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 Eyes pedal steel guitar and horns. However, it was not until 1981, when Kim Carnes recorded her version of the song in a radically different synthesizer-based arrangement, that "Bette Davis Eyes" became a commercial success. The Carnes version spent nine non-consecutive weeks on top of the US "Billboard" Hot 100 (interrupted for one week by the "Stars on 45 Medley") and was "Billboard"s biggest hit of the year for 1981. The single also reached No. 5 on Billboard's Top Tracks charts and No. 26 on the Dance charts. The song won the Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Record