Feud: Bette and Joan

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Feud: Bette and Joan is the first season of the FX docudrama anthology television series Feud. The season, which debuted on March 5, 2017, chronicles the well-documented rivalry between Hollywood actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis during and after the production of their psychological horror thriller film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and takes slight inspiration from the book Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud (1989).

The season notably starring Jessica Lange who reprised her role as Joan Crawford from the 2008 Mommie Dearest film, and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis received high critical acclaim, with major praise for Lange and Sarandon's performances with the series also garnering several accolades. It received 18 nominations at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards and won two, including Outstanding Hairstyling and Makeup (Non-Prosthetic). Bette and Joan also received six Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Television Critics Association Awards nominations.

Main

 * Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford
 * Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis
 * Judy Davis as Hedda Hopper, gossip columnist
 * Jackie Hoffman as Mamacita, Crawford's housekeeper
 * Alfred Molina as Robert Aldrich, director/producer of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte
 * Stanley Tucci as Jack L. Warner, head of Warner Bros.
 * Alison Wright as Pauline Jameson, Aldrich's assistant

Recurring

 * Catherine Zeta-Jones as Olivia de Havilland, Davis's friend and fellow actress who costars with her in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte and participates in a 1970s documentary on Crawford
 * Kathy Bates as Joan Blondell, Davis's friend and fellow actress who participates in a 1970s documentary on Crawford
 * Kiernan Shipka as B. D. Merrill, Davis's daughter
 * Dominic Burgess as Victor Buono, an actor who costars in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte
 * Reed Diamond as Peter, Joan's latest paramour
 * Joel Kelley Dauten as Adam Freedman, a documentary filmmaker
 * Molly Price as Harriet Foster Aldrich, Robert Aldrich's wife
 * Ken Lerner as Marty, Crawford's agent

Historical figures
Feud: Bette and Joan features appearances by a number of actors, directors and other historical figures of the period, including:


 * Alisha Soper as Marilyn Monroe, winner of the Best Actress Golden Globe in 1960 for Some Like It Hot
 * Mark Valley as Gary Merrill, a fading actor and Bette Davis's estranged fourth husband
 * Jake Robards as Patrick O'Neal, Bette's costar in the Broadway production of The Night of the Iguana
 * Lizz Carter as Margaret Leighton, Bette's costar in the Broadway production of The Night of the Iguana
 * Kris Black as Cliff Robertson, Joan's costar in Autumn Leaves
 * Jon Morgan Woodward as Alfred Steele, the CEO of the Pepsi-Cola Company and Joan Crawford's fourth husband
 * Tom Berklund as Fred MacMurray, Joan's costar in Above Suspicion
 * Kerry Stein as Louis B. Mayer, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head
 * Scott Vance as Michael Curtiz, director of Mildred Pierce who gave Crawford her Best Actress Oscar in 1945
 * Toby Huss as Frank Sinatra, singer and actor who stars in Aldrich's film 4 for Texas
 * Cameron Cowperthwaite as Michael Parks, Bette's costar in an episode of Perry Mason
 * Daniel Hagen as Michael Luciano, film editor of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
 * Taylor Coffman as Lee Remick, Davis's co-nominee for Best Actress in 1963
 * Sarah Paulson as Geraldine Page, Davis's co-nominee for Best Actress in 1963
 * Cash Black as Rip Torn, Geraldine Page's husband
 * Raymond J. Barry as Hal LeSueur, Joan Crawford's brother
 * Serinda Swan as Anne Bancroft, winner of the Best Actress Oscar in 1963 for The Miracle Worker
 * Paris Verra as Patty Duke, winner of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1963, who appeared with Bancroft in The Miracle Worker
 * Phillip Boyd as Maximilian Schell, winner of the Best Actor Oscar in 1962 for Judgment at Nuremberg
 * Anthony Crivello as David Lean, winner of the Best Director Oscar in 1963 for Lawrence of Arabia
 * Bryant Boon as Gregory Peck, winner of the Best Actor Oscar in 1963 for To Kill a Mockingbird
 * Louis B. Jack as Ed Begley, winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1963 for Sweet Bird of Youth
 * Anthony Tyler Quinn as Wendell Corey, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1961 to 1963
 * Eric Callero as Jack Lord, actor who attended the 35th Academy Awards
 * Lindsay Hanzl as Eva Marie Saint, actress who attended the 35th Academy Awards
 * Greg Winter as Robert Stack, actor who attended the 35th Academy Awards
 * John Rubinstein as George Cukor, a film director and longtime friend of Crawford
 * John Waters as William Castle, the director and producer of Crawford's 1964 horror B movie Strait-Jacket
 * Earlene Davis as Agnes Moorehead, an actress who costars in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
 * Matthew Glave as Joseph Cotten, an actor who costars in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
 * James Hawthorn as Bruce Dern, actor who appears in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
 * Melissa Russell as Diane Baker, Joan's costar in Strait-Jacket

