West Hollywood to Burbank

Samuel Goldwyn loans Hopkins to Warner Bros. for a four-picture deal. Hopkins is slipping at the box office, so Anatole Litvak suggests that they cast her in their new property Dark Victory. But Bette Davis is assigned to the role and Hopkins hires a new agent, Charles Feldman, and battles with Warner Bros. over her parts, even offering to reduce her salary to be given better roles. Hopkins newfound liberal beliefs, a result of her marriage to Litvak, attract the FBI’s attentions. Litvak has a weekend affair with Bette Davis, Hopkins finds out, and threatens to divorce him and name Davis as correspondent. Jack Warner talks her out of it and searches for the right role for her, going back and forth on several projects, until finally they agree on The Old Maid, costarring . . . Bette Davis. Tests on the film continue until Academy Awards night, when Bette Davis receives the Best Actress Oscar for Jezebel; Hopkins reacts by trashing her own home.