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[0:00] Robert W. Schneider: There are some stars who become famous, and then there are stars who become adjectives. By the 1970s, Bette Davis wasn't just an actress. She was a category of actress, a woman so singular that an entire generation learned to communicate simply by widening their eyes, lighting a cigarette, and saying, "What a Bette Davis thing to do." I don't know if that was Bette Davis, but that's the best you're getting on this episode. She had conquered Hollywood twice. She had won Oscars, fought studio bosses, survived career collapses, reinvented herself in middle age, and turned aging into an art form. She had stared down Jack Warner, Joan Crawford, and practically the entire motion picture industry, and somehow emerged with her reputation not merely intact, but larger than ever.

By 1974, Bette Davis was a legend, which raises an interesting question. What do you give a legend who already has everything? Mama, a rainbow. Apparently, a musical. A musical called Miss Moffat. The creative team was impressive. The source material was respected. The star was one of the most famous women in America. What could possibly go wrong? Well, you're going to just have to find out. So stay tuned for this episode of Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway as we look at Bette Davis and her musical Miss Moffat.

[1:22] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, friends. I'm Robert W. Schneider, and welcome to another episode of Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway. Today, we are looking at the legend herself, Bette Davis, the woman who demolished Hollywood's idea of stardom and femininity and created a path for herself and others that still reverberates down Hollywood today. Her times in the theater also reverberate down Shubert Alley, but not in the same glowing terms, I'd say. So where does this all begin? Miss Moffat, sat on her toffit, starts way back in 1915 in Wales when young Emlyn Williams was taken under the wing of a teacher named Sarah Grace Cook. Seeing through the boy's tough exterior and lack of true education—he could only speak Welsh at the time—she encouraged him to be something and tutored him for years, prepping him to become a teacher and going to Oxford.

When he went through some mental health issues, it was Sarah Cook, the great teacher, who said, "Right, it will be your therapy." And he did, becoming an incredible playwright. To thank Miss Cook in 1938, he wrote a play called The Corn is Green about a young Welsh boy who was taken under the wing of a teacher here named Miss Moffat. And I think you get the story. The play was a huge hit in the West with Sybil Thorndyke playing it there and then Ethel Barrymore playing it here in the States. Basically, it's the blind side as done by the cast of Shrek. That's pretty much the best way to describe it. It was a hit film in 1945 with a 36-year-old actress playing Miss Moffat, an actress that some thought was too young for the role on cinema, Bette Davis.

Now, we're going to jump forward to 1972, when director and writer Joshua Logan, the man who loved a shirtless guy on stage and every stage, the guy who did Mr. Roberts, South Pacific, Picnic, gets a call from Mary Martin's husband, Richard Halliday, who says, "We're in fucking Brazil and she's made the whole house wicker. She's driving me crazy. She wants to be a hairdresser. She has this little beauty shop down here. I can't take it anymore. Can you please write a show for her?" Now, Logan and Martin have a great relationship from their South Pacific days, and he tries to think what property would Mary Martin like to do? What would pull her out of retirement? Then he remembered that they once discussed The Corn is Green and how much she liked it.

And so, he calls his friend, Emlyn Williams, who did some doctoring on Mr. Roberts and South Pacific, and he says, "What about it as a musical?" Now, Williams is one step ahead because he said, "I've always thought of it as a musical, and I've actually written some lyrics. And I actually wrote a whole new script for it called Miss Moffitt," and he set the show in the pre-World War I South. And Miss Moffitt is now getting a black farmhand into Harvard. So, Williams thought Logan would hate it, and Logan says, "Well, why on earth would you say that?" And Williams said, "Because when I told you this years ago, you said it was a stupid idea." Well, it's always—always admit your mistakes. Well, he sends it all over to Logan, all the material, who loves it, and he gets Albert Haig to write the music.

