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When her performance failed to win the 1934 award of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the resulting protest was loud & long. But next year the Academy gave her an "Oscar" for her work in Warners' Dangerous.
For most actresses, Academy awards mean better roles, more salary. However, when the studio cast her for James Oliver Curwood's God's Country & The Woman, Actress Davis indulged in a little spade-calling, flounced off to Europe. The Warner legal department got busy. In London court Bette tried to hypnotize Mr. Justice Branson with her great, round eyes, but His Honor had his eyes on bewigged Warner Barrister Sir Patrick Hastings, who was saying: "This is rather a naughty young lady. What she wants is more money." To prove it, Sir Patrick read from a letter from Bette to Jack L. Warner: ". . . Our main problem is getting together on the money. . . . As a happy person I can work like hell." The court finally decided against her. "A hell of a life . . . a real sock in the teeth," raved Bette, and left to "serve five years in the Warner jail."
Jail of a sort it was. Bette had spent $18,000 fighting for freedom; Warners had spent $25,000 to get her back to work. With a judgment for the studio's court costs hanging over her head, Bette was philosophic: "A good licking is good for the soul," said she. But for good conduct the judgment was eventually waived and her pay boosted from $3,000 to $3,500 weekly. Since her return in December 1936, parts have been better (Marked Woman, Kid Galahad, It's Love I'm After), and only once has her wish been denied. That was when she sought the role of Nana in The Life of Emile Zola. The studio thought the part (eventually played by Erin O'Brien-Moore) "unworthy of a great actress."
Ham & Spuds. Bette Davis always thought she would marry Ham Nelson some day. At Cushing Academy she had him as her beau, and like a big brown faithful pet he somehow stuck close throughout the busy years that followed. In 1932 they were married at Yuma. His full name is Harmon Oscar Nelson Jr. He calls her Spuds, has given up leading orchestras to be a Hollywood agent. Once they lived in a big house in Brentwood, formerly occupied by Bette's favorite actress, Greta Garbo (whom she has never met). Now they rent Actor Robert Armstrong's secluded Coldwater Canyon house, which has a tennis court, swimming pool, wide sunny patio and porches, and plenty of room for the houseful of schnauzers, Sealyhams, Scotties and poodles who make an entrance when Ham rings a bell. Bette reads piles of popular novels, smokes chains of cigarettes, takes few drinks because they affect her quickly. The social life of the Nelsons is mostly bridge with the Robert C. Pelgrams (Sister Barbara), Boston bean suppers cooked by Ruthie, dancing, not in Hollywood's gaudy "strip" of nightclubs but in Los Angeles' public Palomar dance hall, where Benny Goodman sometimes plays.
What Bette Davis dislikes most about Hollywood is its la-de-da parties and glamor girls. She also dislikes toadying to the powers-that-be. In Hollywood it is considered policy to court fat Hearst Gossip-Writer Louella 0. ("Lolly") Parsons. But Bette does no courting.