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 film as "an unfortunate finale to her brilliant career". Hedda Hopper wrote: "If Bette had deliberately set out to wreck her career, she could not have picked a more appropriate vehicle." The film contained the line, "What a dump!", which became closely associated with Davis after it was referenced in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", and impersonators began to use it in their acts. Davis filmed "The Story of a Divorce" (released by RKO Radio Pictures in 1951 as "Payment on Demand"). Shortly before filming was completed, producer Darryl F. Zanuck offered her the role of the aging