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 and Joan: The Divine Feud Bette Davis, notorious for refusing to bow to the studio bosses, were two of the biggest Hollywood stars of their time. Their rivalry exploded during their work together on the horror film "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" and became a public feud that lasted the rest of their lives. Based on interviews the author conducted with both actresses and more than a decade of research, the book shows the hard-drinking, hard-fighting, and fading stars at their best and worst. The Crawford-Davis rivalry is the inspiration for the 2017 Ryan Murphy TV series "Feud." Crawford is played by Jessica Lange