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Bette Davis

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (/ˈbɛti/; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) 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 greatest successes were her roles in romantic dramas.[1]^ She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, was the first person to accrue ten Academy Award nominations (and one write-in) for acting, and was the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.

After appearing in Broadway plays, Davis moved to Hollywood in 1930, but her early films for Universal Studios were unsuccessful. She joined Warner Bros. in 1932 and had her critical breakthrough playing a vulgar waitress in Of Human Bondage (1934). Contentiously, she was not among the three nominees for the Academy Award for Best Actress that year, and she won it the following year for her performance in Dangerous (1935). In 1936, 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. Until the late 1940s, she was one of American cinema's most celebrated leading ladies. She was praised for her role in Marked Woman (1937) and won a second Academy Award for her portrayal of a strong-willed 1850s Southern belle in Jezebel (1938), the first of five consecutive years in which she received a Best Actress nomination; the others for Dark Victory (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), and Now, Voyager (1942).

A period of decline in the late 1940s was redeemed with her role as a fading Broadway star in All About Eve (1950), which has often been cited as her best performance. She received Best Actress nominations for this film and for The Star (1952), but her career struggled over the rest of the decade. Her last nomination came for her role as the psychotic former child star Jane Hudson in the psychological horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). In the latter stage of her career, Davis played character parts in films like Death on the Nile (1978) and shifted her focus to roles in television. She led the miniseries The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978), won an Emmy Award for Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979), and was nominated for her performances in White Mama (1980) and Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982). Her last complete cinematic part was in the drama The Whales of August (1987).

Davis was known for her forceful and intense style of acting and her physical transformations. She gained a reputation as a perfectionist who could be highly combative, and confrontations with studio executives, film directors, and co-stars were often reported. Her forthright manner, clipped vocal style, and ubiquitous cigarette contributed to a public persona which has often been imitated. Davis was the co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, and was the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her career went through several periods of eclipse, and she admitted that her success had often been at the expense of her personal relationships. Married four times, she was once widowed and three times divorced, and raised her children as a single parent. Her final years were marred by a long period of ill health, but she continued acting until shortly before her death from breast cancer, with more than 100 film, television, and theater roles to her credit. In 1999, Davis was placed second on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema, behind Katharine Hepburn.

Life and career

1908–1929: Childhood and early acting career

Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known from early childhood as "Betty", was born on April 5, 1908,[2]^ 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.[3]^ Davis's younger sister was Barbara Harriet (1909–1979).[4]^ In 1915, after their parents separated, the two sisters attended a spartan boarding school, Crestalban, in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, for three years.[5]^ To fund this her mother moved to New York City and found a job as a governess.[6]^

In the fall of 1921, Davis' mother rented an apartment on 144th Street and Broadway and moved the children to New York City.[6]^ To better her earning power, Ruth enrolled herself in the Clarence White School of Photography, and her children in the local public school. She then worked as a portrait photographer.[6]^

During their time in New York, Davis became a Girl Scout, and a patrol leader.[7][8]^ Her patrol won a competitive dress parade for Lou Hoover at Madison Square Garden.[9]^ The young Betty later changed the spelling of her first name to Bette after Bette Fischer, a character in Honoré de Balzac's La Cousine Bette.[10]...^

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1937–1941: Success with Warner Bros.

Davis in Jezebel (1938)

In 1937, 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. She was awarded the Volpi Cup at the 1937 Venice Film Festival for her performance.[66]^

Davis's portrayal of a strong-willed 1850s Southern belle in Jezebel (1938) won her a second Academy Award for Best Actress. This was the first of five consecutive years in which she received the Best Actress nomination. During production, Davis entered a relationship with director William Wyler. She later described him as the "love of my life", and said that making the film with him was "the time in my life of my most perfect happiness".[67]^ The film was a success.

