Baby Jane Hudson
Encyclopedia
Baby Jane Hudson is a fictional character
and the antagonist
of Henry Farrell
's 1960 novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
She was portrayed by Bette Davis
in the 1962 film adaptation
and by Lynn Redgrave
in the 1991 made for TV remake
. The 1962 production is the better-known, with Bette Davis earning an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
, billed as the "The Diminutive Dancing Duse From Duluth
." In the film version, a prologue set in 1917 shows her performing with her father, while her mother and sister Blanche watch from backstage. She is evidently favored and spoiled by her father, while her mother attempts to soften Blanche's anger and envy, by promising that one day her chance at stardom will come. The novel reveals that the sisters move to Hollywood to live with an aunt who favors Blanche the way their father had preferred Jane. By the mid-1930s, Blanche and Jane are in Hollywood. Blanche is a successful actress while Jane gets film work only because her sister's contract demands it. While Blanche becomes the leading lady of her era, Jane is widely seen as a has-been, and her films are critical and commercial failures.
One night, an inebriated Jane mocks and humiliates Blanche at a party, provoking Blanche into running away in tears. That night, Blanche is paralyzed from the waist down
in a mysterious car accident that is unofficially blamed on Jane, who was found three days later in a drunken stupor, with no memory of what had happened. The accident ends both Blanche and Jane's career. Jane spends the next three decades living with and caring for Blanche.
Over the years, Jane sinks into alcoholism
and mental illness
. She is now a grotesque caricature of her childhood self, wearing hideously caked on make-up, her hair in greasy curls, and dressing like a 10-year-old girl. A TV retrospective honoring Blanche's old films sends Jane into a jealous rage as she realizes that she is no longer the ingenue she once was. Delusional and stuck in the past, she clings to the hope that she can revive her child act, even though she is now approaching old age. Jane is driven to desperation by the combination of the increased attention towards Blanche, her discovery that Blanche plans to sell the house and have her committed to a mental hospital
, and her futile attempts to revive her long-dead career. She steals Blanche's money to pay for an accompanist and for adult-sized versions of her little-girl costumes. She kills her sister's pet parakeet
and serves it to her for dinner, thereafter keeping her as a virtual prisoner in her room. Jane once again drowns her sorrows and pathetically sings to her reflection her signature song, "I've Written a Letter to Daddy", a cloying music hall number from her childhood. However, upon seeing her reflection, and seeing the damage age and drink have done to her, Jane snaps and destroys the mirror.
When Blanche's cleaning woman, Elvira Stitt, threatens to report Jane's abuses, Jane murders her and disposes of the body. After a call from the police asking about Elvira, whose family has reported her missing, Jane worries that she will be caught. When the accompanist she's hired, Edwin Flagg, discovers Blanche bound and gagged in the bedroom, Jane flees to the seashore with Blanche. On the beach, a dying Blanche reveals that it was she who was driving the night of the accident, having intended to kill Jane; she blamed the accident on Jane, who had been too drunk to remember. This revelation destroys what little remains of Jane's sanity, and she regresses to her childhood and becomes "Baby Jane" once again. She goes off to buy ice cream, at which point the police identify her. She dances like a child for the crowd that has gathered to watch the spectacle.
-like curls performing the syrupy, "I've Written a Letter to Daddy."
Jane's final scene in the film is patterned on the final scene of Sunset Boulevard, where Gloria Swanson's
character descends the stairs for an imagined film scene after killing her lover. The success of the movie led to the director's undertaking a film using similar themes and characters, Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, also starring Davis as a mentally unstable recluse lost in her delusions.
Jane and Blanche's story is parodied in an apocryphal comic strip in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier
by Alan Moore
and Kevin O'Neill
.
exploited the reputations of his two stars, Bette Davis
and Joan Crawford
(who played Blanche), by using their 1930s film clips when the story called for examples of their characters' work. The legendary enmity of the two actresses was also used to fuel the energy of their performances and to gain publicity.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
and the antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
of Henry Farrell
Henry Farrell
Henry Farrell was an American novelist and screenwriter, best known as the author of the renowned gothic horror story What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which was made into a film starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.-Life and work:He was born Charles Farrell Myers in California, and grew up in...
's 1960 novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a suspense novel by author Henry Farrell published in 1960 by Rinehart & Company. The novel has earned a cult following and has been made into several movies.-Plot summary:...
She was portrayed by Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
in the 1962 film adaptation
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (film)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1962 American psychological thriller film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The screenplay by Lukas Heller is based on the novel of the same name by Henry Farrell...
and by Lynn Redgrave
Lynn Redgrave
Lynn Rachel Redgrave, OBE was an English actress.A member of the well-known British family of actors, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962...
in the 1991 made for TV remake
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (TV movie)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1991 ABC television film starring real-life sisters Lynn Redgrave as Baby Jane Hudson and Vanessa Redgrave as Blanche Hudson....
