Ryan Murphy (writer) in 2017. The first season focused on the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of their 1962 film "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?". With newcomer Steven Canals, a research assistant for Dustin Lance Black before his Master of Fine Arts at UCLA, Murphy and Falchuk launched a new series set in the Ball community in mid-1980s New York City. Murphy had wanted to adapt "Paris is Burning" as a series and Canals had been writing a script while at graduate school centered on a young African American teen made homeless for being gay, who moved
Bette Davis of Margo Channing in the film as fifth on their list of 100 Greatest Performances of All Time, commenting: "There is something deliciously audacious about her gleeful willingness to play such unattractive emotions as jealousy, bitterness, and neediness." While reviewing "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) in 2008, Ebert asserted that, "No one who has seen the film will ever forget her." A few months before her death in 1989, Davis was one of several actors featured on the cover of "Life" magazine. In a film retrospective that celebrated the films and stars of 1939, "Life" concluded that Davis