Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Miss D and Me
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: c. 1956
WEBSITE: https://www.missdandme.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.missdandme.com/kathryn-sermak
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | no2017116851 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/no2017116851 |
| HEADING: | Sermak, Kathryn |
| 000 | 00920nz a2200181n 450 |
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| 005 | 20170906073618.0 |
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| 010 | __ |a no2017116851 |
| 035 | __ |a (OCoLC)oca10967882 |
| 040 | __ |a IEdL |b eng |e rda |c IEdL |
| 100 | 1_ |a Sermak, Kathryn |
| 372 | __ |a Authorship |a Family foundations |2 lcsh |
| 374 | __ |a Authors |a Administrative assistants |2 lcsh |
| 375 | __ |a female |
| 377 | __ |a eng |
| 670 | __ |a Sermak, Kathryn. Miss D & me, 2017: |b title page (Kathryn Sermak) |
| 670 | __ |a linkedin.com, viewed September 5, 2017: |b (Kathryn Sermak, assistant to Bette Davis and co-founder of the Bette Davis Foundation with Miss Davis’s son, Michael Merrill and member of the board of trustees. Accomplished and globally traveled Executive Personal Assistant, experienced and catering to the needs and commitments of high-achieving, high net-worth clients in the entertainment and business sectors) |
PERSONAL
Born c. 1956.
EDUCATION:University of Southern California, B.S., B.A.; also attended University of Madrid and Institute Catolique de Paris.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author; personal assistant to late Bette Davis; co-founder (with Michael Merrill, Bette Davis’s son) and member of board of trustees, Bette Davis Foundation, 1997–. Also worked as a television producer and as personal assistant to HH Princess Shams Pahlavi, Isabelle Adjani, Pierre Salinger, Buzz Aldrin, Berry Gordy Jr., Patrick Kelly, and Michael Gornall.
AWARDS:Personal Assistant Career Award, 2003.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Kathryn Sermak is a professional personal assistant who has worked for a variety of celebrities and noteworthy people, including royalty (Shams Pahlavi, sister to the Shah of Iran), an actress (Isabelle Adjani), a politician and journalist (Pierre Salinger), a composer/producer (Berry Gordy Jr.), an astronaut (Patrick Kelly), and a cartoonist (Michael Gornail). Her most famous client, however, was the classic film actress Bette Davis, with whom she worked and lived for about a quarter of a century until Davis’s death in 1989. Sermak is the author of the memoir Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis, coauthored with journalist Danelle Morton.
Sermak knew Bette Davis better than anyone else during the last decade of the film icon’s life. “In 1979, at the age of twenty-three,” explained the author of a biographical blurb appearing on the memoir’s website Miss D and Me, “Kathryn Sermak was hired by Bette Davis as the legend’s Girl Friday.” “As the young assistant was soon to learn, it isn’t easy being loved by Bette Davis,” said Sherryl Connelly in the New York Daily News. “Two days into her new job, the actress informed Sermak that her handshake was lacking. She ordered the new hire to extend her hand and barked commands to shake firmer and with confidence, again and again. Davis didn’t let go until Sermak got it right. At a hotel in Dover, England, the two had only just escaped their room after a fire alarm sounded when Davis ordered Sermak to go back in. Davis had forgotten her cigarettes.” “Over the years, Sermak and Davis grew close,” said Patrick Gomez in People. “The two traveled and stayed together any time Davis vacationed or was on location for a shoot. In 1983, Davis, then seventy-five, suffered a massive stroke. Sermak stayed in the hospital with her for three months. In her final years, Davis had Sermak accompany her on a few European vacations.” “Kathryn was by Bette’s side when she had her stroke, her breast cancer and when her cancer that had been in remission for five years, returned in January 1989,” declared Carolyn Howe in the Daily Mail. “Lying in the hospital in Neuilly sur Seine, France, Bette told her, ‘Kath, come here, give me your hand. You’ve given me so much joy and you must always remember that. Now you must be strong and you will be. You’re my stepdaughter and I’m so very proud of you.'”
In the memoir Sermak gives her own eyewitness account of some of the most famous moemnts in Davis’s life and career. “There are also tense episodes surrounding Davis’s relationship with her family,” said a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “especially her daughter, B.D., who secretly writes a tell-all memoir.” “Hyman released her story on Mother’s Day, just months after Davis underwent a mastectomy and suffered a stroke that nearly killed her,” Stephanie Nolasco wrote in an article published on the Fox News website. “Sermak … told Fox News the publication left Davis so humiliated she didn’t want to live anymore. ‘It was a huge betrayal,” said Sermak. “Miss D never got over it. Never. You don’t just get over something like that… But that doesn’t mean you stop loving the person. It was so horrible… Even with all of that, Miss D said, “She’s still my daughter.” But it broke her heart forever. You don’t get over that.’”
Sermak’s book was released soon after the airing of the miniseries Feud, about Davis’s legendary rivalry with Joan Crawford. “Sermak and the lady she called Miss D struck a close friendship during the ten years they worked and traveled together, assuring Davis she would not be lonely for the rest of her days,” said Jeremy Kinser in Palm Springs Life. “Now with a new generation discovering the late screen icon thanks to the success of the FX series Feud: Bette and Joan, which documented Davis’ alleged rivalry with Joan Crawford while the two filmed the classic chiller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, there’s renewed interest in her personal life, as well.” Feud “introduced Miss Davis and Joan Crawford to a whole new generation,” Sermak told Kinser. “Young kids email me who’ve seen more of her films than I have.”
Critics celebrated Sermak’s depiction of Davis. “The love between these two women—platonic, aspirational, and nurturing—is the capstone of Miss D & Me. It is a type of female bond rarely portrayed in either books or cinema,” stated Marcie Bianco in Vanity Fair. “‘We had become attuned to each other,’ Sermak writes of their synergy. Davis would often call Sermak her … ‘chum-friend-daughter,’ and signed her many letters with a variety of maternal appellations, like ‘Mother M’ (‘M’ for ‘Merrill,’ the surname of her fourth and final husband).” “However,” declared a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “the book is a poignant portrait of an aging screen icon reduced to taking her medicine with swigs of Ensure Plus and struggling to live her life.” “Poignant with touches of humor, ‘Miss D & Me’ is a fitting fade-out for an actress who made it look easy to stay tough,” declared Douglass K. Daniel in NWI.com. “Yet Sermak’s book brings to mind a different Davis reflection that her fans will find more perceptive with each passing year: ‘Old age ain’t no place for sissies.'”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Country Living, August 31, 2017, Megan Friedman, “Bette Davis’ Assistant Reveals What She Was Like in Her Final Days.”
Daily Mail, September 8, 2017, Caroline Howe, review of Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis.
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2017, review of Miss D & Me.
New York Daily News, August 26, 2017, Sherryl Connelly, review of Miss D & Me.
Palm Springs Life, November 27, 2017, Jeremy Kinser, “A Decade with Bette Davis.”
People, August 31, 2017, Patrick Gomez, review of Miss D & Me.
Publishers Weekly, June 5, 2017, review of Miss D & Me, p. 43.
Vanity Fair, September 12, 2017, Marcie Bianco, review of Miss D & Me.
Washington Times, September 11, 2017, Douglass K. Daniel, review of Miss D & Me.
ONLINE
Fox News, http://www.foxnews.com/ (September 15, 2017), Stephanie Nolasco, review of Miss D & Me.
Miss D and Me, https://www.missdandme.com/ (April 18, 2018), “Who Is Kathryn Sermak?”
NWI.com, http://www.nwitimes.com/ (September 14, 2017), Douglass K. Daniel, review of Miss D & Me.
WHO IS KATHRYN SERMAK?
In 1979, at the age of twenty-three, Kathryn Sermak was hired by Bette Davis as the legend’s Girl Friday. Since Miss Davis's death, Kathryn has continued to preserve the memory of her friend and mentor. In 1997 she co-founded the Bette Davis Foundation with Miss Davis's son, Michael Merrill, and is a member of the Board of Trustees. The Foundation offers bursaries to gifted young actors, and in 1998 presented the first Bette Davis Lifetime Achievement Award to Meryl Streep. Along with Mr. Merrill, Kathryn is also co-executor of the Bette Davis Estate.
