Bette Davis
Bette Davis (
April 5,
1908 –
October 6,
1989), was a two-time
Academy Award-winning
American actress of
stage,
screen and
television.
After appearing in
Broadway productions, Davis moved to Hollywood where she appeared in several films for
Universal Studios, until she signed a contract with
Warner Brothers. In a well publicised 1937 legal case, Davis attempted to free herself from the restraints of her contract but failed. Over the following decade she established herself as one of the most notable and praised film actresses of her day. Highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime
melodramas to historical biographies, she occasionally acted in
comedies. Her greatest successes were in romantic dramas, often described derisively as "
women's pictures", a term Davis detested.
Known for her forceful and often intense dramatic performances, Davis was recognised for her willingness to play unsympathetic and unglamorous characters. She gained a reputation as a perfectionist who could be highly combative, and her confrontations with studio executives, film directors and costars were often reported. Her career declined during the 1950s, although she continued to appear in films and television. During the 1960s she played in several horror films, and over the course of the next two decades, also appeared in numerous television movies.
Co-founder of the
Hollywood Canteen and the first female president of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Davis maintained a high profile as a respected figure within the Hollywood community, earning eleven Academy Award nominations and becoming the first woman to receive a "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the
American Film Institute. Davis's strong persona, her clipped vocal style and ubiquitous
cigarette contributed to her image as a film personality and her distinctive style has been imitated and satirised. Outspoken and direct, she was also known for her witty and sometimes biting comments about Hollywood, her co-stars and herself. A highly ambitious personality, she readily admitted, in her later years, that her career had been her first priority, and that her personal life had been turbulent; married four times, she was once widowed and thrice divorced, and raised her children as a single parent. Her final years were marred by a long period of ill health, however she continued acting until shortly before her death from cancer, with more than one hundred film and television roles to her credit.
Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born in
Lowell, Massachusetts, to Harlow Morrell Davis and Ruth Augusta Favor; the family had mostly English, as well as distant French and Welsh ancestry.[
1][
2] In 1918 Davis' father abandoned the family, leaving Bette and her younger sister, Barbara, to be raised in genteel poverty by their mother, who had aspired to be an actress. As a child Bette aspired to be a dancer, until she decided that actors led a more glamorous life.
Upon graduation from
Cushing Academy, a prep school in
Ashburnham,
Massachusetts, Davis was denied admission to
Eva LeGallienne's Manhattan Civic Repertory because she was considered insincere, before enrolling in John Murray Anderson's dramatic school, where she excelled.
After unsuccessfully replacing
Linda Watkins in the Broadway revival of
The Wild Duck, Davis's official first professional stage performance was in the 1928
Off-Broadway production
The Earth Between. The following year she made her Broadway debut in the comedy
Broken Dishes. She also appeared in the play
Solid South.
After receiving some positive reviews she was hired by
Universal Studios to appear in the film
Strictly Dishonourable, and arrived in Hollywood on December 13, 1930. The studio executives were not impressed by her, and rejected Davis for the role in favour of
Sidney Fox. A screen test was arranged for the film
A House Divided. Davis recalled being hastily dressed in an ill-fitting costume with a low neckline, only to be rebuffed by the
director William Wyler, who loudly commented, "What do you think of these dames who show their chests and think they can get jobs?".
Helen Chandler ultimately won the part. Davis then secured her film debut role in
The Bad Sister, starring Sidney Fox. Producer
Carl Laemmle Jr. was hostile toward Davis, who recalled overhearing his comment that she "has about as much sex appeal as
Slim Summerville", one of the film's co-stars. The film was not a success, and Davis' next role in
Seed was too brief to attract attention. Sidney Fox was given a role previously assigned to Davis in the
The Murders in the Rue Morgue, while Universal Studios considered Davis's contract.
[Stine, Whitney, with running commentary by Bette Davis. Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis. 1974. W. H. Allen and Co Plc. ISBN 1569801576.]
Davis refused a suggestion that she be renamed "Bettina Dawes" saying that she would never be known by a name that sounded like "Between the Drawers". Universal Studios renewed her contract for three months, and she appeared in
Waterloo Bridge before being loaned to
Columbia Pictures to appear in
The Feathered Serpent and
The Menace, and
Capital Films to appear in
Hell's House. After a nine month stint, Davis had appeared in six films, but none of them were successful and Laemmle elected not to renew her contract.
|
As the shrewish Mildred in Of Human Bondage, Davis was acclaimed for her dramatic performance. |
For the remainder of her life, Davis credited
George Arliss for insisting upon her as his leading lady in
The Man Who Played God (1932). The films that followed were modestly successful and Davis was regarded as a promising film actress.
In 1932, she married
Harmon O. Nelson, Jr., a
bandleader, after an interrmittant relationship of four years. Nelson found himself the subject of media scrutiny; his $100 a week earnings compared unfavourably 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.
