It was called Frankly Speaking and by golly it was. The great screen actress Bette Davis was being interviewed by not one but two men: George Coulouris, with whom she co-starred in Hollywood, and a BBC producer. ‘It’s a little sad for some of us who adore your work that a lot of your best performances have been in fairly trivial films,’ said the producer, Peter Duval-Smith, as if to tempt Davis into dishing the dirt on the directors who made her what she became. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Davis replied, not a woman to be tricked into anything.
‘Who do you think made you a star?’ Duval-Smith persisted.
‘Me myself,’ said Davis. ‘And my sweat, blood and tears…’
‘Nobody helped you?’
‘Beyond that, there were the fabulous public relations people. They presented us to the public.
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