I've been close to Bette Davis for thirty-eight years - and I have the cigarette burns to prove it.
It has to do with the fact that Ford, for all his greatness, is an Irish egomaniac, as anyone who knows him will say.
I found myself facing a Christian Science Reading Room. My God! It had been eight years. There had never been any renunciation of religion on my part, but like so many people, it was a gradual fading away.
I must have had faith that day. When I went out, I was Henry Fonda again. An unemployed actor but a man.
Ford didn't know what to do with Mister Roberts that wasn't repeating what was successful in New York. He was trying to do things to the play that would be his in the film.
For me, college wasn't a breeze. I had 8 o'clock classes, I worked from 3 to 11 at the Settlement House. On weekends, if Northwestern Bell needed me, I'd troubleshoot for them, and I had a steady girl. God!
My thinking was scrambled when Sullivan and I separated. Something happened to me that had never happend before. I couldn't cope. It was heartbreak time. I thought it was the end of the world.
I don't know what was in his mind, but I do know Ford was stricken by what he had done, by hitting me.
