Henry Farrell, 85, the Author of ‘Baby Jane’ and Grim Tales, Dies
from the NY Times
Henry Farrell, whose gift for writing pulpy melodrama was most famously realized in the 1962 movie “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” died on March 29 at his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif. He was 85.
Mary Bishop, his executor, confirmed his death.
The “Baby Jane” movie was based on a novel Mr. Farrell wrote in 1960. He was also a co-writer of the screenplay for the 1964 campy cult classic “Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” which was based on one of his short stories.
In both movies, Mr. Farrell made a bad joke of the command to grow old gracefully by creating once-glamorous female characters and turning them into crazy hags acting out evil fantasies.
In “Baby Jane,” the stars were Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, who had never appeared together and who were both trying to revive flagging careers. Davis played a woman who had been a world-famous child actress but who had lost her popularity as she grew up, until all she had left were photographs and glorious memories. Crawford played her sister, a former movie star who had suffered an accident that put her in a wheelchair at the peak of her career.
Miss Davis’s character becomes her sister’s vengeance-seeking custodian. She feeds her sister a dead pet canary and a scalded rat for “din-din.”
Mr. Farrell’s press agent, Mitch Douglas, said Davis and Crawford had been enticed into the movie by the book and the chance to co-star. He said each actress used exactly the same words about the other: “I’ll wipe the floor with her.”
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
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