Albert Haig of Plain and Fancy, Redhead, and, of course, the teacher on Fame. Now, these were the two songs that had lyrics to them already that Albert Haig set to music, and I'd love for you to hear them. The first was the song that the pupil Morgan sings at the end of the show to thank Miss Moffat for the world she opened to him.

[4:38] Robert W. Schneider: Before I take the train, I have something to say. But I don't know exactly how to say it. It'll be four years before I see you again, before I see this room. This room? Yes, this—this is where I came to life. Through the books you kept feeding me. Why, you never mentioned it. I haven't known how you felt about anything, or anyone. You liked the books that much? Liked? They're never out of my mind. Each one full of special sights and sounds. Well, I even tried to imagine the smells. They were the realest of all to me. In Wuthering Heights, the smell of the mist. The smell of poverty in Oliver Twist. I'll always remember. I'll never forget. In Paradise Lost, the smell of fire. The smell of doom in the book of Jeremiah.

I'll always remember. I'll never forget. In Moby Dick, the smell of this view. In Edgar Allan Poe, the smell of the tomb. How can I ever forget this room? In Kublai Khan, the smell of incense. The Mississippi in Huckleberry Finn. I must leave it all behind, but it will never leave my mind. I shall never forget the death I owe, I owe to you.

[7:28] Robert W. Schneider: And the second is Miss Moffat's last song, realizing she'll encounter the joys of teaching in others, now that Morgan is often away. One day I'll have the chance to say that I'm going back to the primary school. I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'm not as serious as I came to be. But I will go on about it, and I will take my college seat. It's a whole other time. I'm not as serious as I came to be. I'm not as serious as I came to be. I'm not as serious as I came to be. I'm not as serious as I came to be. And that's nice, but I'd love to hear some more at some point. So they decide to meet up a few months later with new material, including Miss Moffat's opening number, which, like, smacks of Mary Martin.

Here it is. It's called A Wonderful Game. You've got to learn to play. A mortal game for me. And play it every day. It's just what you are needing. It's what you are desiring. It's what you are desiring. It's what you are desiring. And the day you reach your age, I want for you to play that old, best game, A Wonderful Game. Well, it looks like Mary Martin is going to do it. So everyone leaves really happy, except her husband Richard, who doesn't look too good. And within two weeks, he will have passed away. And Mary goes into mourning and says, "I can't do a show now. I'm not up to it." But the team doesn't want to stop. They think it's too good. Logan thinks this will be the best show he's ever done.

That's how much he loves it. The warm show is a perfect antidote to the cynicism pervading the Watergate Vietnam era country at the time. So they go next to Catherine Hepburn, who says yes and then says no. Who else? Who else could do this? What about Bette Davis? She was the right age, knew the role, and her career was in a very interesting time. Logan had worked with Bette Davis once in 1952 when Jerome Robbins, at Davis's request, brought him into Dr. Too's company. But a short while later, Davis got a bone disease, quit Too's company, and forced the sellout show to close, putting hundreds out of work. Logan always had a sneaking suspicion it was fake, but he moved on. Davis came back to Broadway again in 1961 in The Night of the Iguana, but also left that show early due to health issues.

Now, when Logan mentioned Davis as a Miss Moffat, just about everyone in the business told him he was crazy. She's a pain in the ass, a one-note performer, not worth the trouble. It doesn't matter how much money you're going to make in advance sales. You're going to have to return it all because she usually quits. But Logan, from the Oscar Hammerstein School, was a cockeyed optimist and pursued her. They went to her Connecticut home where she said she felt she was now at the right age to play Miss Moffat. And she needed stage work because all she was offered were these direct film parts, and she didn't want to end up like Joan Crawford, taking whatever crap came her way. But she insisted on singing for the men, so they trekked over to a local high school, found a piano, and she warbled some of the tunes.

