Gary Merrill on July 28, 1950. That same day, he married Bette Davis, his co-star from "All About Eve", and adopted her daughter Barbara from a previous marriage. He and Davis adopted two more children, Margo and Michael, but they had a bitter divorce in 1960. Often politically active, he campaigned in 1958 to elect the Democrat, Edmund Sixtus Muskie, as governor of Maine. Merrill also took part in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 to promote Black voter registration. In response to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam War policy, he unsuccessfully sought nomination to the Maine legislature as an
Bette Davis after Honoré de Balzac's "La Cousine Bette". During their time in New York, Davis became a Girl Scout who proved so successful she later ranked as a Patrol Leader. Davis attended Cushing Academy, a boarding school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, where she met her future husband, Harmon O. Nelson, known as "Ham". In 1926, a then 18-year-old Davis saw a production of Henrik Ibsen's "The Wild Duck" with Blanche Yurka and Peg Entwistle. Davis later recalled for Al Cohn of "Newsday", "The reason I wanted to go into theater was because of an actress named Peg Entwistle." She auditioned for admission