the poor dancing girl she won't dance again

We had worked together on a movie called Beyond The Forest. It was made at Warner Brothers, where Bette was the reigning queen. When David Selznick gave me the script to read, I did not like the part, nor did I very much the story. Also there was talk that Bette did not want to do the picture. I said to David, “If Bette Davis is not starring in it, there’s no point in my doing it, is there?” He was loaning me to Warners for the picture.

“Tell you what,” said David, “you have a point. If Bette doesn’t do the movie, I won’t ask you to do it. But if she decides that since she is under contract, maybe she will be nice and do it, then I will expect you to do it, too.”

“It’s a deal,” I said. After all, whatever was good enough for Bette Davis was certainly good enough for me.

Bette decided to do it. I decided to follow her star. The picture got off the ground. Bette was very unhappy with it and made several sensible script changes, at least I thought they  were most sensible since they concerned me. “I don’t understand why I ever leave Josefff,” she said. “He is so attractive, it doesn’ttt make sense.”

- Joseph Cotten, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere

(via jocotten)