Hadleigh - Celebrity Feuds!

BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

The Films of Jane Fonda

Conversations With My Elders

Hispanic Hollywood

Leading Ladies

The Lavender Screen

Hollywood Babble On

Hollywood Lesbians

Bette Davis Speaks

Hollywood Gays

Sing Out!

Hollywood & Whine

BOZE HADLEIGH

Copyright 1999 by Boze Hadleigh

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any meansincluding photocopying and electronic reproductionwithout written permission from the publisher.

Designed by David Timmons

Published by Taylor Publishing Company

1550 West Mockingbird Lane

Dallas, Texas 75235

www.taylorpub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Hadleigh, Boze.

Celebrity feuds! / by Boze Hadleigh.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-87833-244-8

1. Motion picture actors and actressesUnited States Anecdotes. 2. CelebrityUnited States Anecdotes. I. Title.

PN1994.9.H24 1999

791.43'028'092273dc21

99-36748
CIP

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

All photos are from the authors private collection, except for the following:

Archive Photos

For ongoing assistance, thank you to Ronald M. Boze and Linda Fresia. Thanks to those who chose to speak with me for this projectfeuds are not a subject many care to discuss, even those not directly involved in them. Thanks too to my editor, Camille N. Cline, as well as Fred Francis, Jim Green, and Sarah A. Tollett. For photographic assistance, Peter Bateman. Finally, and not least, Samson DeBrier, Louix Escobar-Matute, Bill Everson, Martin Greif, Cliff Harrington, Jim Kepner, Consuelo Montiel, Toshi Nishihara, James Pitula, Bob Randall, Paul Rosenfield, Leonardo Rossi, Bob Thompson, Angela Thorne-Bardry, Tony Verdugo, Wayne Warga, and Anthony Zanghi.

To Ronnie and Linda,
who dont know from feuds

Choose your enemies wisely.Walt Disney

... a feud would be counterproductive.Barbra Streisand

Feuds are good publicity but bad on the nerves.John Wayne

I relish a good fight with a worthy opponent!Bette Davis

A feud is OK if you have nothing worse to do.George Michael

Whos feuding who?Madonna

To feud or not to feud? Most celebrities dont, though its more permissible than ever. Todays public is generally willing to hear more, forgive more, and even expects more. Celebrity misbehavior, particularly in Hollywood, Washington, D.C., and the sports world, has become a news staple. Role models are not always what they wereor seemed to be. Squabbles, fights, and outright feuding, which were once carried out in private and only reached the public via rumor, are now wide open in many cases.

Surprisingly, this is the first book on the subject. Some years ago, I looked up celebrity feuds at the Beverly Hills public library. The computer screen instead referred me to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas, and of course the Hatfields and McCoys. There was also a book about writers wars, about efforts to found the Screen Writers Guild in the face of stiff studio opposition.

The most engrossing parts of some biographies are the feuds between the protagonist and his or her cherished enemies. For, to feud with somebody, a VIP must in a way care about the other person. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Pure contempt is often expressed by ignoring someone. Feuds are obsessionsthey require nurturing, sustenance, and repetition. Feuds, like other growing entities, require time and feeding.

Feuds are quite consuming for those involved. For the spectator or reader, theyre like an accident that makes one wince but holds ones eyemore so when they involve the rich and famous. The thing about Hollywood feudsnearly all the feuds in this book feature show people, from the business that theres no business likeis that theyre usually well matched: A clash of the titans, a duel of the divas. Its not a superstar actress vs. her wardrobe mistress or a movie producer vs. his accountant, its star vs. star, and the passions run hot.

As Englishman Quentin Crisp once said, Being loved can never be a patch on being murdered. Thats when someone really gives their all for you.

The dictionary defines a feud as a sustained quarrel. Sometimes the parties involved sustain it due to an exhibitionistic streak or a craving for publicityneither unusual among celebrities. A feud can make two people more colorful and interesting, especially if theyre related, like, say, superstar Julia Roberts and brother Eric, or former superstars Olivia de Havilland and sister Joan Fontaine, both in their eighties and still on the outs.

Some feuds do outlive their heat or their participants youth. Writers Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal made it up eventually. Vidal and far-right William F. Buckley did not. Nor did Vidal and fellow gay writer Truman Capotelogical allies sometimes make vicious rivals. But then, feuds can involve mateslike Sonny & Cher or long-term lovers Clint Eastwood and Sondra Lockeor seekers after the same socio-economic dreamsuch as Diana Ross & the Supremesor even parents and childrensee how abominably the diva Maria Callas treated her mother or comedienne Martha Raye her daughter.

Many of the most heated feuds follow love (platonic or not) or lust. For instance, costars Sean Young and James Woods, who each claim not to have had the affair that most others say they did. Lurid stories of their post-affair or post-friendship doings cast each in a rather scary light, but had a more negative impact on Youngs image and professional standing. In most feuds between a man and a woman, the woman still gets more blame.

Sometimes a feud just collapses from time or neglect. A forty-four-year estrangement following filming of On the Waterfront (1954) was ended when costar Rod Steiger chanced to meet Marlon Brando in a Montral restaurant and simply declared, I cant remember why were not speaking.

How does a feud begin? Let us count the ways. They are as individual as the celebrities involved. But the seed of most feuds is jealousy. Or resentment. Example: Joan Crawford, who was older than Bette Davis and arrived in Hollywood first, resented her rivals talent and then her acclaim. Bette was jealous of Joans beauty and youthfulnessespecially after Crawford began looking younger than she.

Familiarity, or proximity, often breeds contempt. Davis and Crawford were both actorsfeuds usually occur within a professionboth worked for a time at Warner Bros., and both made a film that was their big comeback. But both were pros and each put the Work and Image first. Hours after Joan Crawford died in 1977, Bette went to a party. After making her entrance, she went up to friend Burt Reynoldswho also figures in this bookand informed him, Well, the bitch died today.

Reynolds immediately introduced the gentleman of the press next to him, whereupon Davis immediately added, But she was always on time. That was a feud.

Usually it takes two to feud. Not always. One semi-legendary feud was the one between the kings of horror, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Semi because, although Lugosi came to hate Karloffs gutsas noted in the film