They loved her. She loved them. They signed her and said, "You'll sound even better with voice lessons," to which she replied, "I'm not taking voice lessons. I'm very musical." And at 66 years old, having quit two Broadway shows before due to health concerns when she was much younger, Bette Davis would be Broadway's newest musical comedy star. But she was a workhorse. She had to work. Now, oddly, in my research, it said that she and Joan Collins were going to do Follies together on Broadway. But when and where and who would they have been? So if you have an idea on who they would have played, text me. Slide into my DMs. I'm just so curious. Who knows? Now, if you only know Bette Davis from Feud or from Kim Carnes or from Mario Cantone's epic impression of her doing Johnny Carson shows in the 80s, well, before we can talk about Miss Moffat, we have to talk about Bette Davis herself, because by 1974, she wasn't just an actress.

She was a force of nature, a one-woman weather system, the kind of star who could make a producer nervous simply by walking into a room. And that's important because Miss Moffat wasn't trying to make Bette Davis famous. It was just trying to harness a legend. Let us start from the beginning. Hollywood in the early 30s and almost immediately became a problem. Not because she wasn't talented. Quite the opposite. She was talented in all the wrong ways for the studio system. She wasn't interested in being sweet. She wasn't interested in being glamorous. And she certainly wasn't interested in doing what she was told. Hollywood in the 30s wanted movie stars. Bette Davis wanted to be an actress. And those are not always the same thing.

By 1934, she exploded onto the screen in Of Human Bondage, playing Mildred, one of the nastiest women ever to appear. Audiences were horrified. Critics were ecstatic. Davis wasn't beautiful in the conventional Hollywood sense, but she was riveting. You couldn't look away from her. The studios quickly realized that they had something unusual. Not a star. A weapon. Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night. But you are Blanche. You are in that chair. I'd like to kiss you, but I just washed my hair. And after you kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth. Wipe my mouth! Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars. Over the next decade, she became Warner Brothers' greatest dramatic actress, piling up classics like Jezebel, Dark Victory, The Letter, Now, Voyager, and The Little Foxes.

And she wasn't just successful. She was dominant. In 1936, she actually sued Warner Brothers because she was tired of being assigned lousy parts. Think about that. An actress under contract sued one of the most powerful studios in the world because she wanted better material. She lost the lawsuit, but she won the war. The publicity turned her into a symbol of artistic integrity, and Warner Brothers started taking her demands a lot more seriously. And by the 40s, she was arguably the most respected dramatic actress in America. Then came the first fall. Like so many stars, Davis discovered that Hollywood was not particularly interested in women over 40. That's a shocking revelation, I know. The industry that routinely cast 28-year-olds as high school students suddenly decided Bette Davis was old.

By the late 40s, her career had stalled. The hits had become less frequent. The roles became less exciting. And then, just when people started whispering that she might be finished, she pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in entertainment history. In 1950, she starred as Margot Channing in All About Eve, a role so perfect for her that audiences still assumed she was playing herself. An aging Broadway star confronting younger rivals, professional insecurity, and the terrifying realization that time eventually catches everyone. The film became a sensation. Davis was back, and not just back, better. For many people, Margot Channing remains the definitive Bette Davis performance. I am one of those people.

But Hollywood's relationship with aging actresses remained complicated, and the 1950s were a rollercoaster. Some films succeeded, others vanished, television arrived, the movie industry changed, and Davis spent much of the decade fighting to stay relevant. Then came her second reinvention. In 1962, she starred opposite Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. If All About Eve made her respected again, Baby Jane made her immortal. The film turned two aging Hollywood legends into gothic horror icons and launched an entirely new phase of Davis's career. But there was one thing she still wanted—Broadway. Real Broadway. Not a guest appearance, not a limited engagement, a starring vehicle, a triumph.

Something that would prove that Bette Davis could conquer the theater the same way she had conquered Hollywood. Now, there had been attempts on her part, some successful, some less so. Her 1961 Broadway appearance in Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana generated headlines, reviews, and enough backstage drama to power several future memoirs. But she still hadn't found the role then. In the early 70s, The Corn is Green landed on her desk. The show about a fierce, uncompromising teacher who changes the life of a gifted man through sheer force of will. A woman who intimidates everyone around her. A woman who refuses to back down. A woman convinced she knows what's best and is willing to fight anyone who disagrees.

