PARK Magazine

BETTE’S LAST HUSBAND
GARY MERRILL /
MAINE MAN
O
n another day I found my
way to Prout’s Neck, one of
Maine’s most scenic summer
colonies, to visit with actor,
politician, philosopher,
iconoclast Gary Merrill,
whose main claim to fame
is having been Bette Davis’s
husband. They lived “hot
and heavy” and legendarily
for eight years in Cape Elizabeth,
Maine, next to my
Uncle Dewey’s house Dans
la Maison “Witch-Way,”
named after Bette, naturellement.
They met, married, and fell in love, or to hear it now
(from either side), into purgatory, while filming All About
Eve. Today (1972) they are divorced, she’s in Connecticut.
. . he in Maine. . . and in the Grand Hollywood manner,
Gary Merrill admits that Bette moved, “Because she
didn’t feel the state was big enough for both of us. Recently,
I understand, she was asked to come back and take part
in a Portland Player’s Children Production. She said she
would do it only if I was out of state. I was and she did it,”
said Merrill.
Behind all the serious political talk was the twinkle of
youth, and one knows that Gary knows how to have a
good time. After a little chat about his exploits with my
father, I launched into what I really wanted to know.
“Bette Davis told me that if the men in her life had been
more violent it might have been better.”
“Oh, shit! You might say that there isn’t room for two
people to be violent with her around, though I
knocked her around a little, so what’s she complaining
about?” “Do you ever see her?” I asked.
“I see her every four years at our son’s graduations, and
more recently at his wedding.”
“What about your rumored reconciliation?”
“Oh, Shit!”
“What do you think of her as an actress?”
“She’s a good actress, but not all that she’s cracked up
to be she’s always DAVIS. She can’t disappear into anything;
this is a PERSONALITY thing in our world of
movies. In England, they were more interested in the
theatre, in playing and being something. There is nothing
Davis does that ain’t Davis whether it’s the Queen of
England or whatever she’s doing. She did Phone Call
From A Stranger pretty well, she played a paralyzed
person, but leave her on her feet and she’ll throw a part
all out of whack. She has to be a star, so she does crap,
there aren’t that many parts for people when they get
older.”
“Would you please finally put an end to all this
gossip about you wanting each other dead and
buried?” I blurted out!
“Well, I remember one day when it was going hot and
heavy over at the Cape and she looked me right in the
eye and said, “Wouldn’t you be happy if I were dead and
you had the house and children all to yourself?” and I
said, “Yup!!” P