What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 film) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 film) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1962 American psychological thriller–horror film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, about an aging former actress who holds her paraplegic ex-movie star sister captive in an old Hollywood mansion. The screenplay by Lukas Heller is based on the novel "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" by Henry Farrell. Upon the film's release, it was met with widespread critical and box office acclaim and was later nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one for Best Costume Design, Black and
Bette Davis an English teacher who saves a young Welsh miner (John Dall) from a life in the coal pits, by offering him education. The part had been played in the theatre by Ethel Barrymore, but Warner Bros. felt that the film version should depict the character as a younger woman. Davis disagreed, and insisted on playing the part as written, and wore a gray wig and padding under her clothes, to create a dowdy appearance. The film was well received by critics, and made a profit of $2.2 million. The critic E. Arnot Robertson observed: Only Bette Davis...could have combated so