In other words, somebody read The Corn is Green and thought, "You know who should play this? Bette Davis." And honestly, they weren't wrong. The plan was to put the show on a nine-month tour before coming to Broadway in the fall of 1975, where it would have joined such shows as A Chorus Line, Chicago, Pacific Overtures, a great season. For those who wanted an antidote to the cynical songs of Sondheim or the rock sounds of Lloyd Webber, Miss Moffat would be it. The announcement of Bette Davis coming in created a $200,000 advance within the first few days. As more towns were announced, the advance kept growing higher and higher. Miss Moffat was to be a financial smash. Starting September 9th, it would be two weeks at The Mechanic in Baltimore, four weeks at The Shubert in Philly, four in Boston and Canada, then all over the U.S. before Broadway.

The cast assembled at Broadway Arts, which included a pretty nice group of people. Well, nice to most, except Bette doesn't seem to enjoy most of them. Covering her would be Anne Francine, who had played Vera in Mame, and she would also be in the show as Mrs. Sprode, an asshole character, she said. An asshole character, and I feel like an asshole playing her, as she would say in rehearsals. We call her Anne, but Bette apparently called her Butch. As Miss Robury, Moffat's friend, the great comedian Dodie Goodman, whom Bette would call stupid in rehearsals, forcing her to cry, and as Mrs. Waddy and her daughter, Bessie, two actresses who wanted stardom so bad that when the actress playing Mrs. Waddy found a key that was too difficult for her understudy to sing, that actress said, "Great, that's the key I'm going to sing it in."

That actress, that smart actress, was Nell Carter, and her daughter, Bessie, would be played by Marion Ramsey. She's the high-pitched cadet from the Police Academy films. Every night, Nell Carter would stop the show with her number, called Peekaboo, Jehovah, backed up by a young actor by the name of Giancarlo Esposito. Here's that song.

[18:26] Robert W. Schneider: It's my humble whisper reaching you, O Lord. If it ain't, Lord, we sure must be hard of hearing. Amen! Yes, yes, yes. Hear that humble serenade. Be heard, O Lord. It's my humble whisper reaching you, O Lord. It's my humble serenade beseeching you, O Lord. Since we're proud to confess we've got religion, please light open them gates just a smidgen. With our own eyes, we want to behold you, and in our sinful arms enfold you. Please draw near and speak with us. Don't play hide and seek with us. You baptize Peter, and you baptize Paul. Be a good Lord and baptize us all. Peekaboo, Jehovah, open up your pretty gates, O Lord. How she do, Jehovah? Squeezes sinners in and slashes all with pleasure. Peekaboo, Jehovah, we don't mind a little squish and squash.

Take the punch, Jehovah. Grab that sponge, Jehovah, and give us all a wash. Peekaboo, Jehovah, open up your pretty gates. Open up your pretty gates, O Lord. How she do, Jehovah? Squeezes sinners in and slashes all with pleasure. Peekaboo, Jehovah, we don't mind a little squish and squash. Take the punch, Jehovah. Grab that sponge, Jehovah, and give us all a wash. Peekaboo, Jehovah, open up your pretty gates. Open up your pretty gates, O Lord. How she do, Jehovah? Squeezes sinners in and slashes all with pleasure. Peekaboo, Jehovah, open up your pretty gates. Open up your pretty gates, O Lord. How she do, Jehovah? Squeezes sinners in and slashes all with pleasure. Peekaboo, Jehovah, open up your pretty gates. Open up your pretty gates, O Lord. How she do? Squeezes sinners in and slashes all with pleasure. Peekaboo, Jehovah, open up your pretty gates. Open up your pretty gates.