Kathryn has been personal assistant to HH Princess Shams Pahlavi (sister to the Shah of Iran); French actress Isabelle Adjani; the statesman and journalist Pierre Salinger; astronaut Dr. Buzz Aldrin, Motown Founder Berry Gordy Jr.; famed American designer Patrick Kelly, and the co-creator of “Where’s Waldo” Michael Gornall.
Kathryn was also among the first to receive the Personal Assistant Career Award in 2003. She has worked as an associate producer in TV production and development, in addition to having collaborated with Miss Davis on her New York Times bestseller THIS N THAT (Putnam, 1987) and the reissue of Miss Davis's autobiography THE LONELY LIFE. (Berkley, 1990.)
Kathryn Sermak earned her BA and BS degree from the University of Southern California, after completing her senior year at the University of Madrid, and attended the prestigious Institute Catolique De Paris.
Photo by Gor Megaera
Sermak, Kathryn: MISS D AND ME
Kirkus Reviews.
(June 15, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Sermak, Kathryn MISS D AND ME Hachette (Adult Nonfiction) $27.00 9, 12 ISBN: 978-0-316-50784-4
A chronicle of the last years of a cinema legend as told by her personal assistant. Would anyone familiar with Bette Davis' reputation as headstrong and independent be surprised to learn that she yanked out the bushes of a Long Island beachfront property she rented for a weekend because she didn't like the way they looked? Sermak, co-executor of Davis' estate, was a 22-year-old Southern California native in 1979 when she jettisoned a plan to pursue a career in clinical psychology and took a job as the 71-year-old actress's personal assistant. This book covers the years in which Sermak was Davis' live-in assistant, accompanying her to film sets, cooking her meals, and staying by Davis' side during and after the star's 1983 mastectomy and stroke. (The author movingly renders these scenes.) Davis was as much a mentor to Sermak as an employer. She told her to change the spelling of her first name because "one of the big battles in life is to stand out from the crowd," gave her lessons on posture, and even hired a butler to teach her the protocol for a formal dinner. One might have expected this book to be a hagiography, but, refreshingly, the author shows not only Davis' kindness, but also her cruelty, as when she rudely declined a dinner invitation from Sermak's mother. The author gets bogged down in extraneous detail, with rambling accounts of conversations and long descriptions of the meals she and Davis enjoyed. However, the book is a poignant portrait of an aging screen icon reduced to taking her medicine with swigs of Ensure Plus and struggling to live her life with the grandeur to which she had become accustomed. Sermak writes of Davis' tutelage, "she was training me for a world that was fading from view." The author ably documents Davis' growing realization that, long before her death in 1989, her time was already passing.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sermak, Kathryn: MISS D AND ME." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2017. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495427790/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=9c8f3bc6. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A495427790
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Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis
Publishers Weekly.
264.23 (June 5, 2017): p43. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis Kathryn Sermak, with Danelle Morton.
Hachette, $27 (304p) ISBN 978-0-316-50784-4
Bette Davis was demanding and a perfectionist, Sermak writes in her lively memoir about being the two-time Oscar-winning actress's personal assistant. As Sermak writes, Davis valued loyalty and discretion in employees and work was her salvation. These may not be earth-shattering revelations, but Sermak's story concentrates less on the famous star and more on her own maturation while employed by Davis from 1979 to 1985. Hired as a "girl Friday," Sermak soaked up the life lessons Davis imparted, such as how to give a firm handshake and how to stand out from the crowd. The prickly-turned-warm relationship between these two women unfolds on movie sets, the hospitals where Davis recovers from a stroke, and during a scenic road trip through France. There are also tense episodes surrounding Davis's relationship with her family, especially her daughter, B.D., who secretly writes a tell-all memoir about mama. This nice-not- nasty book is not going to satisfy fans of TV's Feud looking for gossip--there is only one real dig at Joan Crawford, Davis's famous bete noire--but it will appeal to those who want an insider's view of Davis, even if the focus is mainly on the insider. Agent: Joy Tutela, David Black Literary Agency (Kathryn Sermak)', Linda Loewenthal, Loewenthal Company (DanelleMorton). (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis." Publishers Weekly, 5 June 2017, p. 43.
Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495538357 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=84215cf9. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495538357
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Bette Davis’ former assistant dishes on how she sort of became the erratic screen legend's surrogate daughter
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Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (Am Mus Mov Image)
BY
Sherryl Connelly
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, August 26, 2017, 7:48 PM
Bette Davis’ white-hot hate for Joan Crawford did not diminish with the death of her reviled “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” co-star.
A snarky anecdote detailing the post-mortem feud appears in a delightful new book by Davis’ one-time assistant, who recounts other untold tales from the Oscar-winning actress’ free-wheeling final years.
“Miss D & Me” details the sweet and deepening bond between the much-feared actress and a timid, young Kathryn Sermak — a pairing set against a steady drumbeat of menace.
In 1985, Davis' beloved daughter Barbara Hyman, known in the family as Bede, published a book of vile accusations.
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford continue their 'Feud' on FX
On Mother's Day, no less.
"My Mother's Keeper" was so vicious that Davis' doctors feared it might kill her. She was 77 and already at death's door after barely surviving a stroke.
Hyman describes Davis as an alcoholic specializing in emotional abuse — even staging fake suicides to traumatize her kids. Davis' cruelty continued with the next generation when she supposedly beat her grandchildren.
But Bede's own friends called Bede out as a liar. In their recollections, Bede was a spoiled celebrity daughter whose mother needed to tell her “no” more often.
The coming betrayal looms as Sermak takes her job with the famously difficult actress in 1979. Sermak was 22, and their bond grew so tight that Sermak became almost a stand-in for Bede.
Book cover of "Miss D and Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis"
Book cover of "Miss D and Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis" (Hachette Books)
Sermak fails to make the obvious connection, but the source of Davis' fractured relationship with her daughter is obvious to readers: No one alive could meet her impossibly high standards.
As the young assistant was soon to learn, it isn't easy being loved by Bette Davis.
Two days into her new job, the actress informed Sermak that her handshake was lacking. She ordered the new hire to extend her hand and barked commands to shake firmer and with confidence, again and again.
Davis didn’t let go until Sermak got it right.
At a hotel in Dover, England, the two had only just escaped their room after a fire alarm sounded when Davis ordered Sermak to go back in.
Davis had forgotten her cigarettes.
Sermak performed every task as asked but Davis still toyed with firing her. In the end she decided to school her instead.
Sermak was taught to walk with her pelvis tilted forward and to step as if she had a third leg between her two.
Bette Davis' longtime personal assistant Kathryn Sermak.
Bette Davis' longtime personal assistant Kathryn Sermak. (Katy Winn/Getty Images)
It seems that's how confident actresses strolled.
Davis gave her voice lessons and worked to improve her diction. A butler was hired to serve them as Davis instructed Sermak in formal table manners.
Those were but a few of many things Davis found to correct in Sermak.
But, as with her daughter, Davis was also loving and generous with Sermak. Celebrity hairstylist Jose Eber, who later became Davis' friend, was brought in to give the pretty young woman a new look.
Davis had the buyer at Neiman-Marcus pull together an expensive wardrobe for Sermak, including "dressy dresses." Davis even hired a French seamstress to whip up a gown when Sermak's new beau asked her to a ball.
The inevitable ensued: A rivalry between Sermak and Bede.
Sermak saw how devoted Davis was to Bede, even though she loathed her son-in-law Jeremy Hyman. Davis had fought the marriage — Bede was 16 and Jeremy 29 — but her daughter threatened to elope.
Now Bede and Jeremy lived on a Pennsylvania farm with their two sons. Davis called frequently and sent checks almost as often — and did so happily.
Bette Davis (right) with her daughter Barbara Davis Sherry (later known as B.D. Hyman), circa 1965.
Bette Davis (right) with her daughter Barbara Davis Sherry (later known as B.D. Hyman), circa 1965. (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
Still, relations were fraught.
Tensions boiled over when Davis invited Bede and Jeremy to join her one Fourth of July at her home on Long Island. Her son Michael Merrill, who shared a more distant relationship with the star, would be there too.
