Film actress, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, USA. After a short stage career she went to Hollywood in 1930, and had her first success in The Man who Played God (1932). Numerous leading roles followed, among them Of Human Bondage (1934), Dangerous (1935, Oscar), and Jezebel (1938, Oscar), which established her as a major star for the next three decades. She was outstanding in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), in which she co-starred with her long-term rival, Joan Crawford. Later appearances included Death on the Nile (1979), The Whales of August (1987) opposite Lillian Gish, and many television productions.
| Bette Davis | |
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from the Jezebel film trailer, 1938. |
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| Birth name | Ruth Elizabeth Davis |
| Born |
April 5, 1908 Lowell, Massachusetts, USA |
| Died |
October 6, 1989 Neuilly, France |
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Academy Awards |
Best Actress 1935 Dangerous 1938 Jezebel |
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Emmy Awards |
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie 1979 Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter |
Bette Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989), born Ruth Elizabeth Davis, was a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress of film, television and theater.
After appearing in Broadway plays, Davis moved to Hollywood in 1930, but her early films for Universal Studios were unsuccessful. She was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, though her greatest successes were in romantic dramas.
Known for her forceful and often intense style, Davis was recognized for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters.
Davis was the co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, and was the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was the first actress to receive ten Academy Award nominations and the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.
Background and early acting career
Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known from early childhood as "Betty", was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Harlow Morrell Davis and Ruth ("Ruthie") Augusta Favor; In 1915, Davis's parents separated and, in 1921, Ruth Davis moved to New York City with her daughters, where she worked as a photographer. Davis later recalled that it inspired her full commitment to her chosen career, and said, "Before that performance I wanted to be an actress.
She auditioned for George Cukor's stock theater company, and although he was not impressed, he gave Davis her first paid acting assignment – a one week stint playing the part of a chorus girl in the play, Broadway.
Transition from stage to film
Accompanied by her mother, Davis traveled by train to Hollywood, arriving on December 13, 1930. A second test was arranged for Davis, for the film A House Divided (1931). Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Studios, considered terminating Davis's employment, but the cinematographer Karl Freund told him she had "lovely eyes" and would be suitable for The Bad Sister (1931), in which she subsequently made her film debut.
Universal Studios renewed her contract for three months, and she appeared in Waterloo Bridge (1931) before being loaned to Columbia Pictures for The Feathered Serpent and The Menace, and to Capital Films for Hell's House (all 1932).
George Arliss chose Davis for the lead female role in The Man Who Played God (1932), and for the rest of her life, Davis credited him with helping her achieve her "break" in Hollywood. his $100 a week earnings compared unfavorably with Davis's reported $1000 a week income. Davis addressed the issue in an interview, pointing out that many Hollywood wives earned more than their husbands, but the situation proved difficult for Nelson, who refused to allow Davis to purchase a house until he could afford to pay for it himself.
After more than twenty film roles, the role of the vicious and slatternly Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage (1934) earned Davis her first major critical acclaim. Many actresses feared playing unsympathetic characters, and several had refused the role, but Davis viewed it as an opportunity to show the range of her acting skills.
The film was a success, and Davis's confronting characterization won praise from critics, with Life Magazine writing that she gave "probably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a U.S. actress." When she was not nominated for an Academy Award, The Hollywood Citizen News questioned the omission and Norma Shearer, herself a nominee, joined a campaign to have Davis nominated.
Davis appeared in Dangerous (1935) as a troubled actress and received very good reviews. Arnot Robertson wrote in Picture Post, "I think Bette Davis would probably have been burned as a witch if she had lived two or three hundred years ago.
For the rest of her life, Davis maintained that she gave the statue its familiar name of "Oscar" because she felt it resembled her husband, whose middle name was Oscar, although her claim has been disputed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, among others.
In her next film, The Petrified Forest (1936), Davis costarred with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart, but Bogart, in his first important role, received most of the critics' praise. Davis appeared in several films over the next two years but most were poorly received.
Legal case
Convinced that her career was being damaged by a succession of mediocre films, Davis accepted an offer to appear in two films in England. He mocked Davis's description of her contract as "slavery" by stating, incorrectly, that she was being paid $1,350 per week. The British press offered little support to Davis, and portrayed her as overpaid and ungrateful.
Davis explained her viewpoint to a journalist, saying "I knew that, if I continued to appear in any more mediocre pictures, I would have no career left worth fighting for". Davis's counsel presented her complaints - that she could be suspended without pay for refusing a part, with the period of suspension added to her contract, that she could be called upon to play any part within her abilities regardless of her personal beliefs, that she could be required to support a political party against her beliefs, and that her image and likeness could be displayed in any manner deemed applicable by the studio.
Davis lost the case and returned to Hollywood, in debt and without income, to resume her career.
Success as "The Fourth Warner Brother"
Davis began work on Marked Woman (1937), as a prostitute in a contemporary gangster drama inspired by the case of Lucky Luciano. The film, and Davis's performance, received excellent reviews and her stature as a leading actress was enhanced. Selznick was conducting a search for an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara, a role Davis coveted, in Gone With the Wind, and a radio poll named Davis as the audience favorite. Warner offered her services to Selznick as part of a deal that also included Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, but Selznick did not consider Davis as suitable, and rejected the offer. During the filming of Jezebel, Davis entered a relationship with the director, William Wyler.
Jezebel marked the beginning of the most successful phase of Davis's career, and over the next few years she was listed in the annual "Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars", which was compiled from the votes of movie exhibitors throughout the U.S. for the stars that had generated the most revenue in their theaters over the previous year. In contrast to Davis's success, her husband, Ham Nelson, had failed to establish a career for himself, and their relationship faltered. In 1938, Nelson obtained evidence that Davis was engaged in a sexual relationship with Howard Hughes and subsequently filed for divorce citing Davis's "cruel and inhuman manner".
She was emotional during the making of her next film, Dark Victory (1939), and considered abandoning it until the producer Hal Wallis convinced her to channel her despair into her acting. The film became one of the highest grossing films of the year, and the role of Judith Traherne brought her an Academy Award nomination. In later years, Davis cited this performance as her personal favorite.
She appeared in three other box office hits in 1939, The Old Maid with Miriam Hopkins, Juarez with Paul Muni and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex with Errol Flynn. The latter was her first color film, and was one of her few color films made during the height of her career. To play the elderly Elizabeth I of England, Davis shaved her hairline and eyebrows. Recalling the episode many years later, Davis remarked that Laughton's advice had influenced her throughout her career.
By this time, Davis was Warner Brother's most profitable star, described as "The Fourth Warner Brother", and she was given the most important of their female leading roles. All This and Heaven Too (1940) was the most financially successful film of Davis's career to that point, while The Letter was considered "one of the best pictures of the year" by the Hollywood Reporter, and Davis won admiration for her portrayal of an adulterous killer. Davis refused, as she had met Arthur Farnsworth, a New England innkeeper.
In January 1941, Davis became the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences but antagonized the committee members with her brash manner and radical proposals. In view of the war in Europe, Davis advocated changing the venue for Academy Awards ceremonies from banquet halls to theaters, and charging admission to raise funds for the British War Relief. Faced with the disapproval and resistance of the committee, Davis resigned, and was succeeded by Jean Hersholt, who implemented the changes she had suggested.
William Wyler directed Davis in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1941), but they clashed over the interpretation of the character, Regina Giddens. Originally played on stage by Tallulah Bankhead, Davis did not want to duplicate Bankhead's performance, although in many scenes Wyler felt that Bankhead's interpretation was more appropriate. Davis refused to compromise on several points, and although she received another Academy Award nomination for her performance, she never worked with Wyler again.
War effort, and the Hollywood Canteen
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Davis spent the early months of 1942 traveling across the U.S. selling war bonds.
When John Garfield discussed opening a serviceman's club in Hollywood, Davis responded enthusiastically. Davis ensured that every night there would be at least a few important "names" for the visiting soldiers to meet, often calling on friends at the last moment to ensure the soldiers would not be disappointed. Davis later commented, "There are few accomplishments in my life that I am sincerely proud of.
Davis had initially shown little interest in the film Now, Voyager (1942) until Hal Wallis advised her that female audiences needed romantic dramas to distract them from the reality of their lives. The cigarette, often used by Davis as a dramatic prop, featured prominently in one of the film's most imitated scenes, in which Paul Henreid lit two cigarettes before passing one to Davis. Film reviewers complimented Davis on her performance despite some perceived weaknesses in the film's narrative, with the National Board of Review commenting that Davis gave the film "a dignity not fully warranted by the script".
During the early 1940s several of Davis's film choices were influenced by the war; Davis performed a novelty song, "They're Either Too Young or Too Old", which became a hit record after the film's release. Davis felt that Hopkins tried to upstage her throughout the film's production, and the director Vincent Sherman and costar Gig Young later recalled the intense competitiveness and animosity between the two actresses, and Davis often joked that she held back nothing in a scene in which she was required to shake Hopkins in a fit of anger.
Personal and professional setbacks
In August 1943, Davis's husband, Arthur Farnsworth, collapsed while walking along a Hollywood street, and died two days later. Davis testified before an inquest that she knew of no event that might have caused the injury, and a finding of "accidental death" was reached.
Although she had gained a reputation for being forthright and somewhat confrontational during the making of some of her previous films, her behavior during filming of Mr. Skeffington was erratic and out-of-character. Davis later explained her actions with the observation, "when I was most unhappy I lashed out rather than whined." Some reviewers criticized Davis for the excess of her performance;
The Corn is Green (1945) starred Davis as a dowdy English teacher, who saves a young Welsh miner from a life in the coal pits, by offering him education.
In 1947, Davis gave birth to a daughter, Barbara (known as B.D.) and later wrote in her memoir that she became absorbed in motherhood and considered ending her career. After the completion of Beyond the Forest (1949), Jack Warner released Davis from her contract, at her request. Newsweek called it "undoubtedly one of the most unfortunate stories [Davis] has ever tackled", while Dorothy Manners writing for the Los Angeles Examiner, criticized the "sheer hysteria and overexposed histrionics" of Davis's performance, and described the film as "an unfortunate finale to her brilliant career". The film contained the line, "What a dump!", which became closely associated with Davis after impersonators used it in their acts. In later years, Davis often used it as her opening line at speaking engagements.
Starting a freelance career
By 1949, Davis and Sherry were estranged and Hollywood columnists were writing that Davis's career was at an end. Davis described the script as "the best I ever read" and during production, she established what would become a life-long friendship with her costar, Anne Baxter, and a romantic relationship with her leading man, Gary Merrill, which led to marriage.
Critics responded positively to Davis's performance and several of her lines became well known, particularly, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." Pauline Kael wrote that much of Mankiewicz's vision of "the theater" was "nonsense" but commended Davis, writing "[the film is] saved by one performance that is the real thing: Bette Davis is at her most instinctive and assured.
Davis won a "Best Actress" award from the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award.
In July 3, 1950 Davis's divorce from William Sherry was finalized, and on July 28 she married Gary Merrill. With Sherry's consent, Merrill adopted B.D., Davis's daughter with Sherry, and in 1950, Davis and Merrill adopted a baby girl they named Margot. The family traveled to England, where Davis and Merrill starred in a murder-mystery film, Another Man's Poison. When it received lukewarm reviews and failed at the box office, Hollywood columnists wrote that Davis's comeback had petered out, and an Academy Award nomination for The Star (1952) did not halt her decline.
Davis and Merrill adopted a baby boy, Michael, in 1952, and Davis appeared in a Broadway revue, Two's Company. Davis and Merrill began arguing frequently, with B.D.
Few of Davis's films of the 1950s were successful and many of her performances were condemned by critics. The Hollywood Reporter wrote of mannerisms "that you'd expect to find in a nightclub impersonation of [Davis]", while the London critic, Richard Winninger, wrote, "Miss Davis, with more say than most stars as to what films she makes, seems to have lapsed into egoism. The criterion for her choice of film would appear to be that nothing must compete with the full display of each facet of the Davis art.