This led to speculation in the press that she would be chosen to play Scarlett O'Hara, a similar character, in Gone with the Wind. Davis expressed her desire to play Scarlett, and while David O. Selznick was conducting a search for the actress to play the role, a radio poll named her 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.[68]^ Davis, on the other hand, did not want Flynn cast as Rhett Butler.[69]^ Newcomer Vivien Leigh was cast as Scarlett O'Hara, de Havilland landed a role as Melanie, and both of them were nominated for the Oscars, with Leigh winning.

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 who had generated the most revenue in their theaters over the previous year.[70]^

Davis with Errol Flynn in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). At the time she played 60-year-old Elizabeth I, she was only 30 years old.[71]^

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".[72]^ He also claimed she read books and her film manuscripts too often.[32]^

By this time they had been living distant lives, as Davis's career often kept her preoccupied.[73][74]^ "I was married to Ham only in name...When we were together, there was nothing left between us," biographer David Thomson quoted her saying. "Any happy days we had had were in our memories almost entirely before we married. The terrible distance when we were together was harder to bear than when we were apart. We no longer communicated with each other at all. And our sex life had disappeared, a woman who's been with just one man for a long time is practically a virgin again."[74]^ Nelson remarried in 1946 and died in 1975.[32]^

Nevertheless, Davis had wanted desperately for the marriage to work out and was devastated when it failed.[75]^ She was emotional during the making of her next film, Dark Victory (1939), and considered abandoning it until the producer Hal B. Wallis convinced her to channel her despair into her acting. The film was among the high-grossing films of the year, and the role of Judith Traherne, a spirited heiress suffering from a malignant brain tumor, brought her an Academy Award nomination. In later years, Davis cited this performance as her personal favorite.[76]^ Dark Victory paired her with frequent future leading man George Brent, and featured Ronald Reagan and Humphrey Bogart in supporting roles.

Davis 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 last was her first color film, and her only color film made during the height of her career. To play the elderly Queen Elizabeth I, Davis shaved her hairline and eyebrows. During filming, Davis was visited on the set by the actor Charles Laughton. She commented that she had a "nerve" playing a woman in her 60s, to which Laughton replied: "Never not dare to hang yourself. That's the only way you grow in your profession. You must continually attempt things that you think are beyond you, or you get into a complete rut." Recalling the episode many years later, Davis remarked that Laughton's advice had influenced her throughout her career.[77]^

Davis with Spencer Tracy at the 1939 Academy Awards

By this time, Davis was Warner Bros.' most profitable star, and she was given the most important of their female leading roles. Her image was considered with more care; although she continued to play character roles, she was often filmed in close-ups that emphasized her distinctive eyes. All This, and Heaven Too (1940) was the most financially successful film of Davis's career to that point.[citation^ ^needed]^

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1961–1970: Renewed success

Davis received her final Academy Award nomination for her role as demented "Baby Jane" Hudson in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).

In 1961, 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". She then joined Glenn Ford and Hope Lange for the Frank Capra film Pocketful of Miracles (1961), a remake of Capra's 1933 film, Lady for a Day, based on a story by Damon Runyon. Exhibitors protested her star billing as they considered it would negatively impact the box office performance and, despite the appearance of Ford, the film failed at the box office.[132]^

Her last Oscar nomination was for the Grand Guignol horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), which also starred Joan Crawford. Crawford showed interest in the script and considered Davis for the part of the demented former child star Baby Jane Hudson. Davis believed it could appeal to the same audience that had recently made Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) a success. She negotiated a deal that would pay her 10 percent of the worldwide gross profits in addition to her salary, along with the conditions that she play Jane, and that Crawford was not sleeping in the same bed as the director, Robert Aldrich. The film became one of the year's big successes.[133][35]^

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Reception and legacy

Roles and performances

As early as 1936, Graham Greene summarized Davis:

Even the most inconsiderable film...seemed temporarily better than they were because of that precise, nervy voice, the pale ash-blond hair, the popping, neurotic eyes, a kind of corrupt and phosphorescent prettiness.... I would rather watch Miss Davis than any number of competent pictures.[166]^