When they were alone together, Davis and Bede shared loving conversations. But Jeremy would find ways to taunt Davis, coaxing her loathing into the open.
Matters were not helped by Davis’ intake of vodka and painkillers throughout. At one point, Jeremy thrust a pail of clams at Davis and told her to clean them.
Davis tearfully raged that she wasn't his servant.
In 1983, Davis underwent a mastectomy to remove a cancerous tumor at New York Hospital — and several days later suffered a devastating stroke. Davis was 75 and not expected to live.
But she fought back magnificently, though there were many setbacks in her long, hard battle.
There was the night Davis triumphantly hosted a dinner party for celebrity friends including Eber, Robert Wagner and his wife, Jill St. John.
Not Released (NR) Additional permissions required for merchandise and/or resale products; fine art prints; gallery, nonprofit or museum displays; or theatrical live performances. Contact your local Getty Images office.
Bette Davis with her personal assistant Kathryn Sermak. (Time & Life Pictures/The LIFE Picture Collection/Gett)
The festivities coincided with Sermak learning news that made her fear for Davis's life.
Davis' attorney, Harold Schiff, had heard Bede was about to publish an expose filled with vile accusations. Joan Crawford's daughter Christina made a fortune from her 1978 book “Mommie Dearest.”
But she'd waited until her mother was dead before she published it.
Sermak listened as Schiff pleaded with Bede to at least delay publication until Davis was stronger. Bede insisted she planned to surprise Davis with it on Mother's Day.
Her mother would grow to love the book, she claimed.
Davis's doctors told Schiff and Sermak that Davis was still too frail to withstand the news.
Davis saw her daughter briefly before leaving for England to film "Murder with Mirrors." Bede showed up at her hotel room with a Bible, lecturing Davis about the actress’ sinful life.
Davis was polite, but understandably confused and concerned. She didn't quite grasp that Bede had become a born-again Christian.
Book cover for "My Mother's Keeper" by B.D. Hyman
Book cover for "My Mother's Keeper" by B.D. Hyman
By the time Davis reached London, her Bede and Jeremy had disappeared. Schiff was able to track them down in the Bahamas.
Davis was in her dressing room on set when the lawyer called and broke the news about Bede's book. The actress fell apart, shouting that Sermak betrayed her by keeping news of a book a secret.
Told the director wanted a re-shoot, Davis sobbed that she couldn't perform. But moments later, Bette Davis the actress emerged and calmly rehearsed her new lines.
Months later, after the book was published, Davis and Sermak set out on a once-in-a lifetime, madcap road trip through France. Davis was still putting together the true extent of her daughter's betrayal.
She asked if Sermak thought it possible Bede had signed the publishing contract right after the doctors told her Davis had only a week to live.
But Davis already knew the answer to that.
Still, the betrayal seemed to fuel a feisty good time. Davis remained every inch an icon, but ready to play in a new way. One day she togged herself out in tight-fitting leather pants and a leather jacket topped by a leather cap.
Sermak turned around at one point to see the 77-year-old striking a pose behind a Harley-Davidson motorcycle parked in the town square. Davis cocked her hip and the locals stood to applaud.
American film actress Bette Davis arrives for the 1966 premiere of the movie “The Bible” in NYC.
American film actress Bette Davis arrives for the 1966 premiere of the movie “The Bible” in NYC. (AP)
After her initial reading of "My Mother's Keeper," Davis faced each day with dread, never wanting to see anyone again. She was terrified that her fans believed the worst.
But now, traveling across France, she could see how much she had to live for.
Davis even enjoyed a catty moment and a giggle at Crawford's expense while sitting at a bistro table under a Coke umbrella.
"No, Joan,” she cracked. “No Pepsi for me."
Crawford, by then dead eight years, famously married Pepsi-Cola Co. chairman Alfred Steele and later served on the Pepsico board of directors.
Sermak and Davis returned to France in 1989, desperate to reach Lourdes and beg for a miracle. Davis's cancer had returned. She was too sick to make it to the blessed grotto.
Davis, 81, died in Paris on Oct. 6 with Sermak at her side. The faithful assistant fulfilled her promise to make Davis look her best in death.
Book Review: Memoir is bittersweet farewell to Bette Davis
Douglass K. Daniel Associated Press Sep 14, 2017
Book Review Miss D and Me
This cover image released by Hachette Books shows "Miss D and Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis" by Kathryn Sermak and with Danelle Morton.
Hachette Books via AP
Bette Davis battled studio bosses, husbands and rivals during her long acting career, establishing a tough persona in real life to match her enduring Hollywood image. She would need all that strength when she faced illness in her final years, knowing that she could achieve a dark victory by meeting death on her terms.
Her personal assistant during much of that time, Kathryn Sermak, depicts a lioness in winter in her memoir, "Miss D & Me: Life With the Invincible Bette Davis." The actress, in her 70s, still showed some bite in dealing with family feuds and the demands of stardom even as she suffered from cancer and a stroke.
Davis (1908-89) found solace in activity, especially acting. "People will leave you," she told Sermak more than once, "but your work will always stand by you." She wrote another book and, amazingly, appeared on camera a few more times, most notably for "The Whales of August" in 1987.
Sermak had come into Davis' life in 1979, a 22-year-old ingenue hired for the summer who was to learn how an aging movie star lived — this particular movie star, anyway. Davis accommodated her celebrity by pleasing fans and shrugging off criticism. When a tabloid featured an unflattering photograph with the headline "Bette Davis doesn't give a damn how she looks!" the two-time Oscar winner advised her assistant, "Remember that it is always the best food that the birds pick at."
Davis had her way of doing things. In a hotel room she would re-arrange the furniture and add personal photos to the decor. She spent hours trimming shrubbery around a rented house to make it just so. The mercurial Miss D also decided to play Pygmalion, grooming Sermak to become a young lady with the poise and discretion befitting her position.
That meant learning how to dress appropriately, project her voice, choose the right fork at meals and even change the spelling of her first name to make it more distinctive. Miss D's criticism hurt at times, yet Sermak realized that graduating from the Bette Davis finishing school had its advantages for a woman of her generation. She also learned a lot about the movie business.
Life on Davis' terms included her trademark cigarettes; it's hard to imagine her without a curl of smoke in the air. During a fire drill at a hotel she sent Sermak back to their room for her cigarettes. They were bound to kill her one way or another. Davis continued smoking after her cancer surgery and stroke — and after she suffered second-degree burns from a smoldering mattress.
Poignant with touches of humor, "Miss D & Me" is a fitting fade-out for an actress who made it look easy to stay tough. Davis chose the epitaph for her tomb at Forest Lawn Hollywood: "She did it the hard way." Yet Sermak's book brings to mind a different Davis reflection that her fans will find more perceptive with each passing year: "Old age ain't no place for sissies."
Bette Davis never got over her daughter's 'devastating' betrayal, says assistant
By Stephanie Nolasco, Fox News
close
Assistant: Bettie Davis never got over daughter's betrayal
Hollywood rivals Bette Davis and Joan Crawford had one heartbreaking thing in common — their eldest daughters would betray them with shocking tell-all books.
Christina Crawford’s 1978 book, “Mommie Dearest,” depicted her adopted mother as an abusive alcoholic prone to rage and was published a year after the star’s death. Davis’ biological daughter Barbara “B.D.” Hyman released her own damaging tale, “My Mother’s Keeper,” in 1985. It portrayed the actress as a ruthless bully who faked attempted suicides for sympathy.
WHY SUSAN SARANDON FINALLY SAID YES TO BETTE DAVIS
Bette Davis 6
Bette Davis and her family. (Courtesy of Kathryn Sermak)
Hyman released her story on Mother’s Day, just months after Davis underwent a mastectomy and suffered a stroke that nearly killed her.
Kathryn Sermak, who served as Davis' personal assistant from 1979 until her death in 1989, told Fox News the publication left Davis so humiliated she didn’t want to live anymore.
“It was a huge betrayal,” said Sermak. “Miss D never got over it. Never. You don’t just get over something like that… But that doesn’t mean you stop loving the person. It was so horrible… Even with all of that, Miss D said, ‘She’s still my daughter.’ But it broke her heart forever. You don’t get over that.”
