What Bette Davis told Morgan Fairchild after her breakup with Johnny Carson (exclusive)

Rance CollinsSat, August 29, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC

0

Morgan Fairchild circa 1982; Johnny Carson in 1984; Bette Davis circa 1981Credit: Robin Platzer/IMAGES/Getty; Gary Null/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty; Bret Lundberg/IMAGES/GettyKey Points -

Morgan Fairchild got support from Bette Davis following her breakup with Johnny Carson, the Falcon Crest star reveals in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly.

Fairchild had worked with Davis on the pilot of the series Hotel in 1983.

The Seduction star discovered that the Oscar-winning legend was a fan of her work, calling her “marvelous.”

Morgan Fairchild got the approval of a Hollywood legend following her breakup with America’s favorite late night host.

“There was one point I had been dating Johnny Carson for a while, and everybody thought we were getting married, and we were kind of getting married, but then I broke up with him,” Fairchild tells Entertainment Weekly in an exclusive interview.

Fairchild never spoke publicly about why they broke up, but she explains that people assumed he had just “dumped the blonde.”

“But indeed,” she says, “I broke up with him.”

One frequent Johnny Carson guest, however, understood the truth.

Bette Davis and Johnny Carson on ‘The Tonight Show’ in February 1983Credit: Frank Carroll/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

“I’m at some big gala at the Hilton, and I feel this tap on my shoulder, and I turn around, and there’s Bette [Davis],” the Falcon Crest star remembers, “[in] full cocktail regalia, and she just leans over, and she says, ‘You were quite right to dump him.’ Sounds like a line out of one of her movies, but she knew ... She knew that he ... didn’t leave me. She got it.”

Davis certainly did know Carson. She appeared on The Tonight Show at least 10 times, according to IMDb, between 1963 and 1988. Clips from her witty interviews, filled with Old Hollywood stories and cigarette smoke, are shared often across social media.

In a 1983 appearance, Carson notes the What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? star hadn’t been on the program in several years.

“We must be bitter enemies,” Davis quips.

Morgan Fairchild and Bette Davis on ‘Hotel’Credit: Aaron Spelling Prod./Everett Collection

Fairchild first met Davis in 1983 on the set of the Aaron Spelling-produced Hotel pilot, which was to star Davis, though she dropped out of the project after the first episode.

In Hotel, the Jezebel actress plays Laura Trent, the owner of the titular luxury hotel, located in San Francisco. James Brolin is the hotel manager, and Fairchild appears in a single-episode arc as a sex worker who is brutally raped.

“I had taken the job to have scenes with Bette Davis, you know, and the day that I was going to shoot my big scene with Bette, we were shooting on location in Hancock Park, which is like the really old money part of L.A., before Beverly Hills. This is the 1920s movie star money. So there’s giant mansions,” Farichild explains. “So I arrive, and my makeup trailer is lost.”

Morgan Fairchild in ‘Hotel’Credit: Aaron Spelling Prod./Everett Collection

The Flamingo Road star grew nervous as she waited for her missing makeup trailer to arrive, knowing Davis must be on set waiting for her. She had been told that the two-time Oscar-winner didn’t “like working with other women,” was “always early,” and “always barking at the crew.” When her makeup trailer finally arrived, Fairchild hurriedly slapped on makeup, grabbed “all [her] junk,” and went inside the mansion. Brolin and Davis were, to her relief, working on a setup that could be shot without Fairchild.

Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.

“I got all my junk clutched to my chest, my script, and all my gear. And Elaine Rich, who was the producer, came over and said, ‘Oh, thank God you’re here. So have you met Bette?’” Fairchild replied that she had, “kind of.” She and Davis had both been attendees at several industry events, even seated at the same table, but the Dangerous star “didn’t really acknowledge me at all,” despite introductions.

Advertisement

So Rich walked Fairchild over to Davis on the Hotel set.

“She said, ‘Miss Davis this is Miss Fairchild. I’m saying, ‘It’s so lovely to meet you.’ She says, ‘Oh, we met at the Valentino Awards,’ which was one of the dinners where she had not acknowledged me. I said, ‘Oh, I didn’t think you’d remember.’ So I start to go, and she says, ‘And I’ve got something to say to you,’ and oh my God, the whole set stopped.”

Fairchild turned nervously, remembering she asked, “Yes, ma’am?”

“She says, ‘You are marvelous.’ I kind of drop my teeth and try to keep myself together. I said, ‘Well, thank you very much’ ... Obviously, you can hear a pin drop on this set at this point. I start to go, and she says, “And I’ve got more to say.’ So she goes on, and she goes down like everything on film ... I’d ever done.”

Going through Fairchild’s credits, Davis noted in particular the 1982 thriller The Seduction, which was a box office success, but had received crippling reviews and a few Razzie nominations.

“She loved The Seduction,” Fairchild relates. “I was saying, ‘Well, that’s very kind of you, Miss Davis, but that wasn’t a very good movie.’ She says, ‘Well, I saw what you were trying to do with it,’ and it went on like that. So finally, she runs out of steam, and I start to go, and Elaine Rich comes over ... and grabs me and says, ‘I can’t get a good morning out of her, and you get a, ‘You’re marvelous.’”

Bette Davis on ‘Hotel’Credit: Aaron Spelling Prod./Everett Collection

After that, Fairchild says, the pair continued to talk all day and Davis “just adopted me.”

“She was like, ‘Okay, so tell me, I’ve never done a series before. Tell me what it’s like working with these bastards,’ I said, “Well, you know...’ and I told her some of my stories of series I’d done and things you need to watch out for. And finally, she says ... ‘That’s what I like about you. You remind me of me when I stood up to Jack Warner.’”

Fairchild says she demurred, “No, Miss Davis, when you stood up to Jack Warner, you changed the business. [I’m] just standing up for a little old me.”

Their friendship bond would continue throughout the 1980s.

“I remember at one point she was getting an award from I think it was Women in Film. It might have been some other group, and I was going to try to go to the luncheon, and anyway, I get a [call] from the group, and they say, ‘Are you coming to the luncheon?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m going to try to.’ They said, ‘You got to come. Bette Davis says she won’t come get the award unless you come. You have to give her the award.’”

The two-hour Hotel episode first aired on Sept. 21, 1983. After Davis’ single appearance, Anne Baxter would step in as the matriarch of the series (as a new character), an ironic echo of Baxter’s Eve ambitiously attempting to usurp Davis’ Margo in the classic All About Eve.

Davis discussed her dissatisfaction with the series in her memoir This ’n That, which was published in 1987. She was sidelined from future episodes in part because of a debilitating series of strokes she suffered while being treated for cancer, though in her book she cited the quality of the scripts.

“I had told Aaron Spelling, the series producer, that I would be able to return in January. This decision, while sincere, was motivated by my desire to go back to work, not by my opinion of the product,” she wrote, adding, “After watching the episodes each week I thought that Hotel should have been called Brothel.”

For more stories from Fairchild’s career, as well as her thoughts on current events, pop culture, and everything in between, listen or watch her podcast 2 Bitches From Texas, which is co-hosted by her sister Cathryn Hartt. The show can be found on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and all the usual podcast sites.

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”