Bitch is used here in a unisex tone for anybody who is a self-absorbed, obnoxious, thoroughly unlikable, miserable and vicious personality, regardless of personality, gender or sexual orientation. By “in Hollywood history” I’m referring to actual actors/actresses/producers, etc., not movie characters.
My vote for Biggest She-Bitch: Bette Davis
I have literally never heard or read one nice thing about her other than her talent. She was a abusive to dozens of her co-workers, reduced co-stars from Joan Crawford (a piece of work herself) to Lillian Gish to tears, a shameless self-promoter and at times a remorseless liar (especially in explaining her own shortcomings), incredibly cheap when she did and didn’t have money, and then there’s the matter of her attempts at motherhood. She sounds like somebody far better to not know than to know.
For He-Bitch, the books and first-hand accounts I’ve read would lean towards two living characters: either Chevy Chase (who is pummeled without mercy in Live From New York as well as other firsthand accounts) or Val Kilmer.
Who are some other “impossible” legends of the Hollywood nobility?
For biggest bitch, I guess I’d have to go with Elizabeth Taylor. She’s mellowed out in her old age, but according to the Hollywood Hall of Shame by the brothers Medved, she was responsible for more movie disasters than anybody else out of Hollywood. They devoted a whole chapter to her.
She ran up production costs of many of her movies because she had to be indulged by her directors and fellow actors. She often got sick and had to be hospitalized, resulting in costly delays in filming. She got moody and threw temper tantrums and would lock herself in her room or just not show up for work. Directors had to buy her expensive jewelry to coax her out of her many funks. She dumped her husband for Richard Burton while filming Cleopatra (which is rated the biggest money loser of all time), and got him to dump his wife for her.
As long the world revolved around, she didn’t care if Hollywood went bankrupt.
Biggest dog in Hollywood? I’d vote for Frank Sinatra.
I used to have the hots for Jane Seymour until I saw an interview with her and she was just nasty. She kept sighing and giving these “god that was a stupid question” looks. Totally turned me off.
Probably not the biggest, but a personal disappointment.
All the women who’ve been mentioned are hissy divas who threaten vile retribution if you serve their salad with the wrong fork. All very entertaining. Madonna and Courtney Love will likely be discussed soon.
My vote goes to Grace Jones. Instead of threatening busboys and harrassing carhops, she hit extras with a huge friggin’ stick. This was, IIRC, on the set of Conan the Destroyer. I don’t think she’s gotten a lot of work since then.
Male? Steven Seagal, hands down. You think Chevy Chase was despised on the SNL set? Seagal was far, far worse according to the same book. No charmer, he.
And not that I’m a fan or anything, but I hear Val Kilmer gets a bad rap.
Gabe Kaplan, of Welcome Back Kotter fame destroyed the show, got his fellow cast members to hate him, threw gigantic tantrums, delayed production with ego-driven walkouts, & put himself out of work more or less permanently.
After that show was over, he was waiting tables again.
The old-time studio heads would have to be high in the running. Not only were many of them utter assholes, but they have the force of their studio behind them.
If it were to go down to one name, I’d say Jack Warner.
If by “piece of work” you mean a thorough professional who helped her co-workers with money and clothes, funded a wing of an L.A. hospital for indigent show-business people, knew the names and gave gifts to the crews of her films, and nursed her dying ex-husband some 30 years after their divorce, then yes, she was a piece of work.
Wow - didn’t know that stuff, Eve. When things slow down at work, I will search the SDMB for threads on her. What about her reputation for all the Mommy Dearest stuff, and I think there are some other commonly held beliefs regarding her, uh, difficulty as a person - were they not true or is it more a case that she was tough about some things but did wonderful things such as you describe, too?
Actually I was referring to the "wildy-insecure substance-abusing basket case who gave great performances but made the lives of numerous people worse for having known her"* part, (i.e. the woman who told the son she never once wrote while he was seeing heavy action in Vietnam that his newborn daughter was “probably a bastard”, seduced an adolescent Jackie Cooper, appeared on live television drunk, and used her fading starpower to keep Pepsi from suing her for embezzlement), but either will qualify for the “piece of work” phrase.
