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Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television, and theater. Regarded as one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history, she was noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic, sardonic characters and was known for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, although her greate…
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entertainment · American actress (1908–1989) · autobiographer · character actor · stage actor · film actor · television actor · actor · musician · also Bette Davis, Ruth Elizabeth Davis, Ruth Davis, Davis
Born 5 April 1908 · Died 6 October 1989 · Q71206
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You should never say bad things about the dead; you should only say good... Joan Crawford is dead. Good.
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“s bottom looked like that of her first husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson. In period drama Jezebel, Davis played the impetuous Julie Marsden. The film also starred Henry Fonda. The 12-inch high Oscar is different from the modern version of the award. Davis”
“You should never say bad things about the dead; you should only say good... Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”
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“s advice had influenced her throughout her career. By this time, Davis was Warner Bros.”
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“The last stages of consumption, poverty, and neglect are not pretty, and I intended to be convincing-looking.”
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The Economic Times: Quote of the day by Hollywood icon Bette Davis: 'If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.' The First Lady of the American Screen on the ...
The Guardian: The Office actor Lucy Davis says she has incurable stage four breast cancer
The Guardian: The American left is making strides. But can they win in November? | Ben Davis
The Guardian: Holy Days review – even Miriam Margolyes, Jacki Weaver and Judy Davis as nuns can’t save this film
Yahoo News Canada: Ron Howard recalls Bette Davis patting him on the ass on set of ‘Skyward’: ‘I’m not making this up’
Yahoo: What happened to 'Bette Davis Eyes' singer Kim Carnes after becoming one of music's biggest stars in the 80s?
collider: Bette Davis Won an Oscar for a Film That’s Been Compared to ‘Gone With the Wind’ for Decades—Despite Coming Out Before It
Dollars) compared unfavorably with Davis's reported $1,000 a week income ($19,000 per week in 2024 dollars)
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The Guardian: My summer cultural highlight? An old film where I got lost in Bette Davis’s eyes | Rachel Cooke
The Guardian: Now, Voyager review – Bette Davis’s sublime, sex-free act of sublimation
The Guardian: Bette Davis’s 20 greatest performances – ranked!
The Cheat Sheet: How Bette Davis Reacted to Kim Carnes’ ‘Bette Davis Eyes’
The Guardian: My week as Bette Davis: 'My fierce brows are begging to be raised'
Sermak published the memoir Miss D & Me: Life With the Invincible Bette Davis, a book Davis had requested Sermak to write, detailing their years spent together
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Snopes.com rated the claim “Bette Davis landed her role in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? through placing an ad in a Hollywood publication seeking employment as an actress.” False.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
Marking the 100th anniversary of her birth
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Ebert asserted that, "No one who has seen the film will ever forget her
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“Gerhard Gschwandtner, Great Thoughts to Sell By: Quotes to Motivate You to Success, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2007, ISBN 0071475990, p. 89.”
“Roz Warren, Rosalind Warren, Women's Lip: Outrageous, Irreverent and Just Plain Hilarious Quotes, Sourcebooks, Inc., 2006, ISBN 1402203918, p. 179.”
Premiere magazine ranked her portrayal of Margo Channing in the film as fifth on their list of 100 Greatest Performances of All Time, commenting: "There is something deliciously audacious about her gleeful willingness to
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“William Martin, The Best Liberal Quotes Ever: Why the Left is Right, Sourcebooks, Inc., 2004, ISBN 1402203098, p. 204”
Davis was placed second on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema, behind Katharine Hepburn
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The American Film Institute published its list of the "AFI's 100 Years
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The executors of her estate, Merrill and Kathryn Sermak, her former assistant, established The Bette Davis Foundation, which awards college scholarships to promising actors and actresses
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Held at First Christian Church of North Hollywood
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At the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine
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Died 1989-10-06.
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Awarded Donostia Award (1989).
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“Old age ain't no place for sissies.”
“When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.”
“I love my profession. I would never stop. Relax? I relax when I work. It's my life.”
And later discovered that her cancer had returned
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“This became a credo of mine . . . attempt the impossible in order to improve your work”
Davis was one of several actors featured on the cover of Life magazine
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“You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.”
Bill Collins analyzed The Letter (1940), and described her performance as "a brilliant, subtle achievement", and wrote: "Bette Davis makes Leslie Crosbie one of the most extraordinary females in movies
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“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. I will never recover as completely from B.D.”
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Awarded Crystal Award (1983).
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After filming the pilot episode for the television series Hotel, Davis was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy
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Was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award
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Davis received the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal from the Department of Defense for her work with the Hollywood Canteen
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The song "Bette Davis Eyes", performed by Kim Carnes, won two Grammy Awards (Song of the Year and Record of the Year) and spent a total of nine weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100
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Awarded Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979).
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Davis's longtime rival Joan Crawford's daughter Christina published a memoir titled Mommie Dearest, claiming Crawford was an emotionally manipulative alcoholic who abused her children
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Awarded Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for Burnt Offerings (1977).
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Awarded AFI Life Achievement Award (1977).
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Davis became the first woman to be honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award
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Davis became the first woman to receive the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award
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Released album “Miss Bette Davis”.
That her performance in The Catered Affair (1956) was the most under-appreciated but the most self-satisfying of her career
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Davis played the lead role in two television films that were each intended as pilots for upcoming series for ABC and NBC, Madame Sin, with Robert Wagner, and The Judge and Jake Wyler, with Doug McClure and Joan Van Ark,
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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 f
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Davis appeared as Celia Miller on the TV western The Virginian in the episode titled "The Accomplice
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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"
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Davis, a registered Democrat, appeared at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, where she met future President John F
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Starred alongside Alec Guinness in the film The Scapegoat
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And 1961; her first appearance on TV had been February 25, 1956, on General Electric Theatre
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Davis appeared in the Broadway revue Two's Company, directed by Jules Dassin
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Adopted a baby boy, Michael, born February 5, 1952
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Davis's divorce from William Sherry was finalized
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Negotiated a four-film contract with Warner Bros
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Davis was cast in the melodrama Winter Meeting
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At the age of 39, Davis gave birth to daughter Barbara Davis Sherry (known as B
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Davis married artist William Grant Sherry, her third husband, who also worked as a masseur
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Davis told an interviewer that she had molded her film career on her motto, "I love tragedy," and ironically, until Pearl Harbor, she had been recognized as the American favorite of Japanese moviegoers—because to them, s
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Numerous Hollywood entertainment industry members joined forces to form the Hollywood Canteen
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The first being The Great Lie, with George Brent
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Awarded Academy Award for Best Actress for Jezebel (1939).
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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"
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Davis starred with Humphrey Bogart in Marked Woman, a contemporary gangster drama inspired by the case of Lucky Luciano, and a film regarded as one of the most important in her early career
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The British court held a hearing regarding the studio's injunction against Davis
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Warner Brothers filed a legal injunction against Davis in England which forbade her from appearing in film productions without their consent
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Awarded Academy Award for Best Actress for Dangerous (1936).
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“legal injunction and make the film in England. On October 14, 1936, the British court held a hearing regarding the studio”
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Due to poor film offers, she attempted to free herself from her contract, and although she lost a well-publicized legal case, it marked the beginning of the most successful period of her career
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And had her critical breakthrough playing a vulgar waitress in Of Human Bondage (1934)
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But her early films for Universal Studios were unsuccessful
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Davis was chosen by Blanche Yurka to play Hedwig, the character she had seen Entwistle play in The Wild Duck
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In Broken Dishes and followed it with Solid South
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A then 18-year-old Davis saw a production of Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck with Blanche Yurka and Peg Entwistle
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After Davis's parents separated, Davis and her sister Barbara attended a spartan boarding school named Crestalban in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, for three years
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In Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of Harlow Morrell Davis (1885–1938), a law student from Augusta, Maine, and subsequently a patent attorney, and Ruth Augusta (née Favór; 1885–1961), from Tyngsborough, Massachusetts
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Born 1908-04-05.
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