[Spada, James, More Than a Woman, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, ISBN 0316908800 pp94-98 ] The role of the vicious, slatternly, and mentally disturbed Mildred Rogers in
Of Human Bondage (1934) earned Davis major critical acclaim. While most actresses feared playing unsympathetic characters and had refused the role of Mildred, Davis believed such a character would allow her to show the range of her acting skills. During filming Davis discovered that she was resented by the largely British cast, who felt that the role of Mildred should not be played by a relatively unknown American actress, ignoring the fact that several British actresses had refused the part. Her costar,
Leslie Howard, was initially dismissive of Davis but as filming progressed his attitude changed and he subsequently spoke highly of her abilities. To play such a hate-filled character, Davis later admitted that she drew on her own feelings and emotions, as was the case with most of her roles, and the director
John Cromwell allowed her relative freedom, commenting, "I let Bette have her head. I trusted her instincts." She insisted that she be portrayed as realistically as possible in her death scene, and noted that "the last stages of
consumption, poverty and neglect are not pretty and I intended to be convincing-looking".
[Spada, James, More Than a Woman, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, ISBN 0316908800 pp102-107 ]Audiences found Davis's characterisation confronting, but the film was a success. Davis won praise from critics such as
Mordaunt Hall writing for the
New York Times, and
Life Magazine wrote that she gave "probably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a U.S. actress."
[Ringgold, Gene, The Films of Bette Davis, Cadillac Publishing Co., 1966, p 57 ]When her performance was not nominated for an
Academy Award,
The Hollywood Citizen News wrote scathingly of the omission and
Norma Shearer, herself a nominee, joined a campaign to have Davis nominated. This prompted an announcement from the Academy president,
Howard Estabrook, who said that under the circumstances "any voter...may write on the ballot his or her personal choice for the winners", thus allowing for only time, a nominee not officially endorsed by the Academy.
[Wiley, Mason and Bona, Damien, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, Ballantine Books, 1987, ISBN 0345344537 pages 55 ] Claudette Colbert won the award for
It Happened One Night but the uproar led to a change in Academy voting procedures the following year, whereby nominations were determined by votes by all eligble members of a particular branch, rather than by a smaller committee,
[Spada, James, More Than a Woman, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, ISBN 0316908800 p 107 ] with results independently tabulated by the accounting firm,
Price Waterhouse.
[Wiley, Mason and Bona, Damien, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, Ballantine Books, 1987, ISBN 0345344537 pages 58 ]The following year, Davis appeared in
Dangerous as a troubled actress. The film was a popular success and Davis received very good reviews. E. 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. She gives the curious feeling of being charged with power which can find no ordinary outlet", while the
New York Times hailed her as "becoming one of the most interesting of our screen actresses."
[Ringgold, Gene, The Films of Bette Davis, Cadillac Publishing Co., 1966, p 65 ] She won the
Academy Award for Best Actress for the role, although Davis was among those who felt it was belated recognition for
Of Human Bondage.
Her next film,
The Petrified Forest, paired her with
Leslie Howard and
Humphrey Bogart and was a considerable success, but the films that followed were poorly received.
When Jack Warner discussed the role of
Scarlett O'Hara in
Gone With the Wind with Davis, she retorted "I bet it's a pip", and left the studio. Faced with a suspension from the studio, Davis accepted a $50, 000 offer from
Ludovic Toeplitz to appear in two films in England, and with the knowledge that this would be in breach of her contract, fled to Canada to avoid legal papers being served upon her. Eventually brought to court in England, Davis later recalled the opening statement of the barrister, Sir Patrick Hastings, who represented Warner Brothers. In his openening address, Hastings urged the court to "come to the conclusion that this is rather a naughty young lady and that what she wants is more money". He mocked Davis's description of her contract as "slavery" by noting, incorrectly, that she was being paid $1,350 per week. He remarked that "if anybody wants put me into perpetual servitude on the basis of that remuneration, I shall prepare to consider it". The British press offered little sympathy to Davis, and portrayed her as overpaid and ungrateful in view of the dire economic situation of many of its readers.
[Spada, James, More Than a Woman, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, ISBN 0316908800 pp124-125 ]Davis explained her viewpoint to a journalist, saying that "I knew that, if I continued to appear in any more mediocre pictures, I would have no career left worth fighting for".
[Stine, Whitney, with running commentary by Bette Davis. Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis. 1974. W. H. Allen and Co Plc. ISBN 1569801576. p 68]In court her counsel attempted to convey Davis's 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. Jack Warner testified, and was asked, "Whatever part you choose to call upon her to play, if she thinks she can play it, whether it is distasteful and cheap, she has to play it?" Warner replied, "Yes, she must play it."
[Spada, James, More Than a Woman, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, ISBN 0316908800 p 127 ]Davis ultimately lost the case, and was ordered to pay all costs, including the legal costs of Warner Brothers. Owing a total of $103,000, and broke, Davis returned to Hollywood, where Jack Warner met Davis with the observation "Let's forget all about it, Bette. We've got work to do", and the assurance that the studio would meet all of the costs that had been incurred. Columnists such as
Hedda Hopper and
The New York Times's
Bosley Crowther wrote approvingly of Davis's efforts.
[Stine, Whitney, with running commentary by Bette Davis. Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis. 1974. W. H. Allen and Co Plc. ISBN 1569801576. pp 72-73]Davis returned to Hollywood and filmed
Marked Woman (1937), a contemporary gangster drama inpired by the case of
Lucky Luciano, with Davis as a prostitute and Humphrey Bogart as a
district attorney. The film, and Davis's performance, received excellent reviews and Davis's reputation as a leading actress was enhanced.
The 1938 release of
Jezebel in which Davis played a spoilt "
Southern Belle", coincided with
David O. Selznick's search to find an actress to play
Scarlett O'Hara in
Gone with the Wind, and helped fuel public speculation that Davis would be chosen to play Selznick's heroine.
Jezebel was one of the year's biggest successes and Davis was again acclaimed for her performance, winning a second Academy Award. Although not chosen to play Scarlett O'Hara, Davis entered the most successful phase of her career.
As Warner Brothers's most prominent actress, Davis was offered the best of scripts, costars and directors, and her films of this period were prestigious productions. By contrast, her husband Harmon Nelson, had failed to establish a career for himself, and their relationship faltered. In 1938 he obtained evidence that Davis was engaged in a sexual relationship with
Howard Hughes and subsequently filed for divorce citing the "cruel and inhuman manner" that Davis had shown him and that she had become "so engrossed in her profession that she had neglected" Nelson and allowed her marriage to disintegrate.
[Spada, James, More Than a Woman, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, ISBN 0316908800 pp 144-148 ]Davis was highly emotional during the making of her next film,
Dark Victory (1939), and considered abandoning the project until the producer
Hal Wallis intervended and convinced her to channel her despair into her acting. The role brought her an Academy Award nomination and become one of the highest grossing films of the year. 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. These successes cemented Davis's reputation and over the next few years, Jack Warner promoted Davis as Warner Brother's most important star.
[[All This and Heaven Too (1940) became the most financially successful film of Davis's career to that point, while
{{The Letter (1940 film)|The Letter}} was considered "one of the best pictures of the year" by the
{{Hollywood Reporter}}.
[Ringgold, Gene, The Films of Bette Davis, Cadillac Publishing Co., 1966, p 105 ] She entered a relationship with her former costar {{George Brent}}, who proposed marriage, but Davis refused. She had recently met a {{New England}} innkeeper, Arthur Farnsworth and they were married in December 1940, their wedding taking place during Davis's short break between the completion of
{{The Great Lie}} and
{{The Bride Came C.O.D.}} (both 1941).
In January 1941, Davis became the first female president of the {{Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences}} but antagonised the committee members with her brash proposals. In view of the rise of {{Nazism}} in {{Europe}}, Davis advocated changing the venue for {{Academy Award}}s ceremonies from banquet halls to theatres, and charging admission to raise fund for the {{British War Relief}}. She also advocated that {{film extra}}s should not have the opportunity to vote for awards.
Despite a earlier romantic relationship with {{William Wyler}}, who had directed some of Davis's most popular films, Davis clashed with him over their interpretation of the character, Regina Giddens, in
{{The Little Foxes}} (1941). 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. {{Image:62babyjanex.jpg|thumb|Davis received her final Academy Award nomination for her role as Baby Jane Hudson in
{{What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?}} (1962).]]
With the outbreak of
WWII, Davis took on a patriotic role both as one of the founders and president of the Hollywood Canteen for visiting armed forces servicemen.
Her career stagnated during the late 1940s, so she left
Warner Bros. After her performance as the glamorous, aging theatrical actress Margo Channing in
All About Eve (1950), directed by
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, she received another Oscar nomination. This role contains the line that Davis is perhaps most associated with: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." Davis often commented that the role "brought me back from the dead". The other films that she appeared in during the 1950s did not equal the quality of
All About Eve and by the end of the decade she was no longer in demand.
In 1961 she placed an advertisement for "job wanted" in the trade papers. Davis later observed that, although she intended it as a joke there was considerable truth in it and that, above all else, she simply wanted the opportunity to continue working.
Bette's performance in 1962's over-the-top
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, directed by
Robert Aldrich and co-starring long-time rival
Joan Crawford, earned her another
Oscar nomination. Her performance as a demented former child star living in a decaying mansion with her wheelchair-bound sister was a smash hit and a top-grosser that year.
