Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

/ / THE GOLDEN Cast: Bette Davis, who brings home the bacon. Setting:Boudoir. Plot:How to have birthdays — and like them. Reported to you — BY RUTH RANKIN yOU would think, to hear her, nobody had ever been thirty before. For that matter, very few Hollywood actresses have been. They seem to remain static at twenty-eight. "I'll be thirty on Tuesday!" Bette Davis yelled before I was halfway through the patio. "Well, shut up about it," said sister Bobbie. "Do you want to tell the whole world?" "Sure. Why not? I'm proud of it!" Bette was in bed getting over her latest sunstroke (the girl can't learn to stay in the shade when even one touch of sun turns her a deep magenta), but no bed can cancel her charm or cramp her infinite variety. . . . Under the impression of visiting a sick friend, I went to call. As it turned out, the caller was also the audience for five thousand dollars' worth of performance by a lady who was having the time of her life dramatizing the idea of being thirty years old. If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else, with Bette having the time of her life. She always does have. Each time one sees her, it seems impossible that she will top herself again, but she manages it — in life, as well as on the screen. Bobbie was there to see to it she stayed in bed, and to take falls out of her. Any successful actress who hasn't a Bobbie in her family should move heaven and earth to find one. Bobbie is ihe official Davis ego-deflater. She is younger than Bette, but treats her with the patient tolerance of an aged aunt who thinks this nonsense has gone far enough. Such an attitude from the family of a star toward their personal luminary is so startling, so contrary to rule, that you almost can't believe it; it looks like a gag, at first. Screen stars, everyone knows, are deferred to by their kowtowing relatives to whom their every wish is law. So this Davis setup doesn't make sense in Hollywood, but it does make an extraordinarily nice family in which every member is distinctly an individual with equal rights: mama Ruthie Davis, sister Bobbie Pelgram, husband Ham Nelson. They have assisted the Davis to keep a firm grip on herself and to dispense with any delusions of grandeur, if ever she was in danger of contracting them — which is doubtful. In their midst, Bette is affectionately known as the "Golden Goose." I HE colossal all-star extravaganza, "I'll Be Thirty on Tuesday," was presented in a Colonial four-poster of tulipwood, spiral carved, under a patchwork quilt ("Star of Wilderness" design). The cast wore the popular wrenched-back bed The new Bette Davis, who combines the best features of the former one with the magic something that only her thirties can give to any woman room coiffure, shell-rimmed reading glasses, and looked sixteen. The Greek chorus, consisting of Bobbie, frequently remarked, "That's what you think!" "Any time!" and "Keep those covers over you — my goodness, you're worse than a child." The first act was an elaboration on the theme that nobody takes you seriously until after you are thirty. (Greek chorus: "What makes you think they will then?") Actresses do their best work from thirty on: witness Katharine Cornell, Helen Hayes, Lynn Fontanne. Their experimental work takes place in the twenties. (Chorus: "Thank God, that's over.") Since she was twenty, all Bette has had time for was her work. "You could do lots of things if you didn't read all the time," the chorus remarks, helpfully. Bette goes to bed surrounded by all the latest books (she has three or four going at once) and a Sealyham terrier named Sir Cedric Wogg, M.P. She reads with an atlas spread out beside her in order to visualize the exact locale of the story. All of a sudden, she is developing a burning thirst for learning about things — thinks perhaps that is part of being almost thirty. "During the twenties, you develop a lot of theories, but there comes a time when you wonder if they will work." She has discovered "great gaps in her information." She has missed languages, golf, tennis and good music, and now wants to learn all about them all at once. It drives her crazy to think she can do only one thing at a time. Age holds no terror for her, not being a glamour girl or caring how she looks. It is convenient, however, for an actress to look younger than she is, because plays are written about girls, although, occasionally, they are permitted to grow up. A slant on Bette's success that deserves consideration is the fact that it has been built solely on ability. She has no past — no celebrated love