Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte although some are complimentary and sympathetic toward her. Willis hands her an envelope from the now-dead Jewel Mayhew, who had a stroke after hearing of the incident the previous night. The envelope contains Jewel's confession to the murder of her husband. As the authorities drive Charlotte away, she looks back at her beloved plantation. Following the unexpected box-office success of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962), director Robert Aldrich wanted to make a film on similar themes that reunited stars Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. Writer Henry Farrell, on whose novel the film had been based, had written an
Bette Davis (1976), but she clashed with Karen Black and Faye Dunaway, the stars of the two latter respective productions, because she felt that neither extended her an appropriate degree of respect, and that their behavior on the film sets was unprofessional. In 1977, Davis became the first woman to receive the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. The televised event included comments from several of Davis' colleagues, including William Wyler, who joked that given the chance, Davis would still like to re-film a scene from "The Letter" to which Davis nodded. Jane Fonda, Henry Fonda, Natalie Wood, and Olivia de Havilland