Bette Davis 2
Bette Davis and Kathryn Sermak wearing matching outfits. (Courtesy of Kathryn Sermak)
Sermak has released her own book called “Miss D and Me,” which explores the friendship she developed with the legendary actress, who made over 100 films and was nominated for 10 Oscars throughout her lifetime. She recalled that fateful day when Davis learned of Hyman’s public accusations.
“She always had a wonderful relationship with her,” insisted Sermak. “I felt B.D. loved her mother immensely. Miss D loved her more than anything in the world… I couldn’t understand why she wrote that book.”
Sermak described her former boss as someone who was willing to do anything for her daughter. But after her stroke, Davis wondered if Hyman assumed she wouldn’t survive.
Bette Davis 1
Bette Davis with Kathryn Sermak. (Courtesy of Kathryn Sermak)
“When she had that stroke, it was devastating,” said Sermak. “They had to use the paddles to bring her back to life. During that time, doctors believed she wouldn’t make it past three weeks… She was on medications, she was hallucinating. Nurses came and went. And you’re dealing with the press.”
Sermak claimed Hyman’s husband Jeremy had a trucking business that had gone bankrupt at the time. He then asked Davis’ lawyer and friend Harold Schiff if he could release some of her money for help, only to be shot down. But even before then, many of Hyman’s bills were reportedly sent to Schiff and taken care of by Davis.
Still, Davis perservered. In Sermak, she found a young woman completely devoted to her well-being. Hired in 1979 when she was just 23, Sermak was taught by the screen icon how to walk, talk, dress and even give a firm handshake.
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Bette Davis with her celebrity friends. (Courtesy of Bette Davis.)
When Davis’ health was deteriorating, Sermak stayed by her hospital bed every single day. Their bond became so close, Davis began calling Sermak her “stepdaughter.”
Sermak made sure to help Davis feel young again.
“She loved pranks,” Sermak recalled. “Whenever we were in New York, Harold [Schiff] would invite us to his home in Pound Ridge. Miss D told me she had never heard of TPing [toilet papering]. When I told her, she said, ‘Let’s do it!’ We waited until everyone went to bed. We had it all planned out. We started with the kitchen… She had so much fun. We fell to the floor laughing. We hit the alarms and instantly went back to our beds.”
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Bette Davis with Kathryn Sermak. (Courtesy of Kathryn Sermak)
But the pranks didn’t just end with Davis’ lawyer. Once, when guests came over to Davis’ Hollywood home for cocktail hour immaculately dressed, she had surprises in store for them.
“I went to a magic shop and bought these fake ice cubes that looked real,” recalled Sermak. “We also had a dribble glass. It was summer and really hot… And yet [her guests] said their drinks were wonderful. I thought it was amazing because these were her friends, but they were intimidated to tell her something was wrong. We also used a whoopee cushion and we practiced with it! We also found an ink pen that spilled blue ink… She was full of great pranks.”
Davis found happiness again. When she was only given a few days to live in 1989 after her breast cancer returned, the 81-year-old chose to savor every moment with joy, all while keeping her terminal illness a secret from the public.
Bette Davis 13
Last photo taken of Bette Davis. (Courtesy of Kathryn Sermak.)
“She got an invitation to the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain… She so wanted to go,” recalled Sermak. “The doctors gave her the green light… The town got a band to play and they were serenading her. There was a mass of people waiting for hours just to see her.”
After Davis was honored for her acting career, she arrived in Paris and was gearing up to head back to Los Angeles. However, she became increasingly weak and was instead taken to a hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where she passed away.
“Miss D told me she was born during a thunderstorm. And when she passed it was pouring,” said Sermak. “She was at peace. She'd just had the world serenade her.”
Bette Davis 12
(Courtesy of Kathryn Sermak)
And just like Crawford, who famously omitted Christina from her will “for reasons well known,” the Los Angeles Times reported Davis also disinherited Hyman. She currently runs a ministry in Virginia. Sermak, along with Davis’ adopted son Michael Merrill, are co-executors of the Bette Davis Estate.
But Davis’ tale doesn’t just end with Sermak’s book. On Sunday night, Ryan Murphy’s “Feud,” a mini-series that tells the story of Davis’ collaboration with Crawford in the highly publicized 1962 film “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” is up for 18 Emmy awards.
“I will always thank Ryan Murphy,” she said. “It has introduced Miss D to a whole new younger group, which is honestly what I was hoping for.”
A Decade with Bette Davis
The screen icon’s longtime assistant Kathryn Sermak sets the record straight on the famously temperamental star with her new memoir.
Jeremy Kinser November 27, 2017 Arts & Entertainment
bette davis
Author Kathryn Sermak will appear at Just Fabulous in Palm Springs Dec. 2 to promote her memoir of the last decade in the life of acting star Bette Davis.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF KATHRYN SERMAK
When Kathryn Sermak was summoned to work for Bette Davis, she had no idea who she was so she brushed up by reading the actress’s 1962 memoir, The Lonely Life.
A surfer girl from Southern California whose previous employment as personal assistant for HH Princess Shams Pahlavi made her uniquely qualified to be constant aide for the fabled movie queen, Sermak and the lady she called Miss D struck a close friendship during the 10 years they worked and traveled together, assuring Davis she would not be lonely for the rest of her days.
Now with a new generation discovering the late screen icon thanks to the success of the FX series Feud: Bette and Joan, which documented Davis’ alleged rivalry with Joan Crawford while the two filmed the classic chiller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, there’s renewed interest in her personal life, as well.
• See Related Story: Melissa Rivers Leads List of Author Visits to Palm Springs
Sermak has helped quell the need by publishing a memoir of her own. Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis (Hachette Books, $27) which details the last decade in the life of the great star when Sermak was mentored by Davis and witnessed her unflinching work ethic and personal style before the actress died of breast cancer in 1989.
Sermak spoke with Palm Springs Life about working for the legendary star, the truth about the famous feud with Crawford, and how her public image differs from the Davis she knew.
Palm Springs Life: You worked as Bette Davis’ assistant both while she made movies and in her daily life. How different was she on film sets than in real life?
Kathryn Sermak: She was the same person, but when you’re home, you’re home and when you’re at work, you work. There’s a different demeanor. She loved film. She, by the time I worked for her, had 50 or 60 years experience, more than most of the other people in the set. There were no games and laughing and there was a good reason for that. She said you stand by me and talk to no one. The crews adored her because they knew she knew her craft.
PSL: Due to the popularity of the TV series Feud: Bette and Joan earlier this year, there has been a lot of speculation about how the alleged rivalry with Joan Crawford began. What caused it in your opinion?
KS: First we should discuss whether it’s true or not. I can only tell you what Miss Davis told me. She respected Joan and said she was a total professional. The two actresses she said she’d never work with again were Miriam Hopkins and Faye Dunaway, but not Joan Crawford. Warner Brothers created the feud for publicity. The reason I know is I have photographs of the two of them. One thing that made her uncomfortable is Joan would send her gifts. She was sending her gifts every day. There was also Franchot Tone. Miss Davis had a crush on him and had made a film with him [1935’s Dangerous, for which Davis won her first best actress Oscar]. She said when he came back from lunch he still had lipstick marks on him from Joan. But that’s not what created the feud. It was done for publicity and they made a fortune off of it. Then when Miss D was up for the Oscar for Baby Jane and this was one she really wanted to win, Joan went around to the other nominees offering to accept the awards if they couldn’t attend.
PSL: How do you think she’d have felt about the depiction of her?
KS: Miss Davis would say, “Thank you very much.” It introduced Miss Davis and Joan Crawford to a whole new generation. Young people are turning on Turner Classic Movies. She’s gotten a lot of fans because of it. She has a Facebook page followed by a million people. Young kids email me who’ve seen more of her films than I have.
PSL: How accurately did Susan Sarandon portray her?
KS: I couldn’t say, as I was only seven when Miss D made that film. What I can tell you is the Miss D I knew and work with for 10 years and being with her on all those film sets is not the one I saw portrayed in the Feud. Miss D was highly professional, always on set an hour before her call time with her legal pad, going over every detail and discussing things with the director, stagehands, etc.
