Sam Staggs writes in his book 'All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-The-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made!', 2000:
"...Celeste Holm, in her apartment on Central Park West, answered the phone herself. After hearing a description of the book in progress, titled All About All About Eve, she asked, “Why the hell do you want to write that book?”
“Why? Because millions of people love the movie. And also because no one has told the story of how it came about and why All About Eve is considered both a Hollywood classic and a cult film.”
“I don’t get it,” she snapped. “A work of art speaks for itself! I think a book like that is a waste of time. If people are interested, let them see the movie.”
“I’ve seen it thirty times.”
“Then see it thirty more!”
“Look, Miss Holm, it’s not backstairs gossip I’m after. But since Mankiewicz lost all his papers in the fire—”
“I guess you want to talk to me about Bette Davis?” Celeste Holm demanded, and without waiting for an answer she continued. “I’ve talked to everybody in the world about that movie!”
“Bette Davis? No. I’d rather hear about you.”
“All this crap about books—I don’t get it.”
“Suppose I send you a detailed letter about the book. Your memories of shooting All About Eve are important.”
“Well … maybe. I don’t know. Good-bye.”
She never answered the letter...."
courtesy: Alejandro Mogollo Art
from left: Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, Thelma Ritter
So much acting talent, doing substantive roles, has seldom come together before and after on silver screen.
Robert
Gore-Langton writes in the Spectator, UK on January 26 2019:
"...In 1950, Bette Davis had a string of recent flops behind her. She was 41,
married to an embarrassing twerp (her third husband), and her career was
spiralling above the plughole. She only got the lead part in All About Eve
when Claudette Colbert — who was all signed up — ruptured a disc while doing a
rape scene on another film. The story goes that with Colbert shrieking in
traction, the producer Darryl Zanuck, who hadn’t spoken to Davis since using
the words ‘You’ll never work in this town again’, was obliged to offer her the
part. It didn’t take much. No sane actress could resist Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s
fabulous script with its sophisticated wit and refreshing cynicism. Davis
literally kissed the script and leapt at the part of the Broadway diva Margo
Channing. It did her libido a power of good. She had a thing about men with
hairy backs and immediately had an affair with her on-screen partner, the
hirsute Gary Merrill, who later said he spent three days walking around the set
trying to hide a permanent erection...."