Davis registering to vote in 1964

Pauline Kael notes that Davis made herself lovable and famous by turning herself into "a caricature of a harpy."[167]^

In 1964, Jack Warner spoke of the "magic quality that transformed this sometimes bland and not beautiful little girl into a great artist",[163]^ and in a 1988 interview, Davis remarked that, unlike many of her contemporaries, she had forged a career without the benefit of beauty.[168]^ She admitted she was terrified during the making of her early films, and that she became tough by necessity. "Until you're known in my profession as a monster, you are not a star", she said, "[but] I've never fought for anything in a treacherous way. I've never fought for anything but the good of the film."[169]^ During the making of All About Eve (1950), Joseph L. Mankiewicz told her of the perception in Hollywood that she was difficult, and she explained that when the audience saw her on screen, they did not consider that her appearance was the result of numerous people working behind the scenes. If she was presented as "a horse's ass...forty feet wide, and thirty feet high", that is all the audience "would see or care about".[170]^

Davis's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her achievements in television.

While lauded for her achievements, Davis and her films were sometimes derided. Pauline Kael described Now, Voyager (1942) as a "shlock classic",[171]^ and by the mid-1940s, her sometimes mannered and histrionic performances had become the subject of caricature. 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". Dorothy Manners, at the Los Angeles Examiner, said of her performance in the poorly received Beyond the Forest (1949): "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. But just try to look away!"[172]^

Her film choices were often unconventional: Davis sought roles as manipulators and killers in an era when actresses usually preferred to play sympathetic characters, and she excelled in them. She favored authenticity over glamour, and was willing to change her own appearance if it suited the character.[169]^

Davis's signature and handprints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre

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.[173]^ Individual performances continued to receive praise; in 1987, 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."[174]^

In a 2000 review for All About Eve (1950), Roger Ebert noted: "Davis was a character, an icon with a grand style; so, even her excesses are realistic."[175]^ In 2006, 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 play such unattractive emotions as jealousy, bitterness, and neediness."[176]^ While reviewing What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) in 2008, Ebert asserted that, "No one who has seen the film will ever forget her."[177]^

Davis said in 1973 that her performance in The Catered Affair (1956) was the most under-appreciated but the most self-satisfying of her career.[178]^

In 1977, Davis became the first woman to be honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award.[179]^ 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" to raise public awareness and appreciation of classic film. Of the 25 actresses listed, Davis was ranked at number two, behind Katharine Hepburn.[180]^

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Academy Awards

Part of this section is transcluded from List of awards and nominations received by Bette Davis. (edit | history)

Davis in the trailer for Dark Victory (1939), in which she gave one of her 11 Oscar-nominated performances

Davis in the trailer for Now, Voyager (1942)

Davis established several Oscar milestones. Among them, she became the first person to earn five consecutive Academy Award nominations for acting, all in the Best Actress category (1938–1942).[194]^ Her record has only been matched by one other performer, Greer Garson, who also earned five consecutive nominations in the Best Actress category (1941–1945), including three years when both these actresses were nominated.[194]^

In 1962, Bette Davis became the first person to secure 10 Academy Award nominations for acting. One could argue her 10th nomination was in 1952, and her 11th in 1962, as her write-in nomination for "Of Human Bondage" remains a source of contention. She came in 3rd in the voting, ahead of official nominee Grace Moore. Since then, only three people have surpassed this figure—Meryl Streep (with 21 nominations and three wins), Katharine Hepburn (12 nominations and 4 wins), and Jack Nicholson (12 nominations and 3 wins)—while Laurence Olivier matched her (10 nominations and 1 win).[195]^

Steven Spielberg purchased Davis's Oscars for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938), when they were offered for auction for $207,500 and $578,000, respectively, and returned them to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[196][197]^

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In popular culture

Bette Davis - Wikipedia