Princewill Pius
While classic screen actors and notorious rivals Bette Davis and Joan Crawford made it through filming Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, the same cannot be said for the lesser-known film Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Crawford was originally cast as Miriam, but her feuding with Davis, who played the titular character, became so intense that she landed in the hospital and director Bob Aldrich personally persuaded Olivia de Havilland to replace her.
According to Vanity Fair, Aldrich made Davis an associate producer of the film before the casting change, which was an effort to convince Davis to work with Crawford again. But Davis arrived to set before Crawford, befriended the crew, and supposedly turned them against her. “She would also stand next to director Aldrich while he was filming Joan’s scenes and make loud, negative comments,” wrote Lawrence J. Quirk and William Schoell in Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography.
Crawford allegedly had enough of Davis’ antics and the fact that Aldrich wouldn’t expand her part or listen to her creative input. She couldn’t legally quit the film, however, so she checked herself into Cedar Sinai hospital.
“I heard the news of my replacement over the radio, lying in my hospital bed,” Crawford announced to the press. Later she told a reporter from her bedside, “[Aldrich] let me hear it for the first time in a radio release — and, frankly, I think it stinks.”
Written by: Nicki