Development
Ryan Murphy, a fan of Davis since his childhood, interviewed the actress just months before her death in 1989. The agreed-upon 20-minute interview lasted four hours, and inspired his characterization of Davis in Feud. He said, "When I would ask her about Joan Crawford ... She would just go on about how much she hated her. But then she would sort of say ... 'She was a professional. And I admired that'." Murphy first conceived Bette and Joan as a film years before the FX series, and approached both Sarandon and Lange about the lead roles. Sarandon said, "It just felt like it didn't have a context, just being bitchy and kind of funny, but what else? In expanding it to eight hours, you could get more complexity and so many other characters."

Feud: Bette and Joan was being written at the same time that Murphy was forming his Half Foundation, which promotes an increased presence of women in film and television production positions. The series features 15 acting roles for women over 40, and half the episodes were directed by women, including actress Helen Hunt. Now conceived as the first season of an anthology series, Feud, developed by Murphy, was picked up to series by FX on May 5, 2016. Bette and Joan was inspired by the real-life feud between Crawford and Davis, and explores issues of sexism, ageism, and misogyny in Hollywood. Its eight episodes were expanded from a feature-length screenplay Murphy had optioned called Best Actress by Jaffe Cohen and Michael Zam.

Sarandon said, "In our story, it was a fact that [the people behind Baby Jane] encouraged the animosity [between Crawford and Davis], first of all to control them, second of all to make what they thought was more onscreen tension, and that really hasn't changed a lot." Melanie McFarland of Salon wrote that the series shows "just how brutal the Hollywood system was on some of the greatest talents in its firmament" and that it "cuts to the root of why collaborating and delighting in the fall of the mighty is eternally marketable." The Crawford-Davis feud was also documented in Shaun Considine's 1989 book Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud.

Casting
Susan Saradon was attached to star as Bette Davis while Jessica Lange a frequent Murphy collaborator who had previously portrayed Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest was brought back to reprise her role. Alfred Molina, Stanley Tucci, Judy Davis, and Dominic Burgess were later announced to be part of the cast, in the roles of Robert Aldrich, Jack L. Warner, Hedda Hopper, and Victor Buono, respectively. In August 2016, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sarah Paulson joined the cast playing Olivia de Havilland and Geraldine Page, respectively.

In September 2016, it was reported that American Horror Story executive producer Tim Minear would be co-showrunning the series with Murphy. Jackie Hoffman joined the cast as Mamacita, Crawford's housekeeper. In November 2016, Molly Price, Kathy Bates and Alison Wright joined the cast of the series, in the roles of Harriet Foster, Joan Blondell, and Pauline Jameson. In January 2017, it was announced Kiernan Shipka was cast in the series as Davis's daughter, Barbara "B.D." Sherry.

Sarandon admitted to initially being "overwhelmed and terrified" about the prospect of portraying Davis accurately. She said, "She's so big and she really was so big, so I tried not to make her a caricature or someone a female impersonator would do ... That was my fear, that she would just be kind of one-dimensional." Despite playing the same role Lange admitted to toning down her performance to an extent saying that her performance was more informed by her view that Crawford's "brutal childhood" was masked by the "beautiful, impenetrable veneer of this great, gorgeous movie star ... So she was always on, which is a tremendous burden in and of itself, but always there was this thing lurking underneath of being this poverty-stricken, abused, unloved, abandoned young child and woman. It almost felt like I was playing a different character at times." Both Sarandon and Lange researched their roles by reading books by and about Davis and Crawford, and watching and listening to TV performances and recordings.

Marketing
Murphy gave several interviews about Feud during the 2017 Winter TCA Press Tour. The show's first teaser trailer was released on January 19, 2017, and the second the following day. That same week, Lange and Sarandon appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as Crawford and Davis. FX released another teaser on January 23, two on February 5, one on February 7, and one on February 8. A short commercial for the show also aired during Super Bowl LI.

