And it looks like she is getting in a pop at Joan Crawford too …From a 1965 interview with the now defunct magazine "Films & Filming":
(right: Bette when I saw her at the London National Film Theatre in 1972)
“I have been a star for two generations..... In some instances the old films stand up well. This is nothing to do with just my films – if a film was very good when it was first made it is still quite good. If it was a bomb when first released thirty years is not going to make it look better.
I was terribly fortunate only in one thing that in my personal taste I never was one to go in for the “present style” in clothes. I wear basically the same kind of clothes today on the screen and off as when I played a modern part back then. That is really what has hit many of the films, when a woman wore all the mad clothes and they really are ridiculous. It’s because I always basically wore what we call classic clothes today - all the wardrobe for DARK VICTORY you could wear today, with the possible exception of an inch or two in the skirt. I never wore padded shoulders and I very seldom wore hats and I never had crazy hairdos. And that really is what hurt the old films the most.”
(right: Bette when I saw her at the London National Film Theatre in 1972)
“I have been a star for two generations..... In some instances the old films stand up well. This is nothing to do with just my films – if a film was very good when it was first made it is still quite good. If it was a bomb when first released thirty years is not going to make it look better.
I was terribly fortunate only in one thing that in my personal taste I never was one to go in for the “present style” in clothes. I wear basically the same kind of clothes today on the screen and off as when I played a modern part back then. That is really what has hit many of the films, when a woman wore all the mad clothes and they really are ridiculous. It’s because I always basically wore what we call classic clothes today - all the wardrobe for DARK VICTORY you could wear today, with the possible exception of an inch or two in the skirt. I never wore padded shoulders and I very seldom wore hats and I never had crazy hairdos. And that really is what hurt the old films the most.”
Hmmm. I suppose I agree with Bette -- in her personal taste, she was very classic, very Yankee, and really very elegant. For instance, her 1970's appearance on Dick Cavett found her in a chic, all-black ensemble consisting of a mink cape, little black dress, leather boots, gloves, and a diamond brooch. Around the same time, Crawford was on David Frost in a hot pink evening gown, matching (plastic-covered) bag, turban, and lame' f*ck-me pumps. But you gotta love both -- sometimes, one desires pistachio as much as vanilla.
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