PSL: Which of her film performances seemed most like the woman you knew?
KS: Unfortunately, I have not seen all of Miss D’s movies, as we were always busy working. I did see enormous amounts of film clips from all the award shows where she was honored for her career. Miss D was an actress while filming and played that character. Once we left the set, she was Miss D, a New England Yankee, as I stated in my book. She loved her family, cooking, and her home when not working on a film. She was not reality TV like we have today. Miss D was a real person who acted parts; she never played herself from what I have seen.
PSL: What about her would most surprise people who think they know her from her films and television appearances?
KS: I think most people might not know the fun-loving side of Miss D. She would play practical jokes on friends.
PSL: Since you’re signing your book in Palm Springs, I wonder if there are any stories about Miss D and her visits to the Coachella Valley.
KS: She would go to La Quinta a lot. Our hide-a-way was at the home of Helen Ann [a painter Sermak had introduced to Davis] over in Rancho Mirage. I tell this story: Aaron Spelling sent a driver with five-dozen red roses down and the script for Hotel [a TV series Davis appeared in in 1983] to Miss D. She looked through the first pages and had me call get Aaron. I gave the phone to Miss D and she said, “Aaron, I don’t believe you wrote this script. But next time you take that money you spent on the limo driver and roses and you give it to the writer and have him write me a better script.”
PSL: That sounds like quintessential Bette Davis. Did she enjoy Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage?
There were times we would go out. She loved watching Helen Ann paint. When she was a lot younger — like in her 20s and 30s — La Quinta was a big place. I have home movies of her in La Quinta with her sister Bobby and their mom so I know she did spend time out there.
PSL: How has your book been received by Miss D’s other family members and people who knew her well?
KS: This book had Miss D’s blessing from her son, Michael, and the people who knew her — RJ Wagner, Olivia de Havilland, Stefanie Powers, Ann-Margret, George Hamilton, and Greg Gorman all gave quotes which are listed on the back cover of our book.
PSL: What do you hope people learn about Miss Davis from your book?
KS: I think the way people started to view her after she passed, it was more about the characters she played. I think Miss Davis was a very, very private person. I think in my book I show you the Miss Davis that’s not the characters; she’s the every day Yankee woman. She believed women should support other women. She was great.
Kathryn Sermak will sign copies of Miss D and Me from noon to 3 p.m. Dec. 2 at Just Fabulous, 515 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs. 760-864-1300; bjustfabulous.com.
Palm Springs Life March 2018 - Fashion Week El Paseo
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Bette Davis' Assistant Reveals What She Was Like in Her Final Days
She wouldn't let anyone see her as she was dying.
By Megan Friedman
Aug 31, 2017
Bette Davis
Getty Images
Bette Davis was one of the most iconic movie stars during Hollywood's golden age. And even as she was dying, the actress's top priority was staying movie-star glamorous. People magazine reports that in a new memoir, Davis's longtime assistant is revealing what her final days were like.
Bette Davis with her assistant, Kathryn Sermak.
Bette Davis with her assistant, Kathryn Sermak.
Getty Images
In an excerpt from her upcoming book, Miss D and Me: Life With the Invincible Bette Davis, Kathryn Sermak talks about what it was like to grow close to Davis as her health declined. Sermak spent 10 years with Davis, both as an assistant and a close friend. In 1989, while Davis and Sermak were on vacation in Europe, Davis found out her breast cancer had come back and she only had a few days to live.
Bette Davis with her son, Michael.
Bette Davis with her son, Michael.
Getty Images
Sermak writes that Davis asked her to call her son, Michael, and her friend Harold. She did not ask Sermak to call her daughter, B.D. Hyman, and that might have been because the two had a rough relationship. But no matter what, she didn't want anyone to see her in person as she was dying. "She did not want them to come because she did not want 'this bedraggled body and the look of death' to be their last memory of her," Sermak wrote. "'They don't see me every day like you do, Kath,' she said."
Bette Davis with her daughter, B.D.
Davis with her daughter, B.D.
Getty Images
Davis died on October 6, 1989, and Sermak was by her side. And Davis had made Sermak promise to make sure her looks remained, even after she died. "Whichever of us dies first, the other will see to it that we look beautiful at the last," Sermak said Davis told her.
These days, Sermak is the co-executor of the Bette Davis Estate and co-founder of the Bette Davis Foundation. And she's carrying on Davis' request to "set the record straight" on their story. You can watch a preview of her book below:
Related Story
A Timeline of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford\'s Feud
EXCLUSIVE: ‘Her wailing was so deep she frightened me.’ How Bette Davis fell apart after learning of her daughter’s malicious book claiming she was an alcoholic child-beater, personal assistant to actress reveals in tell-all
Bette Davis' personal assistant Kathryn Sermak hid the fact that Bette Davis's daughter was writing a cruel memoir, and believed she was protecting the star from grief, she says in her new book
Bede Hyman signed a publishing deal after her mother had a stroke in the hopes that she would be dead when the book came out
The book claimed Davis was an alcoholic and that she abused her daughter
Davis was on the set of a film and beside herself when she learned of the book
Kathryn, who went by 'Catherine' until Bette convinced her to change to a unique spelling, was Bette's confidante in the last seven years of her life
Bette asked Kathryn to write about their relationship, and the new book titled Miss D & Me, Life with The Invincible Bette Davis comes out September 12
The author shares never-before-seen candid photos of Bette's last years
By Caroline Howe For Dailymail.com
Published: 15:56 EDT, 8 September 2017 | Updated: 18:09 EDT, 8 September 2017
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Screen legend Bette Davis's most heartbreaking betrayal came from her 'adopted' daughter and personal assistant in the last years of her life. Kathryn Sermak chose not to inform the star of her own daughter's intended mean-spirited memoir accusing her of being an abusive alcoholic and child-beater, the actress's personal assistant tells in her new book.
The iconic star believed that her daughter, Bede Hyman signed the publishing deal after her mother had a stroke in 1983 and thought she would be dead when the book was in print.
Sermak and Bette's lawyer, Harold Schiff took the advice of doctors and kept the about-to-be published book from Davis while she was in the midst of a film shoot.
The film wrapped and Harold broke the news over the phone to the aging star.
'She started to cry, just a little at first, as if she did not want to give in to it. I had only seen her cry one other time when her sister died...
'This was different. She placed her hands over her face. Her small controlled sobs gave way to a wailing so deep that she frightened me. These tears came from a deeper place, where the sword had been thrust into her heart', Kathryn Sermak writes in her upcoming poignant and chatty memoir, Miss D & Me, Life with The Invincible Bette Davis, published by Hachette Books on September 12, 2017.
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This is the last photo ever taken of Bette Davis. Kathryn Sermak became best friends with the film star over their seven years together Photographed in Spain in October 1989, no one expected that the star would pass days later.
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Bette Davis often discussed her role in scripts with the author, her personal assistant. Here the two are chatting about producer Aaron’s Spelling’s script for the film Hotel while in Palm Springs in 1983
While on that madcap French road trip, word got out that the movie star was in town. Not wanting to disappoint fans, she posed with her hand on hip next to a Kawasaki motorcycle as though she had just ridden on it. It won her a round of applause and whistles
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While on that madcap French road trip, word got out that the movie star was in town. Not wanting to disappoint fans, she posed with her hand on hip next to a Kawasaki motorcycle as though she had just ridden on it. It won her a round of applause and whistles
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Davis celebrated her 87th birthday at a grand party hosted by her close Hollywood pals, Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor. Bette loved good conversation with her dearest friends and was a sport to the end
'When she hung up the phone, she could not look at me. When she did I was the focus of all of her rage.
'How could you have not told me? You! You're the one I have trusted with my life! This is such a betrayal. I can't bear to look at you. You have robbed me of my joy in making this film', Bette told her assistant.
'How could you do this to me? You're just like her...a betrayer...After everything we've been through. Why'?
Sermak stood there crying and felt like dying.
The news had destroyed Bette who gasped for air and stared at the floor in disbelief.