Renewed success
In 1962, Davis opened in the Broadway production, The Night of the Iguana to mostly mediocre reviews, and left the production after four months due to "chronic illness."
Davis and Joan Crawford played two aging sisters, former actresses forced by circumstance to share a decaying Hollywood mansion. The director, Robert Aldrich, explained that Davis and Crawford were each aware of how important the film was to their respective careers and commented, "It's proper to say that they really detested each other, but they behaved absolutely perfectly". After filming was completed, their public comments against each other allowed the tension to develop into a lifelong feud, and when Davis was nominated for an Academy Award, Crawford campaigned against her. Davis also received her only BAFTA Award nomination for this performance. also played a small role in the film, and when she and Davis visited the Cannes Film Festival to promote it, she met Jeremy Hyman, an executive for Seven Arts Productions. After a short courtship, she married Hyman at the age of sixteen, with Davis's permission.
Davis sustained her comeback over the course of several years. Davis played the mother of Susan Hayward but filming was hampered by heated arguments between Davis and Hayward. Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) was Robert Aldrich's follow-up to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, in which he planned to reunite Davis and Crawford, but when Crawford withdrew allegedly due to illness soon after filming began, she was replaced by Olivia de Havilland.
By the end of the decade, Davis had also appeared in the British films The Nanny (1965) and The Anniversary (1968), but her career again stalled.
Late career
In the early 1970s, Davis was invited to appear in New York, in a stage presentation, Great Ladies of the American Cinema. Davis was well received and was invited to tour Australia with the similarly themed, Bette Davis in Person and on Film, and its success allowed her to take the production to the United Kingdom.
In the U.S., she appeared in the stage production, Miss Moffat, a musical adaptation of The Corn is Green, but after the show was panned by the Philadelphia critics during its pre-Broadway run, she cited a back injury and abandoned the show, which closed immediately.
In 1977, Davis became the first woman to receive the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. The televised event included comments from several of Davis's colleagues including William Wyler who joked that given the chance Davis would still like to refilm a scene from The Letter to which Davis nodded. Jane Fonda, Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland were among the actors who paid tribute, with de Havilland commenting that Davis "got the roles I always wanted".
Her name became well known to a younger audience, when Kim Carnes's song "Bette Davis Eyes" became a worldwide hit and the highest selling record of 1981 in the U.S., where it stayed at number one on the music charts for more than two months. Davis's grandson was impressed that she was the subject of a hit-song and Davis considered it a compliment, writing to both Carnes and the songwriters, and accepting the gift of gold and platinum records from Carnes, and hanging them on her wall. Hyman, deteriorated when Hyman became a born again Christian and attempted to persuade Davis to follow suit. Upon her return, she learned that Hyman had published a memoir, titled My Mother's Keeper in which she chronicled a difficult mother and daughter relationship and depicted scenes of Davis's overbearing and drunken behavior.
Several of Davis's friends commented that Hyman's depictions of events were not accurate; Mike Wallace rebroadcast a Sixty Minutes interview he had filmed with Hyman a few years earlier in which she commended Davis on her skills as a mother, and said that she had adopted many of Davis's principles in raising her own children. Critics of Hyman noted that Davis had financially supported the Hyman family for several years and had recently saved them from losing their house. Despite the acrimony of their divorce years earlier, Gary Merrill also defended Davis. Davis's adopted son, Michael Merrill, ended contact with Hyman and refused to speak to her again, as did Davis, who also disinherited her.
In her memoir, This 'N That (1987), Davis wrote, "I am still recovering from the fact that a child of mine would write about me behind my back, to say nothing about the kind of book it is.
Davis appeared in the television film, As Summers Die (1986) and Lindsay Anderson's The Whales of August (1987), in which she played the blind sister of Lillian Gish. The script was rewritten to place more emphasis on Barbara Carrera's character, and the reworked version was released after Davis's death.
