting Bette Davis. “I was appalled,” he said, describing the callous treatment she got from the makeup artists. He had developed a big, protective feeling toward her, as though she were a lamb loose in the Hollywood jungle.
He was right to call her “the Star.” Certainly Bette deserved the uppercase that he, a character actor, couldn’t
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