My review of Bette Davis: More Than a Woman, by James Spada

Bette Davis: More Than a Woman

by James Spada

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Ryan Murphy's FX anthology TV drama Feud: Bette and Joan (2017) sparked renewed interest in the rival title characters. Bette was portrayed with aplomb by multiple award-winning Susan Sarandon. The pair's older fans, including myself, dusted off fading biographies, inevitably comparing pre-established accounts with Murphy's reimagined screen depictions of these legendary divas. A nostalgic journey of revision ensued.

James Spada is a superb biographer. I've read several Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I were recommending which ones to include in your coverage (there are so many), this would make my list.

All the fabulous comical caricatures have redefined our memories of this wonderful actress. Just watch her actual films, though, and you'll rediscover that she was nowhere near as over the top as you might have recalled, she had far greater dramatic subtlety and nuance than her impersonators have led us to believe. 

As a woman she was renowned for being earthier than her professional nemesis Joan Crawford and boasted of that, making her perhaps appear the more arrogant of the two, yet no less adorable. 

I like to make my own mind up about the subjects of biographies and usually can.

That Bette Davis was no saint becomes clear enough after covering a few biographies, that she was no monster either is also clear. She was a fascinating woman and a great, great star.