Two years later, while the two were on a road trip in France, Bette asked Sermak, now her dearest friend, why Sermak and her lawyer had treated her 'like a godd***** baby who couldn't take it'.
They feared she would have another stroke or heart attack – but she defied everyone's expectations.
'I could have stopped that book, you know I could have'.
'When a publisher gets a call from Bette Davis he pays attention'.
Sermak argued that Harold had tried.
'Harold is not Bette Davis', the star replied.
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Kathryn encouraged Miss D. to write her memoir, This ’N That while they traveled the world and Sermak wrote the entire book in longhand. Here they are lounging in Biarritz, France after reviewing the galleys
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The author’s journal page describes her first meeting and impression of the film star, noting she was a 'dynamic, bright, sharp, gracious human being. She later felt most comfortable calling Bette Miss D.
And 'it didn't kill me'.
Bede Hyman, aka B.D., was born Barbara Davis Sherry, daughter of Davis and artist William Grant Sherry. She was later adopted by Bette's fourth husband, Gary Merrill.
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Bette asked Kathryn to write about their relationship, and the new book titled Miss D & Me, Life with The Invincible Bette Davis comes out September 12
Bede wrote two hateful books about her mother, the first, My Mother's Keeper was published in 1985.
Merrill defended his ex-wife and stated that B.D. was motivated by 'cruelty and greed'.
Cruel it was and B.D. wanted to surprise her mother with it on Mother's Day and told Harold that it was 'a book her mother would grow to love', a twisted thought.
It had been a quarrelsome relationship between mother and daughter for years.
Bede met her husband, Jeremy Hyman when she was only 16 and he was twice her age.
He had a long haul trucking business and they settled down on a 37-acre farm with pigs, chickens and horses in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.
The relationship was a battlefield between mother and daughter who viewed Bede as a slave for her husband while he sat back in a chair. Most of their bills were sent to Harold and Bette always willingly paid, with no thanks ever from Jeremy.
When the star went looking for a personal assistant in 1979, it was day for night from her angry daughter to then 'Catherine' Sermak, a Southern California girl from San Bernardino who interviewed for the job of Girl Friday at Davis' luxurious condominium, the Colonial House in West Hollywood.
Sermak wasn't sure what a Girl Friday was but was game for a job that meant a summer in Europe before starting graduate school.
She had no film knowledge and no clue who Bette Davis was.
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In the French Basque Country, Better and Katheryn had lunch under a Coca-Cola umbrella with Bette quipping: ‘If Joan could see me now. No, Joan, no Pepsi for me’ — referring to Joan Crawford having married company Chairman Alfred Steele. Steele died unexpectedly leaving Crawford broke and deeply in debt
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Kathryn and Bette traveled from Biarritz to Paris in 1985 where they shared their affection for each other. Kathryn had moved to Paris to explore living with a man she hoped to marry. The relationship didn’t work out and she returned to be with Bette throughout her final days
She had no expectations, was willing to work hard and quickly learned the strict set of rules imposed by the 5'2 queen who lived to a high standard and always had a Philip Morris cigarette in her hand.
Catherine soon moved into the second bedroom in Bette's luxurious condo, the Colonial House in West Hollywood that was filled with antiques and treasured gifts from many close friends.
Their first trip was to New York and Bette's home away from home, the Lombardy Hotel – but not before Bette issued her long list of instructions – to be completed at precise times.
And there was that issue about Catherine's handshake and her posture.
'You can tell a worthwhile person by the firmness of their handshake and, as you will be representing me, I would like yours to be a bit firmer. Stand up, Catherine'.
Caught cutting her salad, Bette told her that was 'simply bad manners'.
'Don't you ever cut your salad again, ever, if you going to be with me' – and no chatting with the waiters and the maids or the film crew. That was totally against protocol.
They were soon off to London to film for six weeks of filming.
They took several day trips and a favorite was to stay at the Berystede, a beautiful Victorian hotel in South Ascot, Berkshire, England.
There were frequent fire drills at the hotel built in 1940 during their different stays but one evening they were awakened by a fire alarm sounding at midnight.
They hurried to the balcony to see guests gathering on the lawn below and contemplated going over the rooftop when the star grabbed Catherine's arm.
'Catherine, you must go back in', she told her frantically. 'Quick! Grab my cigarettes!'
Sermak retrieved a carton from the duffel bag and 'marveled that she would direct me back into the burning building not to get her passport, or her treasured family photographs, but her cigarettes', she writes.
After a half hour standing on the balcony, they learned it was only a drill.
Back in residence on the west coast, Catherine was complimented on her much improved handshake and promoted to 'personal assistant' from Girl Friday – but Bette had more important matters she wanted to address.
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Any holiday was a good excuse for Kathryn and Bette to dress up in outfits and zany hats — even George Washington’s birthday or Easter, pictured here in 1987
'I wanted to talk to you about your name,' Davis told her.
'I want to change the spelling of your name. If you spell it K-A-T-H-R-Y-N, it's more distinctive. The way your parents chose to spell it is so much like everyone else in the world.
'I want to advise you that one of the big battles in life is to stand out from the crowd. It's a very personal matter and I don't want to impose this on you if this change is not welcome'.
Sermak mulled it over and felt that Davis 'was conducting a homegrown version of a finishing school'.
She was teaching her how well-bred women walked, talked and 'moved through the world with a certain kind of upper-crust grace'.
No more low class diction and saying 'okay', that would cost her 25 cents every time she said it – to be dropped in a mason jar on the counter.
Now to fine-tune her appearance with a haircut by the cowboy hat wearing Beverly Hills hairdresser, Jose Eber.
She had to learn new posture that began with the tilt of her pelvis and walking while imagining there was a third leg between the two making her take wide steps.
'Do I have to completely reinvent myself to please her?' Kathryn asked herself after practicing the waddle across the living room for Bette who sensed her displeasure and told her to take a swim but be back for 'Cocktails at 4pm'.
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Kathryn wanted to do something special for Miss D. on her 76th birthday, a milestone after her health issues. Whenever the subject of that birthday came up, Bette sang the opening bars of the hit song, Seventy-Six Trombones from the Broadway musical, The Music Man. Kathryn came up with the idea of hiring the USC Marching Band to play the song outside Bette's window. It thrilled Bette who blew them kisses from her balcony
Bette suggested Sermak call her Bette but Kathryn could not bring herself to address the star so informally so she called her Miss D.
Sermak learned how to dress properly, how to host a dinner party and how to converse smartly when Davis entertained her celebrity friends Sir John Gielgud, Richard Attenborough, Roddy McDowall, Vincent Price, Robert Wagner and Robert Osborne.
There were silly diversions from all the strict rules that Sermak learned to love.
They dressed up for holidays like George Washington's birthday, made hats out of sliced vegetables and wore them to a friend's Easter luncheon in New York.
The lessons continued with an instructor from Arthur Murray Dance Studios coming to teach Kathryn how to dance for a bygone era.
When Kathryn was invited by an old friend to a ball at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Bette insisted that a gorgeous gown be made for her out of rich velvet with a black satin ruffled collar.
Bette lent her a mink coat, jewelry and had her ferried to Penn Station in a limo for the train to Washington.
Kathryn was so overdressed at the ball, she was horrified. Men were wearing jeans, women in simple dresses.
'I looked like something out of a 1955 Vogue magazine'.
Bette felt bad for putting her through that preparation.
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Kathryn and Bette are pictured in Paris in 1987 wearing outfits designed by Patrick Kelly. Bette is pictured in the outfit that Kelly designed and Kathryn chose to have her buried in, a black evening dress and matching black fur hat
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The late American fashion designer Patrick Kelly was a favorite of the movie actress and designed flamboyant and glamourous fashions in Paris in the 1980s. He was a radical born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and handed out racist dolls to white society ladies to shock them. But the ladies loved him
'The sadness around it was not with me, but with her, wrapped up in the realization that she was training me for a world that was fading from view', Kathryn writes.
'She was the elderly woman coaching the younger woman into a fashion faux pas'.
When Bette rented a house on Long Island in the summer of 1982, she was hoping for a happy family reunion with B.D, Jeremy and their son, Ashley.
