Actually, Sterling Hayden and Bette Davis got along very well. I read an interview with Hayden's wife at the time, who said that she, Hayden, and Davis used to go out to dinner after work. They enjoyed one another's company and would get pleasantly snockered together. Of course, on the set of that movie Davis famously stood up for a teenage Natalie Wood, who was terrified of jumping in the water, as the director, Stuart Heisler, demanded. Davis heard Natalie screaming and told Heisler that if he had wanted a swimmer for the role he should have hired Johnny Weissmuller. Needless to say, Natalie didn't have to jump. Grateful for the rest of her life, she told the story often, most prominently at the AFI Davis tribute. Contrary to her reputation as a harridan, well-earned in later years, Davis through mid-career was extremely protective of her colleagues, cast and crew, and well-liked by most of them, though not by most of her directors, whom she constantly challenged, often to the detriment of her performance. I think she ruined her career by rejecting or alienating talented directors (Huston, Goulding, Curtiz, Sherman, Vidor, Capra, even Wyler) who stood up to her and agreeing to work only with milksops (Rapper, Bernhardt, Shumlin, Windust, Heisler) who acquiesced to her every whim. If you think about the directors Katharine Hepburn sought out, it's easy to see why the second half of her career was so much more successful than Davis's.
I agree with OP. The Star is a terrible, terrible movie, and Davis looks about a decade older than she did two years earlier in All About Eve. Her marriage to Gary Merrill really took its toll -- turned her into a bitter alcoholic. A friend of mine spent his childhood summers at his family's place near the Merrills' house in Maine. He has great stories about Davis. I discovered this about ten years ago, when I saw on a side table in his den a photo of Davis and a young boy at the beach and his wife said, "Oh, that's Chris." "Yeah, but why's he with Bette Davis?" "They knew each other when Chris was a kid. You'll have to ask him about her."
Sterling Hayden hated Joan Crawford. He once said he'd rather stop acting than work with her again. Everyone hated Crawford on the set of Johnny Guitar, but especially Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge.
