The Truth About THEIR FEUD

THEIR HATRED TOWARD EACH IS LEGENDARY BUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IS MORE COMPLICATED

- Katie Bruno

After Bette Davis' curtain call in Broadway's The Night of the Iguana, she received an unexpected guest in her dressing room. “Joan Crawford went backstage with a copy of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and said to Bette, ‘I think we should do this,’” Robert Dance, author of Ferocious Ambition: Joan Crawford's March to Stardom, tells Closer.

The legendary rivalry between Bette and Joan has been the subject of articles, books and even a wildly entertaining limited TV series, Feud: Bette and Joan. The truth about what really happened between these Golden Age stars is a little less dramatic, but more relatable. “They were two hugely competitive women — the greatest of the greats,” says Dance. “They certainly didn’t like each other, but that’s a very different thing from a feud.”