Bette ripped up bushes on the property, brought in window boxes and filled them with flowers, painted the house. No detail was spared.
'When she said she wanted everything to be perfect for her family, it really was only Miss D who needed things to be perfect. Only if she was perfect would she feel worthy of their love', writes Sermak.
The family reunion was a war of snarky words and negative fireworks. B.D.'s family exit didn't come to soon.
B.D. came back to visit her mother in New York in October 1984 and brought her mother a gift – a large Bible.
She had become a born-again Christian and regaled Bette on the powerful forces of the Devil in the world that she claimed had led her astray.
'The divorces, the drinking, the smoking all of that is against God's laws'.
'Repent these sins, denounce the lures of Satan, or I fear your soul will be doomed to hell'. Bette thanked her for her love and concern and changed the subject – and returned to her home in Pennsylvania.
Sermak had witnessed Bette's vulnerabilities, her sacrifices and was there to support and help her through these final years – unlike her own daughter.
At one point, Sermak took leave of Bette and moved to Paris to live with a Frenchman she had fallen in love with and thought she would marry.
Bette was supportive of her but also also advised Sermak not to be used by a man. She clearly believed that this man, Pierre, was not the right man for her adopted daughter.
The two women took a motor trip from Biarritz in southwestern France to Paris in August of 1985 and made a pact that whoever died first, the other would see to it that the newly departed would look beautiful until the end.
Bette wanted to be buried in the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn Cemetery at 4am when there would be no photographers around.
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Summer of 1982, Bette rented a house on Long Island to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend with her family. She wanted the setting to be perfect so along with ripping out ugly shrubs, she installed planter boxes and filled them with flowers. Their beauty didn’t ameliorate the tension between Bette and her daughter and son-in-law
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The unhappy family reunion on Long Island, summer of 1982. Pictured from left to right are Jeremy Hyman, B.D. Hyman, Bette, her son Michael Merrill (father, actor Gary Merrill), grandson Ashley Hyman, and Chou Chou Merrill seated with their two children
Back in Paris from another road trip from Poitiers to Orleans in France, Bette told Sermak, 'I can make it without you now'.
Bette did not want to take her away from her French beau if that's what she wanted, but Sermak realized that love affair was a dead end and she returned to being by Bette's side, committed to the very end.
Sermak confessed that she did not feel the same powerful unconditional love from Pierre that Bette had shown her.
Kathryn was by Bette's side when she had her stroke, her breast cancer and when her cancer that had been in remission for five years, returned in January 1989.
Kathryn made a solo trip to Our Lady of Lourdes in Lourdes, France to ask for a miracle – that Bette's life be spared. As she was leaving, the sky opened up with sunlight, but it was not to be.
Lying in the hospital in Neuilly sur Seine, France, Bette told her, 'Kath, come here, give me your hand'.
'You've given me so much joy and you must always remember that' Now you must be strong and you will be. You're my stepdaughter and I'm so very proud of you'.
Steak was on the menu for the Fourth of July summer of ¿82 family reunion. Being a true Yankee, Bette also knew how to dig for clams, clean them and grill them
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Steak was on the menu for the Fourth of July summer of ’82 family reunion. Being a true Yankee, Bette also knew how to dig for clams, clean them and grill them
Bette asked Kathryn to promise that she would write about he time spent with her.
The great actress died at 11:35 pm on October 6, 1989.
Kathryn asked to be alone in the room with her. And then she heard her voice.
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This cover image released by Hachette Books shows "Miss D and Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis" by Kathryn Sermak and with Danelle Morton. (Hachette Books via AP)
This cover image released by Hachette Books shows “Miss D and Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis” by Kathryn Sermak and with Danelle Morton. (Hachette Books via AP) more >
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By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL - Associated Press - Monday, September 11, 2017
“Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis” (Hachette Books), by Kathryn Sermak with Danelle Morton
Bette Davis battled studio bosses, husbands and rivals during her long acting career, establishing a tough persona in real life to match her enduring Hollywood image. She would need all that strength when she faced illness in her final years, knowing that she could achieve a dark victory by meeting death on her terms.
Her personal assistant during much of that time, Kathryn Sermak, depicts a lioness in winter in her memoir, “Miss D & Me: Life With the Invincible Bette Davis.” The actress, in her 70s, still showed some bite in dealing with family feuds and the demands of stardom even as she suffered from cancer and a stroke.
Davis (1908-89) found solace in activity, especially acting. “People will leave you,” she told Sermak more than once, “but your work will always stand by you.” She wrote another book and, amazingly, appeared on camera a few more times, most notably for “The Whales of August” in 1987.
Sermak had come into Davis‘ life in 1979, a 22-year-old ingenue hired for the summer who was to learn how an aging movie star lived - this particular movie star, anyway. Davis accommodated her celebrity by pleasing fans and shrugging off criticism. When a tabloid featured an unflattering photograph with the headline “Bette Davis doesn’t give a damn how she looks!” the two-time Oscar winner advised her assistant, “Remember that it is always the best food that the birds pick at.”
Davis had her way of doing things. In a hotel room she would re-arrange the furniture and add personal photos to the decor. She spent hours trimming shrubbery around a rented house to make it just so. The mercurial Miss D also decided to play Pygmalion, grooming Sermak to become a young lady with the poise and discretion befitting her position.
That meant learning how to dress appropriately, project her voice, choose the right fork at meals and even change the spelling of her first name to make it more distinctive. Miss D’s criticism hurt at times, yet Sermak realized that graduating from the Bette Davis finishing school had its advantages for a woman of her generation. She also learned a lot about the movie business.
Life on Davis‘ terms included her trademark cigarettes; it’s hard to imagine her without a curl of smoke in the air. During a fire drill at a hotel she sent Sermak back to their room for her cigarettes. They were bound to kill her one way or another. Davis continued smoking after her cancer surgery and stroke - and after she suffered second-degree burns from a smoldering mattress.
Poignant with touches of humor, “Miss D & Me” is a fitting fade-out for an actress who made it look easy to stay tough. Davis chose the epitaph for her tomb at Forest Lawn Hollywood: “She did it the hard way.” Yet Sermak’s book brings to mind a different Davis reflection that her fans will find more perceptive with each passing year: “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.”
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Douglass K. Daniel is the author of “Anne Bancroft: A Life” (University Press of Kentucky)
Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/11/book-review-memoir-is-bittersweet-farewell-to-bett/
Dish
Bette Davis’s Assistant Wants to Set the Record Straight
Kathryn Sermak on her memoir Miss D & Me, which takes a refreshingly candid look at a Hollywood legend.
by
Marcie Bianco
September 12, 2017 1:32 pm
Bette Davis and Kathryn Sermak in 1988.
Bette Davis and Kathryn Sermak in 1988.
By Maureen Donaldson/Getty Images.
You’re a 22-year-old woman fresh out of college, with a degree in clinical psychology and international relations. In need of a job, you get hired to be the “Girl Friday” of an actress you’ve never heard of.
That actress’s name is Bette Davis.
This was Kathryn Sermak—nee “Catherine,” before Davis requested she change the spelling of her name to make it “more distinctive”—in the summer of 1979. It marked the beginning of a 10-year relationship magnificently documented in Sermak’s new memoir, Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis—out Tuesday—co-written by journalist Danelle Morton.
At Sermak’s interview, Davis lit a cigarette and asked her first question: “What sign are you?”
“I thought that was the most absurd, looney-tunes question,” Sermak tells Vanity Fair, nearly 40 years later. (The Hollywood icon, an indomitable Aries, was very pleased to hear that Sermak is a Libra.)
After asking Sermak if she could cook a three-minute egg, Davis was convinced: “‘I will teach you everything you need to know,” the 71-year-old, two-time Academy Award winner said. “‘You’re hired, Catherine. . . . I have a hunch about you.’”
So began, Sermak writes in her book, “my education with Miss Davis.”
Miss D & Me
From Hachette Books.
For Bette Davis fans, the memoir offers a treasure trove of untold stories extrapolated from Sermak’s datebooks, scrapbooks, letters, and audio cassettes by the woman who saw Davis like no one else, during her final, and arguably most traumatic, decade. Davis had a mastectomy in the summer of 1983, followed by a stroke just days later. Not long after that, she suffered a broken hip. Kathryn never left her employer’s side, in order both to stay on top of the hospital’s care and to swat away undercover National Enquirer journalists—who posed as nurses or Davis’s son to gain entry to the hospital room.
