Voting Station

B.D. Hyman

Please vote to return to collections.

Celebrity's Relative

The Resume

    (May 1, 1947- )
    Born in Santa Ana, California
    Daughter of Bette Davis and William Grant Sherry
    Legally adopted by Bette's fourth husband, Gary Merrill (1950)
    Birth name is Barbara Davis Sherry
    Appeared with her mother in 'Payment on Demand' and 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane'
    Author of 'My Mother's Keeper' (1985), 'Narrow is the Way' (1987), 'Oppressive Parents: How to Leave Them and Love Them' (1992), 'The Church is Not the Bride' (2000), and 'The Rapture, the Tribulation, and Beyond' (2002)

Why she might be annoying:

    People tend to think that her initials stand for 'Bette Davis' when they don't.
    She married at sixteen to a man thirteen years her senior.
    She attempted to cash in on the new market for 'bitter children of celebrities' books by writing a tell-all memoir.
    The book's timing was horrible, as it was published shortly after her mother had suffered a stroke and undergone a mastectomy.
    Her book inevitably drew comparisons with Christina Crawford's 'Mommie Dearest,' most of them negative.
    One critic went so far as to write, 'B.D. is heavy into amateur psychology. I know what she would have deserved. Joan Crawford for a mother. That would have given her something to write about.'
    She and her brother stopped speaking to each other over her publication of the book.
    Her mother issued a rebuttal to her claims in her book, 'This n' That.'
    Her mother disinherited her.
    Gary Merrill, although divorced from her mother, said that she was motivated by 'cruelty and greed'.
    Mike Wallace chastised her by replaying old interview footage of her praising Bette's skills as a mother, going so far as to say she was adopting her parenting methods.

Why she might not be annoying:

    Her name would be perfect for a mystery novelist.
    She claimed that Joan Crawford 'pulled her hand away as if I were diseased' when she attempted to introduce herself on the set of 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.'
    As she tells it, Joan ordered her to stay away from her twin daughters, telling her 'they have been carefully brought up and shielded from the wicked side of the world and you obviously have not. I don't want your influence to corrupt them.'
    Although her book has inaccuracies, she's less prone to exaggeration than Christina Crawford.
    She is the head of her own ministry in Charlottesville, Virginia.
    She took issue with her mother's Anti-Semitism and excessive drinking/smoking.
    Her mother endorsed the merits of 'Mommie Dearest' by telling Playboy 'I don't blame the daughter, don't blame her at all' before warning her daughter, 'Boy! You could really do a number on me. But you won't will you dear?' (comic irony much?)
    Her marriage caused a great deal of scandal but has lasted over fifty years.
    She had a memorable cameo as Anna Lee's daughter in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.'

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 11 Votes: 90.91% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 16 Votes: 87.50% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 14 Votes: 64.29% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 17 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying