B. D. Hyman

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B. D. Hyman (born Barbara Davis Sherry, aka B.D. Merill, May 1, 1947 in Santa Ana, California) is an American author.

The daughter of the actress Bette Davis and artist William Sherry, she was adopted by Davis's husband Gary Merrill in 1950. She took back her own last name - Sherry - upon turning sixteen, claiming that she wished to distance herself from Merrill. She appeared briefly as an infant in her mother's film Payment on Demand (1951). Under the stage name B.D. Merrill she played a minor role as the next door neighbor's daughter in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), which was produced by Seven Arts Films.

She married Seven Arts Films executive Jeremy Hyman, whom she met on a blind date for the film's premiere. The couple wed when B.D. was sixteen years old. Bette Davis publicly supported her daughter's controversial "under age" marriage. B.D. and her husband have two sons.

Hyman is the author of two books which are highly critical of her mother, My Mother's Keeper (1985) and Narrow Is the Way (1987). My Mother's Keeper brought Hyman considerable condemnation for the timing of its publication; Davis had suffered a severe stroke before the book was published. My Mother's Keeper was a best-seller; the second book, however, did not generate the same level of interest.

A born-again Christian, Hyman is a pastor of her own ministry which is based in Charlottesville, Virginia.