When the film Jezebel came out in 1938, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper accused Bette Davis of having an affair with her leading man, Henry Fonda. According to Hopper, you couldn’t look at someone that way if you weren’t truly in love with them. Hopper may have been onto something—but she got one thing wrong. It wasn’t Fonda that Davis was in love with.

The person that Davis had been looking at in the scene in question hadn’t been her co-star. It was her director, William Wyler, standing just behind the camera. And while her eyes gleamed with love, it didn’t exactly translate offscreen.

Their relationship was as toxic and ended with an ultimatum. Wyler wanted Daivs to marry him within a week, or he’d move on. She called his bluff, and he made good on it. Heartbroken, Davis rebounded with hotelier Arthur Farnsworth—but their relationship met an even more disastrous end.

Just three years after they tied the knot, Davis tragically lost her second husband and went wild with grief. You see, Farnsworth’s passing wasn’t just heartbreaking—it was strangely suspicious too.

Farnsworth passed out in a Hollywood street and perished two days later. When the autopsy came back, it revealed the cause of his demise—and it was jaw-dropping. According to the report, Farnsworth had suffered a skull fracture two weeks before he passed. The authorities were suspicious enough to question Davis about this injury. To this day, her testimony raises more questions than answers.

Davis testified that she didn’t know what could possibly have caused the fatal injury, though she also said Farnsworth fell down the stairs while running to answer the phone. While Farnsworth’s strange end was classified as an accident, to this day, people wonder if Davis flew into one of her trademark rages and could have pushed him.