. The 1962 production is the better-known, with Bette Davis earning an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
In the novel and film
At the chronological beginning of the story, "Baby" Jane Hudson is a highly successful child star in vaudevilleVaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
, billed as the "The Diminutive Dancing Duse From Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
." In the film version, a prologue set in 1917 shows her performing with her father, while her mother and sister Blanche watch from backstage. She is evidently favored and spoiled by her father, while her mother attempts to soften Blanche's anger and envy, by promising that one day her chance at stardom will come. The novel reveals that the sisters move to Hollywood to live with an aunt who favors Blanche the way their father had preferred Jane. By the mid-1930s, Blanche and Jane are in Hollywood. Blanche is a successful actress while Jane gets film work only because her sister's contract demands it. While Blanche becomes the leading lady of her era, Jane is widely seen as a has-been, and her films are critical and commercial failures.
One night, an inebriated Jane mocks and humiliates Blanche at a party, provoking Blanche into running away in tears. That night, Blanche is paralyzed from the waist down
Paraplegia
Paraplegia is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek: παραπληγίη "half-striking". It is usually the result of spinal cord injury or a congenital condition such as spina bifida that affects the neural elements of the spinal canal...
in a mysterious car accident that is unofficially blamed on Jane, who was found three days later in a drunken stupor, with no memory of what had happened. The accident ends both Blanche and Jane's career. Jane spends the next three decades living with and caring for Blanche.
Over the years, Jane sinks into alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
and mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
. She is now a grotesque caricature of her childhood self, wearing hideously caked on make-up, her hair in greasy curls, and dressing like a 10-year-old girl. A TV retrospective honoring Blanche's old films sends Jane into a jealous rage as she realizes that she is no longer the ingenue she once was. Delusional and stuck in the past, she clings to the hope that she can revive her child act, even though she is now approaching old age. Jane is driven to desperation by the combination of the increased attention towards Blanche, her discovery that Blanche plans to sell the house and have her committed to a mental hospital
Mental Hospital
Mental hospital may refer to:*Psychiatric hospital*hospital in Nepal named Mental Hospital...
, and her futile attempts to revive her long-dead career. She steals Blanche's money to pay for an accompanist and for adult-sized versions of her little-girl costumes. She kills her sister's pet parakeet
Parakeet
Parakeet is a term for any one of a large number of unrelated small to medium sized species of parrot, that generally have long tail feathers...
and serves it to her for dinner, thereafter keeping her as a virtual prisoner in her room. Jane once again drowns her sorrows and pathetically sings to her reflection her signature song, "I've Written a Letter to Daddy", a cloying music hall number from her childhood. However, upon seeing her reflection, and seeing the damage age and drink have done to her, Jane snaps and destroys the mirror.
When Blanche's cleaning woman, Elvira Stitt, threatens to report Jane's abuses, Jane murders her and disposes of the body. After a call from the police asking about Elvira, whose family has reported her missing, Jane worries that she will be caught. When the accompanist she's hired, Edwin Flagg, discovers Blanche bound and gagged in the bedroom, Jane flees to the seashore with Blanche. On the beach, a dying Blanche reveals that it was she who was driving the night of the accident, having intended to kill Jane; she blamed the accident on Jane, who had been too drunk to remember. This revelation destroys what little remains of Jane's sanity, and she regresses to her childhood and becomes "Baby Jane" once again. She goes off to buy ice cream, at which point the police identify her. She dances like a child for the crowd that has gathered to watch the spectacle.
In popular culture
Among the film's most recognized images is Bette Davis as the aged Jane in blond Shirley TempleShirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
-like curls performing the syrupy, "I've Written a Letter to Daddy."
Jane's final scene in the film is patterned on the final scene of Sunset Boulevard, where Gloria Swanson's
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
character descends the stairs for an imagined film scene after killing her lover. The success of the movie led to the director's undertaking a film using similar themes and characters, Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, also starring Davis as a mentally unstable recluse lost in her delusions.
Jane and Blanche's story is parodied in an apocryphal comic strip in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier is an original graphic novel in the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. It was the last volume of the series to be published by DC Comics. Although the third book to be...
by Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
and Kevin O'Neill
Kevin O'Neill (comics)
Kevin O'Neill is an English comic book illustrator best known as the co-creator of Nemesis the Warlock, Marshal Law , and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen .-Early career:...
.
Bette Davis' acting
In the 1962 film version, director Robert AldrichRobert Aldrich
Robert Aldrich was an American film director, writer and producer, notable for such films as Kiss Me Deadly , The Big Knife , What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? , Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte , The Flight of the Phoenix , The Dirty Dozen , and The Longest Yard .-Biography:Robert...
exploited the reputations of his two stars, Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
and Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
(who played Blanche), by using their 1930s film clips when the story called for examples of their characters' work. The legendary enmity of the two actresses was also used to fuel the energy of their performances and to gain publicity.