While I must admit that Bette Davis was the first name that came to mind when I saw this thread title, I have to take exception to the charges about her motherhood. It’s been a while since I read My Mother’s Keeper but from what I recall most or all of it was spun by BD out of the whole cloth. Davis had a mentally disabled adopted daughter, Margot, whom she loved and provided for her entire life and a son, Michael, who IIRC denounced BD’s book as a pack of lies, as did many of Davis’ Hollywood peers. Davis took care of her mother Ruthie until the day Ruthie died and she supported her sister Bobbie as well (she may not have been the nicest to Bobbie but she did keep her from being homeless which assuredly counts for something). Every biography I’ve read of Davis noted that whatever her other shortcomings she did her best as a mother.
Oh, lordie, we have had, like, three Joan Crawford threads in the past—can we still do searches, or has the new Board killed that?
Joan did not abuse her children, though she admitted herself she was too strict. The stories in Mommie Dearest have long since been revealed as mythical by Joan’s non-insane children, Cindy and Cathy—but no one wants to hear that.
Yes, you can read awful stories about her in the less-reliable bios; but you can also read the other bios and find interviews with family and co-workers telling what a terrific stand-up gal she was. You can also read Conversations with Crawford, containing unedited interviews with her later in life, in which she is probably harder on herself than many of her biographers were.
Leave the woman alone and pick on people who deserve it, like those SOBs Wallace Beery, Lina Basquette, Jackie Gleason, and a few others who were hell to work for.
I heard Robert Mitchum was a real sonuvabitch. I believe he broke an actress’s arm during an on-the-set disagreement. Sean Young from the movie “Cousins”. So I hear. She was a royal pain in the ass to work with as well. But I think he was a pretty nasty drunk and was pretty quick to throw a punch.
According to B.D. Hyman and Gary Merrill, she stopped paying for Margot’s treatment in 1965 after which time Merrill, who had a fraction of her income, paid the tab.
While not exactly a name that leaps out when you hear “Hollywood legend”, one male that I’ll mention anyway is Allen Funt. Joan Rivers (who was a Candid Camera writer) and Fannie Flagg (who got her big-break on the show) have both said he was one of the most miserable, egomaniacal, verbally abusive and impossible to please human beings ever to be associated with a hit series. Richard Dawson was also accused of being a sexually harassing monster likely to fly into a full blown tantrum at any or no provocation, while the very talented stand-up comic Brett Butler degenerated into a howling banshee so quickly when her show became a hit that the biggest role she’s had since was as a cameo as a nun in Bruno.
An actress that I’m surprised hasn’t received a Mommy Dearest treatment from her kids (probably because unlike Crawford and Davis she left them filthy rich) is Lucille Ball. Everything I’ve ever read about her implied or outright stated that she was a cold and distant mother and a nightmare to co-stars (especially Vivian Vance), though Gale Gordon seemed to have better memories of her than others. Jane Connell, who played Gooch in the abysmal Mame, said she constantly complained loudly about Bea Arthur’s lack of comic timing (never mind that Bea was currently the reigning queen of primetime television in a groundbreaking show while Lucy had been doing the same schtick for 25 years) and that Arthur would have walked off the set had she not already spent the money for her appearance.
Anthony Hopkins, usually a gentleman in interviews when discussing co-stars and other figures, once said that the only actress he would never work with again was Shirley MacLaine because she was a total unprofessional on the set of A Change of Seasons. Does anybody know the details?
I was never able to watch a George C. Scott (one of my all-time favorite actors as far as talent) performance without remembering at some point during the viewing that he slugged Ava Gardner so hard while shooting The Bible that she suffered permanent retinal damage. (The two were dating at the time and this didn’t occur on the set.) I’ve wondered if Sinatra ever had anything done to avenge her. (Supposedly he offered to have Woody Allen’s legs broken as a gift for Mia Farrow, and he loved Ava more than Mia.)
What are the tales of Wallace Beery? The only bio I know of him outside of his movies is that he was one of the first stars to fight gay rumors (I’ve no idea how accurate they were), he had a Britney Spears wedding with Gloria Swanson and he was so terrified of dying broke that he kept safe desposit boxes stuffed with cash (as did Clark Gable).