"Wicked Stepmother" and Lillian Gish

In the July/August 2012 issue of Film Comment, director Larry Cohen wrote an interesting article “I Killed Bette Davis.” Cohen directed Davis in her last film “Wicked Stepmother” in 1989. Though Davis appears only briefly, she got top billing in the film.

During production of “Wicked Stepmother,” Cohen and Davis discussed Lillian Gish and “The Whales of August.”

“Her [Bette Davis] physical condition is so shocking that the audience is in no mood to laugh. Still, it would have been a shame to toss her final performance on the scrap heap,” Cohen wrote.

“She [Davis] indicated that “The Whales of August” had been an unpleasant shoot. The weather was horrid and she hadn’t gotten along with Lillian Gish. Many attached to the production would claim that Bette took advantage of the fact Gish’s hearing was impaired, deliberately lowering her voice during the scenes so that Gish wouldn’t be able to hear her cues. Bette angrily responded to those rumors telling us, “It’s a total lie. Miss Gish was stone deaf. She couldn’t have heard the cues if I’d shouted them.

At time of production of “The Whales of August” Davis had had two strokes and two mastectomies. Lillian told me she felt sorry for Davis. According to Bette's assistant, Kathryn Sermak, Davis smoked over 100 Vantage cigarettes daily.

 

The photo of Davis smoking in Cohen's Film Comment article is ghastly! Davis looks like a corpse smoking. Reportedly she was only 80 pounds while working on "Wicked Stepmother."

I can attest to the smoking. When Davis was not doing her scenes, she constantly smoked from the sidelines. The owner of the house at the point, on Cliff Island, Maine, complained to Davis and the film crew over the huge number of cigarettes butts Davis tossed on his lawn.

A year later, when my partner and I returned to the location, the elderly doctor meet us on the road halfway to the point and told us not to throw any damn cigarette butts on his lawn. Neither of us smoked.

James Patterson

Member, National Advisory Committee Gish Theater SF
Member, San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Member, Film Society of Lincoln Center
July 13, 2013