By Stephanie Merry, The Washington Post
During the first episode of “Feud,” Joan Crawford, played by Jessica Lange, and Bette Davis, played by Susan Sarandon, get their first look at scenes from “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” The actresses hope the 1962 thriller will reignite their careers and reverse their slide toward obsolescence. There’s a lot riding on this.
The two women sit in a darkened theater while director Robert Aldrich (Alfred Molina) runs the projector.
“Bob, isn’t that lighting unnecessarily harsh?” Crawford asks.
“Oh we haven’t balanced the footage yet, Joan,” Aldrich assures her while throwing his assistant a knowing look. “Don’t worry.”
Crawford shot to fame in her early 20s thanks to her incredible beauty, but in her mid-50s, she can’t bear to watch herself on-screen. She shakes her head tragically, rolls up her knitting and leaves.
That leaves Davis watching herself on-screen with the hideous white makeup she chose to wear, which at the time seemed like an act of bravery. She has so much moxie, sitting there casually holding a cigarette between two fingers. But something shifts. Her eyes get wide and tears start streaming down her face.
It’s pretty shocking to see her like that – the woman who said, among other acerbic quotables, “Old age is no place for sissies.”
It’s no less stunning to see Crawford in such a vulnerable place, considering how clouded our memory may be after Faye Dunaway’s memorable portrayal of the actress as a monster in 1981’s “Mommie Dearest,” in which she screamed, “noooooo wiiiiiiire hangers!”
As television critic Hank Stuever noted in his review of “Feud,” an anthology series that will deal with a different battle each season, “It’s remarkable to see a story so sordid get such tender, loving care; to see two women whose beauty and personal flaws have been glamorized by a million drag queens brought in from the glare and given back some small measure of their humanity.”That’s becoming a calling card for series creator Ryan Murphy. This isn’t the first time he’s taken a person who’s been reduced to burlesque and rehabilitated their reputation.
He did the same thing last year with Marcia Clark, the prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson case, who was a character in Murphy’s “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson.” Actress Sarah Paulson won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her sensitive portrayal of Clark, a woman who was just doing her job but nevertheless became tabloid fodder before getting the “Saturday Night Live” treatment.
“American Crime Story” restored her humanity, showing what an impossible situation she found herself in as she tried to prosecute the murder of a man she knew was guilty. If she thought the custody battle she was fighting with her ex-husband was difficult, she had no idea what was coming: a tidal wave of sexism as the world weighed in on her hairstyles and pored over topless photos that her ex-husband leaked. During the case, Clark was the butt of every joke. But years later, Murphy revealed her as the tragic yet tough figure she truly was.
The same thing goes with Davis and Crawford. Their catty one-upmanship became the stuff of legend, and “Feud” doesn’t shy away from the campier aspects of the story. But it also shows how difficult these women have it as onetime legends unceremoniously cast off by the industry. Not only that, but their rivalry isn’t merely diva behavior. After it seemed like the actresses might start getting along, misogynistic studio boss Jack Warner (Stanley Tucci) urges Aldrich to fuel the rivalry in order to drum up publicity for the movie. (It works.)
Murphy doesn’t just reveal how harsh Hollywood can be to women of a certain age. He’s also offering some solutions since, all these years later, there hasn’t been significant progress. While Lange and Sarandon are older than the women they play, that doesn’t happen very often. Murphy helped rehabilitate Lange’s career when he cast her in his series “American Horror Story” in 2011. The actress, who won Oscars in 1983 and ’95, has been nominated for four Golden Globes (winning once) and as many Emmys (winning twice) for “Horror Story.”
“Feud” also gave Murphy the opportunity to cast other actresses of a certain age for juicy roles, including Judy Davis as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper and Kathy Bates (also a “Horror Story” regular) as actress Joan Blondell.
Murphy has turned into a prolific producer, and he doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, which will give him more opportunities to humanize real-life people. Season 4 of “American Crime Story” will deal with the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, and it will no doubt be fascinating to see that media circus from the eyes of the young former intern caught at the center of it. “Feud” Season 2, meanwhile, will look at the marriage and divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. As always, be prepared to see these characters in a whole new light.
