In 1982, two of Hollywood’s biggest stars agreed to something rare. After five decades each in the business, James Stewart and Bette Davis would finally appear on screen together for the first and only time. But instead of a warm, celebrated pairing late in their careers, the shoot turned out to be one of the more uncomfortable experiences of either star’s life. It also ended up being Stewart’s last major screen role.
The project was a TV movie called ‘Right of Way‘, written by Richard Lees and directed by George Schaefer. It aired on HBO on November 21, 1983. Davis and Stewart played an elderly married couple who decide to end their lives together rather than watch one of them die slowly from illness. Melinda Dillon played their daughter, who struggles to accept their choice.
Inside the Tense ‘Right of Way’ Film Set Between James Stewart and Bette Davis
By most accounts, Stewart went into the project with real feeling behind it. He hoped the film might have the same kind of impact as ‘On Golden Pond‘, the Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn film that had won big at the Oscars the year before. He also wanted to make the movie partly as a tribute to Fonda, his close friend, who had died earlier that year.
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That hope didn’t last long once filming started. According to Stewart’s wife, Gloria, quoted in Michael Munn’s book Jimmy Stewart: The Truth Behind the Legend, Davis never warmed up to her co-star. Gloria said the way Stewart was treated was “appalling,” and said the director felt the same way. The easy warmth the film needed, the kind Fonda and Hepburn had shown in their own late-career film together, just wasn’t there. Davis kept her distance from Stewart the whole time, and the film suffered because of it, at least according to Gloria.
The Cold Kiss Scene That Defined James Stewart and Bette Davis’ On-Screen Chemistry
Things reportedly came to a head during one of the more tender scenes in the film, where the couple lie in bed and Stewart’s character leans in to kiss his on-screen wife on the cheek. When he went in for the kiss, Davis turned her head away. It caught everyone off guard, including Stewart. On the next take, he just hugged her instead.
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Some reviewers who watched the film later said the tension didn’t always show on screen. One review pointed out that even though Davis may have been difficult to work with, and the two barely spent time together off camera, their chemistry in the actual film didn’t feel distant at all. That says something about how skilled both actors were. They were able to cover up real friction with pure craft, even if it couldn’t completely save a film that critics found uneven emotionally. One review also noted that the director, who had worked with Davis the year before on ‘A Piano for Mrs. Cimino‘, never seemed to decide whether the movie was meant to be a small, personal family drama or a bigger statement about how America handles the subject of death.
‘Right of Way’s Rocky Release and the End of Two Legendary Careers
The film’s problems went beyond personalities too. Because of its subject matter, an elderly couple choosing to end their lives together, the network that originally planned to air it backed out. The film sat unreleased for about a year before HBO picked it up.
For Davis, the film came not long before a serious stroke that would limit the rest of her career. For Stewart, ‘Right of Way‘ turned out to be his last live-action film role, closing out a career that started in the 1930s and gave American movies some of their most loved performances.
It’s a quietly sad little footnote in film history. Two legendary stars, brought together only once, right at the end of their careers, and by most accounts, never quite able to get past their differences long enough to enjoy it.
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