By 1962, Hollywood had already written Joan Crawford’s obituary. She was over fifty, box office poison, and reduced to reading scripts nobody else wanted. Then a horror film about two washed-up sisters landed on her desk — and so did her old rival, Bette Davis.
The press called it hatred. Reporters camped outside the set of ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ hoping to catch the claws come out. But was the feud really about pride — or was it the only weapon two forgotten women had left?
A Comeback Built on Combat
‘Baby Jane’ became the surprise hit of the year, and critics who’d dismissed both women were suddenly calling it the performance of Crawford’s career. The tension between the two leads leaked into every frame of the film, and audiences couldn’t get enough. Studios that had ghosted Joan for a decade were calling again. The feud, real or not, had done what no publicist could: it made her matter again.
The Woman Behind the War Paint
Those who worked closely with Joan described a woman terrified of irrelevance long before the cameras rolled. She arrived on set hours early, rehearsed obsessively, and needed every detail of her image controlled — from lighting to costume to what journalists were allowed to print. Friends said the rivalry with Davis gave her something to fight for at a time when she felt Hollywood had already stopped fighting for her.
The Oscar Sabotage Nobody Talks About
When Davis earned an Oscar nomination for ‘Baby Jane’ and Crawford didn’t, Joan didn’t sulk quietly — she picked up the phone. She personally lobbied other nominees, offering to accept the award on their behalf if they beat Davis, and reportedly flew to New York just to be backstage on Oscar night, ready to claim the spotlight the moment Davis lost. It worked. Davis never got the win, and few in Hollywood ever forgave Joan for how far she’d gone.
The Silence After the Applause
The feud made her a legend twice over, but it also cemented an image of Joan as cruel and calculating that outlived her career. By the time she died in 1977, most of her old Hollywood circle had drifted away, and the woman who’d once out-maneuvered an entire industry to stay visible spent her final years largely alone, her legacy forever tangled between comeback triumph and tabloid villain.
Photos via the Library of Congress (public domain).