Then came the publication of a book by Bette’s daughter Barbara Hyman—known to friends as B.D.—My Mother’s Keeper, published in 1985. The tell-all autobiography, which received mountains of criticism, painted Davis as a violent drunk and an abusive mother. The October before its publication, which Hyman kept secret from her mother, she visited Davis at the Lombardy Hotel in New York City—giving the actress a bible and, according to Sermak, asking her mother to “repent [her] sins, [and] denounce the lures of Satan.” (When reached for comment, Hyman sent Vanity Fair the following email: “Yes, I was there but I certainly said no such thing. It’s really boring having people put words in my mouth but I guess that's the price of fame. This is the first I’ve heard of Kathryn's book. I have no intention of reading it and less interest in commenting on it.”)
“Nothing,” Sermak emphasizes in our interview, “nothing compared to the betrayal of B.D.’s book. That broke her heart.”
Still, she maintains, “my book is not about B.D., and I tried to take the high road. But Miss D said, ‘One day, you will tell the story.’”
“I want Miss D to be proud” of the book, Sermak adds. “She was my teacher, and my mentor.”
That same sense of gratitude is threaded throughout the book. The dedication calls the final product “our story, our ‘blood, sweat, tears,’ and laughter.” In it, Sermak details all that Davis taught her—from how to walk with purpose to how to perform a proper handshake. “She [taught me] confidence,” Sermak says. “You’re in a man’s world, and you have to be tough. When men are tough, that’s accepted, but if you’re a woman, you’re given the big ‘B’ word.”
Davis particularly admired strong women who took control of their own lives and responsibility for their actions. As she wrote in her 1962 autobiography, The Lonely Life, “I am that new race of women, and there are legions.”
“She was always the greatest supporter of women,” Sermak explains. “What she didn’t like was that women could be back-biting . . . instead of supporting one another. She always said that women should empower other women—just like what men do in a boys’ club.”
Hearing that may come as a surprise to those who think of Bette Davis as a hard-nosed ballbuster, a la Feud, Ryan Murphy’s fictionalized portrayal of the rumored battle between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
“I will always be grateful to Ryan Murphy for introducing [Davis and Crawford] to a new generation,” says Sermak. But that Davis is “not the woman I was on 10 years of film sets with. Miss Davis never behaved on film sets like that. She never yelled, she never screamed—at least not around me.”
Instead, she continues, “She would say ‘merde,’ [and] if she was really, really, upset, you got the silent treatment. And . . . ”—Sermak’s voice changes, as if she’s conjuring up a long-forgotten feeling—“there’s nothing worse, because her eyes, they just go straight through you!”
Sermak implies that the tension between Davis and Crawford was born from the latter’s thwarted attempt to romantically woo the former, a rumor reportedly stoked by Davis herself. “Joan did have a crush on Miss Davis, but Miss Davis is a man’s woman,” says Sermak.
Narratives about Davis by gay male fans are legion, and most depict Bette Davis through a camp lens. But according to Sermak, they also distort the truth to elicit readers’ interest and increase book sales. Whitney Stine, the author of two books on Davis, claimed in his second to have had several conversations with Sermak about Davis, a notion Sermak adamantly refuted. “I was floored by [that] book,” she says. “First of all, no one called me ‘Kath’ except Miss Davis. And I never talked with [Stine].”
One of the more popular Davis biographies, Ed Sikov’s Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis, also has its share of problems, Sermak says. Sikov quotes Davis’s earlier assistant, Vik Greenfield, and her friend Chuck Pollack, who opined that Sermak was “‘a road-show Eve Harrington . . . who got rid of all of Bette’s closest friends.’”
Sermak, for the first time on record, addressed those accusations in our interview: “Ridiculous,” she says. “Anybody who knows Miss Davis knows that she had her own mind.”
Sermak’s resilience during the series of crises that afflicted Davis in the 80s are qualities she thanks her mentor for: “If she would’ve had the stroke the very first year I was with her, I would not have been able to do everything, because she taught me,” Sermak says. “I owe that woman a great deal.”
The love between these two women—platonic, aspirational, and nurturing—is the capstone of Miss D & Me. It is a type of female bond rarely portrayed in either books or cinema. “We had become attuned to each other” Sermak writes of their synergy. Davis would often call Sermak her “stepdaughter” and her “chum-friend-daughter,” and signed her many letters with a variety of maternal appellations, like “Mother M” (“M” for “Merrill,” the surname of her fourth and final husband).
“We could finish each other’s sentences,” Sermak says. “I knew what she was thinking. She knew what I was thinking. It’s a rare quality to have.”
“‘When I’m gone, you’re going to set the record straight,’” Davis told Sermak in one of the audio tapes they made for each other. Then, in true Davis fashion, she got to the point: “Do the book first . . . because this will be a great film.”
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Full Screen
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Photos of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis with Their Children
U1111657INP.jpg
Bette Davis, daughter B.D., and husband William Grant Sherry walk through New York’s Central Park in their Easter best in 1949.
Photo: From Bettmann/Getty Images.
I Held Bette Davis' Hand as She Died: She Wanted to Look 'Beautiful,' the Star's Assistant Says in Revealing Memoir
Martin Mills/Getty
Patrick Gomez August 31, 2017 11:45 AM
Bette Davis was mother to two daughters and a son, but in the final decade of her life she welcomed a surrogate daughter into her life.
“She taught me so much,” says Kathryn Sermak, who served as the prickly two-time Oscar winner’s personal assistant off-and-on from 1979 until Davis’s death in 1989.
Sermak was just 23 when she interviewed to become the All About Eve star’s live-in assistant.
“Miss Davis seized my hand firmly, increasing her grip. She left an imprint on my fingers. “How do you do?” she said in her honey-and-gravel voice,” Sermak, now 61, writes in her memoir, Miss D and Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis, excerpted exclusively in the current issue of PEOPLE.
In her first days as Davis’s assistant, Sermak’s handshake became the topic of much discussion.
“I’d like to speak with you about your handshake,” Miss Davis said not long after I started. “You can tell a worthwhile person by their handshake. I would like yours to be a bit firmer.”
For more from Sermak — including how Davis reacted to the scathing tell-all that was written by the star’s daughter — pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday
Over the years, Sermak and Davis grew close. The two traveled and stayed together any time Davis vacationed or was on location for a shoot. In 1983, Davis, then 75, suffered a massive stroke. Sermak stayed in the hospital with her for three months. In her final years, Davis had Sermak accompany her on a few European vacations. During one of them, the star asked Sermak to make a “pact” with her.
“Whichever of us dies first, the other will see to it that we look beautiful at the last,” Sermak recalls Davis saying.
Davis also encouraged Sermak to write.
“Miss D said, ‘You’ve got to tell our great story. You can set the record straight,” says the former assistant.
RELATED VIDEO: How Ryan Murphy’s Early Meeting with Bette Davis Inspired Feud
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Now, in Miss D & Me, Sermak recounts Davis’s final days, which came in 1989. They were on vacation in Europe — where Davis had been — when the actress was hospitalized and told by doctors that her breast cancer, in remission for five years, had “exploded,” and she had just days to live.
“Miss D accepted it,” Sermak writes. “She told me to call [her son] Michael and then [her lawyer and friend] Harold. She did not ask me to reach out to Bede[, her daughter with whom she had a tumultuous relationship.] She had her moments with them over the phone, comforting those she loved so deeply. She did not want them to come because she did not want ‘this bedraggled body and the look of death’ to be their last memory of her. She was not worried that I would have the same trouble. ‘They don’t see me every day like you do, Kath,’ she said.”
On Oct. 6, 1989, Sermak held Davis’s hand During her final moments.
“I squeezed her hand, hoping she would squeeze back as she had those days
in the hospital after the stroke, but I got no response,” Sermak writes.
“At 11:35 p.m. she no longer inhabited her body but her spirit was all
around me.”
Miss D and Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis is available Sept. 12.