[24:15] Robert W. Schneider: One of the things the cast noticed, but dared never to express in rehearsal, was how old-fashioned the whole show seemed. And not fun old-fashioned, like a No, No, Nanette, but creaky old-fashioned, like a Josh Logan musical of the 40s. And the source material was incredibly delicate. What could adding music do for this story? Especially music that was not really sung by Miss Moffat. Now, let's be clear, that doesn't mean Miss Moffat didn't have songs. She had a lot of them. But surely Bette Davis, a smart cookie, knew her limitations and could sing-slash-speak her role the way Catherine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall did for their musicals. Not on your life! Bette told everyone she was a singer and knew all about music because of Max Steiner.

Don't know what that means, but she knew Max Steiner, and he knew music. That reminds me of the story that Arthur Lawrence used to tell about Alan Carr when Alan Carr hired Robert Stack to replace, I think it was like Van Johnson or somebody in La Cage. And Arthur asked Alan, he goes, "I've never seen him. Can he act?" And Alan Carr would go, "Well, he's from Pasadena." And Arthur Lawrence would say, "Yeah, well, can he sing?" And he goes, "He's from Pasadena," as if like that was some magical thing. So maybe through osmosis, Max Steiner helped her. So the entire team kept encouraging Bette to just speak, but she refused, which made her even more nervous. And her anxiety took to lashing out at everybody.

Logan, Williams, Haig, Donald Sadler, the choreographer. The only thing that calmed her was these coffee breaks where she seemed to return calmer and more grounded and more willing to be nicer. Her original first line was very Bette, quote, "I'm Moffat and I'd give anything for a cigarette." Needless to say, that line was cut to make Miss Moffat seem more genteel. But can you imagine all the queens on that first night when she comes out and goes, "I'm Moffat and I'd give anything for a cigarette?" People would go crazy. Oh, wow, there's a lot more Bette Davis impressions in this than I thought there was going to be. So she was so hellbent on proving that she could sing that during the first day of rehearsals where the actors just read their lines and the songwriters sing the songs, Bette demanded to sing all of her own material in the moment.

Once again, Logan told her, "Hey, why don't you talk more of it?" And she angrily yelled, "How will they know I'm singing? How will they know I can sing?" Rehearsals continued. And each day, Bette never put her script down, singing in every register known to man, drinking her coffee and keeping her distance from everyone, except one day the cast came in to find a note pinned to the bulletin board that said, "Call me BD, all my friends do." Perhaps she was lightening up then. In one rehearsal, it came time for her big song, The Words Unspoken, the end of the first act. And Bette did not sing. She talked most of it. And suddenly, the performance was alive. It was vital, visceral. There was Bette Davis.

The entire room stopped and watched. When she was done, amongst the cheers of bravos and on-course tears streaming down people's faces, she simply looked at everyone. And when the stage manager said, "You were so wonderful," she responded, "I know, that's what they pay me for." Perhaps Bette Davis just needed some time to warm up. But all of that was gone the day of the designer run-through on the stage of the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Why were people out there, she demanded? Who were all these people at rehearsal? They were the designers and crew, and they had to watch the show to get their paperwork in order. That didn't please her. Then she said, "Who are the guys in the suit?" And they said those were potential investors, which made her go crazy.

"You mean it's not all funded?" They explained that this was customary and that she was aware of this. She just seems to have forgotten, like most of her lines. Now, Bette, not being one to disappoint a crowd, put on her nice clothes and her bob wig, so when she emerged on stage, she was Bette Davis these designers knew. She was not Miss Moffat. She was Margot Channing, Charlotte Vale, Julie Marsden. She was glamorous. As this rehearsal went on, and she never once dropped her script, she began yelling at actors to enter and exit sooner. She began to get bothered by her wig, so she ripped it off and threw it off into the wings, and the small audience loved that and applauded. And so she kept ad-libbing through the rehearsal, losing more of Miss Moffat and gaining more Bette Davis, whose charm on the designer run now was starting to wear a little thin on everybody.