Premiere
Feud had its official premiere at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on March 1, 2017. Before the show's premiere, FX held screenings of the pilot episode at several gay bars across the United States.

Broadcast
The first season of eight episodes, Bette and Joan, premiered in the United States on March 5, 2017 on FX and on BBC Two in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2017.

Soundtrack
The original television soundtrack of Feud: Bette and Joan, with music by Mac Quayle, was released in two editions: a regular edition with 23 tracks, and a limited edition with 31 tracks.[citation needed]

Critical response
Feud received highly positive reviews, with major praise for Lange and Sarandon's performances. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an approval rating of 91% based on 84 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "While campily and sweetly indulgent, Feud: Bette and Joan provides poignant understanding of humanity, sorrow, and pain while breezily feeding inquisitive gossip-starved minds." On Metacritic, the series has a score of 81 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Melanie McFarland of Salon called the writing "creatively wicked" and the series "outrageously fantastic", praising Lange and Sarandon for their performances and for "tempering their decadent rages and vengeful spats with a gutting sense of loneliness that tempers its lightness in solemnity." Verne Gay of Newsday wrote that the series is "Full of joy, humor, brilliant writing and performances, and a deep unabiding love for what really makes Hollywood great—the women." People called the series "bitter, biting and entertaining". The Atlantic 's Spencer Kornhaber described the first few episodes as "deft and satisfying" but suggested that "maybe six installments, rather than eight, were all this tale needed". Alan Sepinwall of Uproxx wrote that the series is "big and it's catty, but it's also smart and elegant, with the old Hollywood setting toning down some of Murphy's more scattershot creative impulses." Emily Nussbaum, in The New Yorker, praised Murphy's ambition and lauded both stars, saying of the series, "Beneath the zingers and the poolside muumuus, the show's stark theme is how skillfully patriarchy screws with women's heads—mostly by building a home in there."

Not all reviews were positive. Sonia Saraiya of Variety  compared Bette and Joan unfavorably to Murphy's The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, writing that Feud is "neither as brilliantly campy and hateful as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? nor as contextualizing and profound as People v. O. J. Simpson." David Weigand of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the series a mixed review, criticizing the script and Lange's performance, but praising Sarandon's, writing: "Lange is always interesting, but she’s only occasionally convincing here as Crawford. The voice is too high, for one thing. Sarandon fares better, as much good as that does with such a lousy script." The Guardian also criticized the series for being "lightweight", noting, "At just eight episodes, there’s almost too much to cover and at times, one craves a little more depth to certain moments." They singled out Lange's performance, however, writing, "Lange in particular moves past just an easy impression to something with far more weight. In a reversal of fortune that would make Crawford cackle in her grave, it’s likely that she’ll be the one up for awards at the end of the year rather than her co-star."

Controversy
On June 30, 2017, a day before her 101st birthday, actress Olivia de Havilland filed a lawsuit against Feud: Bette and Joan for inaccurately portraying her and using her likeness without permission. The lawsuit stated that the pseudo-documentary-style of the series leads viewers to believe that the statements made by the actress portraying de Havilland in the show are accurate, but that in fact de Havilland had not said such things in real life. The various defendants filed a motion to dismiss under California's "anti-SLAPP" law. The trial court denied the motion but, on March 26, 2018, the California Court of Appeal, Second District, reversed the decision and ordered the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that no person can "own history". The Court of Appeal further ruled the defendants were entitled to be reimbursed their attorneys' fees. De Havilland filed for estoppels to pursue action with higher courts, securing a restraining order against Murphy and the production company from airing Feud until further review and a court date with the United States Supreme Court. In January 2019, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. de Havilland died in 2020.

Ratings
The first episode drew 2.26 million live-plus-same-day viewers, which Deadline.com characterized as "solid" and made it the most watched program on FX that week. In comparison, the premiere of The People v. O. J. Simpson attracted 5.1 million viewers in 2016, and the FX limited series Fargo got 2.66 million in 2014. The premiere earned 3.8 million viewers in the Nielsen live-plus-three-days ratings, and 5.17 million viewers total when including two encore broadcasts, making it the highest rated new series debut on FX since The People v. O. J. Simpson.