After abandoning Wicked Stepmother and with no further film offers, Davis appeared on several talk shows and was interviewed by Johnny Carson, Joan Rivers, Larry King and David Letterman, discussing her career but refusing to discuss her daughter.
During 1988 and 1989, Davis was feted for her career achievements, receiving the Kennedy Center Honor, the Legion of Honor from France, the Campione d'Italia from Italy and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 1997, the executors of her estate, Michael Merrill, her son, and Kathryn Sermak, her former assistant, established "The Bette Davis Foundation" which awards college scholarships to promising actors and actresses.
Comments and criticism
In 1964, Jack Warner spoke of the "magic quality that transformed this sometimes bland and not beautiful little girl into a great artist", and in a 1988 interview, Davis remarked that, unlike many of her contemporaries, she had forged a career without the benefit of beauty.
While lauded for her achievements, Davis and her films were sometimes derided; Reviewers such as Edwin Schallert for the Los Angeles Times praised Davis's performance in Mr. Skeffington (1944), while observing, "the mimics will have more fun than a box of monkeys imitating Miss Davis", and Dorothy Manners writing for the Los Angeles Examiner said of her performance in the poorly received Beyond the Forest, "no night club caricaturist has ever turned in such a cruel imitation of the Davis mannerisms as Bette turns on herself in this one." Time Magazine noted that Davis was compulsively watchable even while criticizing her acting technique, summarizing her performance in Dead Ringer (1964) with the observation, "her acting, as always, isn't really acting: it's shameless showing off.
Her film choices were often unconventional; Claudette Colbert commented that Davis was the first actress to play roles older than herself, and therefore did not have to make the difficult transition to character parts as she aged.
As she entered old age, Davis was acknowledged for her achievements. John Springer, who had arranged her speaking tours of the early 1970s, wrote that despite the accomplishments of many of her contemporaries, Davis was "the star of the thirties and into the forties", achieving notability for the variety of her characterizations and her ability to assert herself, even when her material was mediocre. in 1987, Bill Collins analyzed The Letter (1941), and described her performance as "a brilliant, subtle achievement", and wrote, "Bette Davis makes Leslie Crosbie one of the most extraordinary females in movies." In a 2000 review for All About Eve, Roger Ebert noted, "Davis was a character, an icon with a grand style, so even her excesses are realistic."
A few months before her death in 1989, Davis was one of several actors featured on the cover of Life. In a film retrospective that celebrated the films and stars of 1939, Life concluded that Davis was the most significant actress of her era, and highlighted Dark Victory as one of the most important films of the year. Angela Lansbury summed up the feeling of those of the Hollywood community who attended her memorial service, commenting after a sample from Davis's films were screened, that they had witnessed "an extraordinary legacy of acting in the twentieth century by a real master of the craft", that should provide "encouragement and illustration to future generations of aspiring actors".
In 1999, the American Film Institute published its list of the "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars", which was the result of a film industry poll to determine the "50 Greatest American Screen Legends" in order to raise public awareness and appreciation of classic film. Of the 25 actresses listed, Davis was ranked at number two, behind Katharine Hepburn.
Academy Awards and nominations
Bette Davis became the first woman to secure 10 nominations for the Best Actress Oscar, and in the intervening years, only Katharine Hepburn and Meryl Streep have surpassed this figure.
Steven Spielberg purchased Davis's Oscars for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938) when they were offered for auction, and returned them to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
1962: Nominated for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1952: Nominated for The Star 1950: Nominated for All About Eve 1944: Nominated for Mr. Skeffington 1942: Nominated for Now, Voyager 1941: Nominated for The Little Foxes 1940: Nominated for The Letter 1939: Nominated for Dark Victory 1938: Won for Jezebel 1935: Won for Dangerous|
Preceded by: Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night |
Academy Award for Best Actress 1935 for Dangerous |
Succeeded by: Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld |
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Preceded by: Luise Rainer for The Good Earth |
Academy Award for Best Actress 1938 for Jezebel |
Succeeded by: Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind |
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