It was bizarre. It was worrisome. And suddenly, towards the end of rehearsal, she begins to limp. Josh Logan asked her if she was okay, and she said, "Oh, yeah, I just pinched a nerve a few months back. It gets flared up." Well, as long as she was okay by September 9th for the musical's world premiere at the Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore, next day, Josh Logan gets a phone call. It's not a pinched nerve. It's a slipped disc, a possible operation needing eight weeks' recuperation. The doctors were forbidding her to work for the next few weeks, so the creative team piled into her hospital room, and she was lying there immobile except when she catapulted out of the bed to get a smoke, and they made a promise.

If she was committed 110% to Miss Moffat, then they were committed 110% to Bette Davis. She looked them in the eye and said, "I am just not going to give this up." The team left and decided they would cancel Baltimore. Maybe they would do it in December in Baltimore. They would open in Philly at the Schubert on October 7th, 1974 for four weeks and carry on, returning the $90,000 advance for the cancellation, but with a $300,000 waiting for them in Philly? Come on. And by the way, the top ticket price was $10.90. $10.90. Can you believe it, Mildred? So they will keep cutting and rehearsing and reshaping the rest of the cast, and they'll keep all of Miss Moffat's changes until the very end when Bette Davis can rejoin them, which she will, in traction and a back brace.

But word starts to get out that maybe Bette is not really injured. Maybe this is a ploy. For what? To manipulate Josh Logan to get her way, to lay the groundwork for leaving? Newspapers around the world run a picture of Bette Davis climbing a jungle gym to show her prowess with the headline, quote, "If we disagree, I'll slip a disc." And then they continue to insult Bette Davis further with No No Nanette choreographer Donald Sadler is obviously experienced with geriatric stars and nostalgia. But how about slip discs? Well, Bette comes to the rehearsal in Philly. She joins them, and she is fuming, not over the article. She found out they made changes. How dare they make changes without her? Why didn't they wait for her to return?

They try to explain it to her, but to no avail. She is pissed and feels left out. And as if that were not bad enough, author James Baldwin makes international headlines when he says that this whole Corn is Green and the Deep South show is really his idea, as seen in his 1968 book, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, where the Miss Moffat character is actually an aging ex-movie star whose vogue has long passed. That is why she finds herself in these tenements doing The Corn is Green. Baldwin said his objection isn't to the seeming lifting of his idea, but to, quote, "another soap opera in blackface. We don't need another fantasy of that type. It's positively dangerous from my point of view.

It may reassure the theater audiences, but it doesn't fool the people who are caught in the trap." No one can catch a break on this show until previews in Philadelphia. She became Miss Moffat. She was stunning. Sure, there were minor stumbles, but she grabbed the audience by the throat and didn't let go. She was everything you wanted and more. She was Bette Davis, the great actor. She even spoke a lot of the songs, bringing power and star quality. The audience leapt to its feet. This was it. Miss Moffat would be a hit. "I can play this role for years," she happily shouted backstage after the show. Then, opening night, critics night, she folded. She gave the worst performance she'd ever given in the role.

She was unsure, shaky, and hostile, yelling at the orchestra that she didn't know where she was. At one point, she looked at the audience and screamed, "How can I play this scene? Morgan Evans is supposed to be on stage. Morgan Evans, get out here." And Dorian Harewood, from his dressing room, came running out on stage and tried to do the scene with her. And it suddenly dawned on her, she was wrong. She was thinking of a different scene. So, she turned to the audience again and said, "I was wrong. I want you to know that. It wasn't his fault. It was my own stupid fault. Dorian has nothing to do with it. Go back, Morgan, and we'll start over." Well, the audience went crazy. This is the Bette Davis they want.

They don't want the sad sack, Miss Moffat. They want what a dump. Fasten your seatbelts, but you are Blanche. And she could smell it, and she fed off of it. Later in the show, when she forgot a line, a child in the show whispered it to her, and she whirled on him with, "Don't you tell me my line. I know it. You're a naughty little boy," which the audience devoured. That night, they added 17 minutes to the show with her ad libs and banter. And then, the next day, the reviews came out. The Philadelphia Inquirer. Bette Davis' performance was deliberate to the point of stiffness. It was a one-woman show as far as she was concerned, and the blame is as much in the direction as in her. Miss Davis gives a performance that looks like a bad Bette Davis impression.

The Daily News. Miss Moffat is a night to forget. Miss Moffat comes off as an unintentional parody of the old-fashioned musical, only you've seen it all before and better. Bette Davis lacks spark and spunk. The next day, it's time for rehearsal, and Bette Davis refuses. She demands that for one week, there is to be no rehearsals, cuts, trims for her or anyone so she can get her sea legs under her. Now, Logan is mortified. Not only is this not how they do it, but he has a great idea on how to fix the show, but she won't let him change one word. Now, his idea came from a critic who observed that there was no drama, really, because Miss Moffat, the character, was all sweetness who won her battles early, so you knew where the show was going.

What if they cut her sweet opening number, A Wonderful Game, and replaced it with How Lucky Was I to Get Out of the South, which would give the audience the Bette Davis strength and humor? After the week away, she cautiously agreed to do it, and it worked like gangbusters, and she was getting increasingly secure with the role. One night after the show, she said, "I can play this for a year, then London, then the movie. Miss Moffat saved me." But privately, it was another story. She would look at the kids in the chorus and say to them, "I will never do another show again. People used to be so kind." The next morning, Logan was summoned to Bette Davis's hotel room, where she was laying on her bed.

She simply looked at him and said, "My doctor says I can't play it anymore. It's done." Logan reminded her this would be the third time in theater that she has done this, which would be career suicide. He begged her, "Please, for your sake, don't do it." She did not care and said to him, "I'm too big a star to be giving a poor performance, which I'm now doing." That was it. The end of Miss Moffat. Logan called her doctor in New York, and the doctor said, "Look, she told me to tell you she can't play it anymore, and I can't legally tell her to do it if the patient says that they're in pain. I'm sorry." They got a Pennsylvania physician, and he confirmed it. She was too delicate. She could not be on stage.

Could she be on crutches? No. In a wheelchair? No. Maybe in two years. Maybe in two years, she could do it. And with that, the doctor signed the insurance papers, and the whole $500,000 to put on Miss Moffat was absorbed by an insurance company. The cast, meanwhile, was getting ready for the evening show when they noticed something strange. They could not hear any audience member or orchestra on the other side of the curtain. They were all brought down to the stage where the producer had told them what had happened to Miss Davis and that the show would be closing early in Philadelphia, not continuing on. Fifteen performances, and everyone would get $15 for the train back to New York. Anne Francine offered to play the role.

Others named star friends they could get, like Claudette Colbert, but no. It was over. Miss Moffat was about Bette Davis, and Bette Davis didn't want to be in Miss Moffat anymore. Nell Carter asked if she could sing a song called There's a Stranger on Your Doorstep. That was a new number that was supposed to go in next week because it would never be performed on a stage. So let's perform it now, which they did. RCA, who was to do the cast recording, backed out, leaving Miss Moffat as an unrecorded gem. Well, you would think that everyone would leave well enough alone and go their separate ways, but that wouldn't make the story as interesting. No, no, because Rex Reed decides to interview Bette Davis about why Miss Moffat did not come in.

Now, the answer is, well, my back. I hurt myself, right? No. She said, quote, "It was a mistake. The audience stood up cheering and screaming every night, but I knew it wasn't what they wanted. They wanted me to be a bitch, not a middle-aged schoolteacher. The songs were wonderful. I sang them all, and I was good at it, but it was nothing but hell. I had to carry the burden of the rewrites, and I spent three weeks in a hospital traction from the nerves and tension. The monkey on your back when you're carrying a show is wicked. Joshua Logan finished me off in two weeks. He was terrified of the critics and started changing things on opening night in Philly. I had one year on the road to do those changes, but I couldn't work 10 hours a day and play a different show at night.

