Inside Bette Davis’ Passionate Love Affairs — and Why Her Need for Sex Was ‘Unbecoming’

Two-time Academy Award winner Bette Davis insisted she was the first to call the film industry’s highest award an Oscar. “I named it after the rear end of my husband,” she said. “Why? Because that’s what it looked like.”

Over five decades, the legendary actress appeared in more than 100 films and continued to work until shortly before her 1989 death at age 81. “It was my terror that I’d never work again,” she said after surviving a stroke and breast cancer in 1983, “for I have always very much loved to work.”

This commitment along with real talent made her one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed stars of the Golden Age. Unfortunately, she was much less successful in her personal life. Bette married four times and carried on a string of passionate affairs, but never found a love that would last. Still, Bette didn’t blame her profession for her disappointments.

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“A torturous personal life might happen whether or not you become famous,” she reasoned. “I can’t blame my profession for what happened in my personal life.”

New England-born Ruth Elizabeth Davis changed the spelling of her nickname Betty to “Bette” to become more memorable as a young theater actress in New York. In 1930, she landed in Hollywood with her chaperoning mother and won a contract with Universal Pictures.

Two years later, she was a virgin bride when she wed her first husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson, a bandleader.

“She married him because he was a sweet guy from Maine,” Julia A. Stern, author of Bette Davis Black and White, exclusively tells Closer.

Unfortunately, their happiness would not last. “He felt emasculated by her fame and success,” Julia explains. Oscar also accused his wife of reading “to an unnecessary degree” in their 1938 divorce.

A book habit might seem like a small issue in a marriage, but the divorce papers also accused Bette of having an affair with Howard Hughes. She met him through the Tailwaggers Society, a Hollywood animal rescue group.

“He seemed reserved, even shy,” Bette said of the business mogul, who asked if he could see her again. “I was flattered. I was married. I was bored. I accepted.”

Later in life, Bette admitted that she was a very passionate woman. “I liked sex in a way that was considered unbecoming for a woman of my time,” she confided. “The way I felt was only considered appropriate for a man. It was both a physical and emotional need. It had advantages in the pleasure it brought me, but it also made me a victim — dependent.”

The one lover that Bette wanted most was William Wyler, the director of some of her best films, including Jezebel, Dark Victory and The Little Foxes.

“He was everything I ever dreamed of in a man, so love and passion soon followed,” said Bette, who found him to be both desirable and her intellectual equal.

“The love of her life was Willie Wyler,” Bette’s longtime personal assistant, Kathryn Sermak, the author of Miss D & Me: Life With the Invincible Bette Davis, tells Closer. “She always stated that it just wouldn’t have worked because they were both very strong people.”

After a fierce argument with William on the set of 1938’s Jezebel, Bette sought revenge in the arms of her costar Henry Fonda. Bette and Henry had known each other since their summer stock days, and Bette always harbored a crush on him, but he was married and her heart truly belonged to William.

Bette and the director almost became engaged — even before her divorce from Oscar became final.

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“They got into a fight, and he sent a letter proposing marriage,” says Julia. “He said, ‘You have a week to respond or I am out of your life.’ But she didn’t open the letter. When she finally did, she was over the moon, but then she heard on the radio that he had married someone else.”

Bette tried not to mix work with pleasure, but there were exceptions. She and Joan Crawford both carried a torch for actor Franchot Tone.

“She took him from me,” said Bette about the man who would become Joan’s husband. “I have never forgiven her for that and never will.”

Bette also reportedly had an affair with Humphrey Bogart, her costar in Dark Victory, and Glenn Ford, whom she shared the screen with for the first time in A Stolen Life. Those romances never went anywhere.

“Rather odd people become actors, and they are vain,” Bette said. “They are much vainer than women.”

Her second husband, Arthur Farnsworth, was a divorced aeronautical engineer whom she met at a New Hampshire inn. They purchased Butternut, a fixer-upper estate in New England where Bette relaxed for three months every year.

“Bette didn’t care about being a movie star,” explains Julia. “She was a workaholic, but she was often photographed at home in the equivalent of sweatpants.”

She and Arthur might have remained happy together, but in 1943 he fell on Hollywood Boulevard and died at the hospital a little while later. Arthur had taken a tumble a few weeks earlier at Butternut and likely sustained a cerebral hemorrhage that went undetected.

“There was this horrible rumor that Bette had murdered him by pushing him down the stairs,” says Julia. “That is complete nonsense.”

In 1945, Bette tried again with William Grant Sherry, an artist. She gave birth to their daughter, Barbara Davis Sherry, nicknamed B.D., in 1947.

“That relationship was super passionate, but he became violent with Bette,” reveals Julia.

The pair, who split up in 1950, fought over their daughter’s custody. William later married B.D.’s nanny, Marion Richards.

“He was a very childish type of human being, [but out of our marriage] came this marvelous daughter who has been the greatest fun of my life,” Bette gushed.

She met her final husband, actor Gary Merrill, on the set of All About Eve, where he played her lover. The couple wed in 1950 and would remain together for a decade, adopting two children, Michael and Margot.

“Gary was a macho man, but none of my husbands was ever man enough to become Mr. Bette Davis,” said Bette, who divorced Gary in 1960 due to his drinking.

She never married again. “Love is a big joke on all of us,” Bette said. “I chose very foolishly, but how can one regret this choice? I believe in one thing in this world: Out of everything comes some good, even if you just learn something.”