The FX series *Feud: Bette and Joan* (2017) performed the final transformation, turning the documented facts and the accumulated legend into premium television with Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon embodying the two women. The series was acclaimed as entertainment and explicitly acknowledged as creative interpretation. Its images and dramatic reconstruction have since provided many viewers with their primary mental picture of how the night unfolded—which means that a dramatic fiction, however skillfully executed, has become the dominant visual representation of an event that the actual footage also shows, in simpler and less cinematically elaborate terms.
This is the normal fate of historical events that become cultural property. The story becomes more useful than the facts. The legend outpaces the documentation. What we know becomes less vivid than what we have been shown.
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WHAT REMAINS WHEN THE MYTHOLOGY RECEDES
Strip away the allegation, strip away the legend, strip away the dramatic reconstruction, and what you have is a specific evening in 1963 at which specific things occurred and can be observed or documented.
Anne Bancroft won the Academy Award for Best Actress for *The Miracle Worker*. This is documented. It is not disputed.
Anne Bancroft was in New York performing in *Mother Courage and Her Children* and could not attend. This is documented.
Joan Crawford accepted the award on Bancroft’s behalf. This is documented. She had a formal presenting role at the ceremony in addition to the proxy function. This is documented.
Bette Davis was nominated for *What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?* and did not win. This is documented.