They wanted me to learn 40 pages in four days. I had to get my health back before I could concentrate on that kind of work. So we closed it down. I will never go near the stage again as long as I live." End quote. Okay. A different story, it seems. Well, Logan didn't take to this too kindly, and he decided to devote a whole chapter to Bette Davis in his new book, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me. The chapter, Miss Davis' Regrets, detailed her ego, arrogance, and the truth of the matter. Well, his side of it, anyway. Bette's lawyers are so angry that they demand Logan pull the book, and he says, "Not on your life." So she attempts to sue him for libel, but eventually dropped her case. Even she had to know she would lose that case.

Logan actually tried Miss Moffitt again for 14 performances in Indianapolis in 1983 with Ginger Rogers as Miss Moffitt. I'm assuming Ann Miller wasn't available. Morgan, before you learn to read, you got to learn how to tap. That also didn't really go anywhere, but at least Logan got to see the show once the way he intended, and most everyone from Miss Moffitt went on to do well. Albert Haig became a TV star with Fame. Nell Carter became a TV star. Marian Ramsey, the Police Academy franchises. Dorian Harewood just received a Tony nomination for The Notebook. Logan sadly would pass in 1988, one year before Bette Davis. And how did Bette Davis spend the last 15 years of her life? She became the queen of TV movies.

Every drag queen had their impersonation of her, which she didn't like, especially when it was set to Kim Carnes' Bette Davis Eyes. Riding the wave of Christina Crawford, Bette's daughter wrote her own tell-all about how bad of a mother Bette was. Bette would do the talk show rounds, defending herself all while trying to recover from a stroke, and her most notorious moment came at the 1987 Oscars when she went off script while presenting the Best Actor award to Paul Newman. When Davis began reading the nominees, she moved more slowly than the production staff expected, so the control room started rolling the nominee clips before she had finished announcing the names, throwing all the timing off.

According to a later Academy explanation, the show's director ultimately cut her microphone in an effort to keep the broadcast moving, but then when Robert Wise came up to accept the Oscar for The Absent Paul Newman, she began to ramble again about Robert Wise's career. Now, for Bette Davis aficionados, the incident is fascinating because it encapsulates what she was right to the end. She refused to be rushed, she ignored scripts when she felt something needed to be said, she had enormous respect for talent, and she was never intimidated by producers, directors, executives, or live television. In a strange way, the moment feels like a final curtain call. Here is one of the last giants of classical Hollywood standing on the Oscar stage, disregarding the telecast timing and speaking directly to another aging legend she believed had finally received his due.

But what had it really done? Yes, she would speak her mind and have things done her way, but what did it get her in the world of theater? Once again, despite what everyone said, Bette Davis didn't care. She had something she wanted to do, and she did it. Everyone else, be damned. Now, is that the best way to live your life? No, it's debatable. Is it the best way to have a career in the theater? No. But when you're a legend, how kind do you have to be? Well, in our next episode, we will look at a not-so-kind legend who, unlike Davis, also wanted to prove his legitimacy. But while Davis was happy to be just a star, our next star wanted to do it all, and did, with varying results. The story of Jerry Lewis and the 1976 catastrophe Hell's a-Poppin' on our next Broadway Bound. Bye! Bye!

[41:54] Robert W. Schneider: Air. Oh my gosh, I sound so much like PBS right now. I'm so sorry. And sadly, I can't even send you a tote bag, but I can wave energetically if I see you on the street. And isn't that worth the price of a donation alone? Actually, donate to PBS. That way they can send you a tote bag. You can put it over your head so nobody sees me waving at you if you're really ashamed and embarrassed of my vociferous energy. Once again, robwschneider.com. Click AMTA, make a tax-deductible donation, and I will be forever grateful.