| B. D. Hyman | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 1, 1947 Santa Ana, California |
| Spouse | Jeremy Hyman (m. 1963–present) |
| Parents | William Grant Sherry (1914-1995) Bette Davis (1908-1989) |
B. D. Hyman (born Barbara Davis Sherry; May 1, 1947), aka B.D. Merrill, is an American author and pastor.
Hyman was born in Santa Ana, California, 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 starred her mother and was produced by Seven Arts Productions.
She married Seven Arts Films executive Jeremy Hyman, whom she met on a blind date for the film's showing at the Cannes Film Festival. 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 since Davis had suffered a stroke—unconnected to the book since Davis knew nothing about it—during the book's publication process; the matter was, however, legally out of Hyman's hands by that time. 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 the head of her own ministry and pastor of her church based in Charlottesville, Virginia. She has also written three books that were published by her ministry: Oppressive Parents: How to leave them and love them (1992), The Church is Not the Bride (2000), The Rapture, the Tribulation, and Beyond (2002).