Contrary to Hollywood legend asserting that Davis and Crawford engaged in a bitter feud during filming, Robert Aldrich commented that both actresses understood that their careers were at a crossroads and that the film may prove to be an important one for each of them, and therefore behaved with professional courtesy during filming. While touring the television talk-show circuit to promote the film, Davis told one interviewer that when she and Crawford were first suggested for the leads, Warner studio head Jack Warner replied: "I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for either of those two old broads." Recalling the story, Davis laughed at her own expense, but the following day, she reportedly received a telegram from Crawford: "In future, please do not refer to me as an old broad!" The ill feeling developed into a lifelong enmity when Crawford actively campaigned against Davis when the latter was nominated for an Academy Award. For the remainder of her life, Davis criticised Crawford for her behaviour.
Recognizing the renewed box-office potential in his former contract player,
Jack Warner signed Davis for another venture into the macabre in 1964's
Dead Ringer, where she played identical twin sisters (one of whom murders the other) opposite a murderous gigolo
Peter Lawford, and detective
Karl Malden, who is in love with the good sister. In this updated homage to
A Stolen Life (1946), Davis and her
Now, Voyager (1942) co-star
Paul Henreid were reunited with Henreid directing Davis.
Also that year she starred in another
Robert Aldrich picture,
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), a
Grand Guignol Southern gothic melodrama, with Davis as an elderly recluse slowly being driven mad; she is in fear of losing her condemned home, whilst simultaneously an old murder is exposed and her relatives gang up on her.
Joan Crawford was scheduled to co-star in the film, but bowed out following reported conflicts with Davis, although, as the syndicated American columnist
Liz Smith pointed out, it was Davis who rebuffed Crawford's repeated "attempts at a
Pax Romana".
Bette and Joan (a book written by Shaun Considine) discusses these two major stars' decades of conflict and dislike.
|
Davis flanked by her young co-stars in The Watcher in the Woods |
While she appeared in
The Nanny (1965),
The Anniversary (1967),
Bunny O'Hare (1971),
Burnt Offerings (1976),
Death on the Nile(1978) as Mrs. Van Schuyler, a wealthy elderly American snob, and also starring in two Disney movies
Return from Witch Mountain (1978) and
The Watcher in the Woods (1980), Davis spent most of the remainder of her career working in television productions. She appeared in
The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978), as the mysterious and almost omniscient "Widow Fortune" in a small insular village in
Connecticut.
In 1977 Davis became the first woman to receive the
American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. She won a Best Actress
Emmy Award for
Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter, a 1979 TV production with
Gena Rowlands playing Davis' dying daughter.
In 1981 the singer
Kim Carnes released a song "
Bette Davis Eyes" which became a worldwide hit and the highest selling record of the year in the U.S. where it stayed at number one on the music charts for more than two months. Davis was pleased by the success of the song, commenting to an interviewer that for the first time, her grandson considered her to be "cool". She contacted the songwriters and Carnes, and helped promote the record.
She also appeared in
Lindsay Anderson's
elegiac The Whales of August (1987), in which she played the blind sister of another legendary star,
Lillian Gish. Her last role was the title role in
Larry Cohen's film
Wicked Stepmother (1989), whose set she abandoned due to difficulties with the director; she was replaced by
Barbara Carrera as her magical incarnation. She died of cancer, aged 81, in France that same year.
She wrote three biographies,
The Lonely Life (1962),
Mother Goddam (1974), and
This 'N' That (1987).
Bette Davis, The Lonely Life (1990) was published the year after her death, with an update.
Davis' only biological child, Barbara Davis Sherry (nicknamed "B.D.", and then known as B.D. Hyman), was born in 1947 during the actress's third marriage to William Grant Sherry. A
born-again Christian (who claimed that prayer had cured her of
ovarian cancer), B.D. wrote a scathing 1985 book,
My Mother's Keeper, about her relationship with her mother; she portrayed both her mother and her (adoptive) father, actor
Gary Merrill, as controlling and self-involved. She also accused Davis of being anti-Semitic and of having denigrated
Laurence Olivier, both of which Davis denied.
Davis vehemently denied these last two accusations in print, but did not publicly address or respond to the specifics of the other accusations, possibly due to their extremely private nature, which she respected, although B.D. did not. B.D. earned a $100,000 royalty for the book. Shortly before B.D. started writing the book, Davis underwent surgery for breast cancer and also suffered a stroke. Davis bitterly said, "B.D. thought I was going to die. That's why she wrote the book." Bette however lived to see the book published. Friends and family of Davis said she was heartbroken about the book, and Davis disowned her daughter.
While Davis admitted that her career had always come first, those who knew mother and daughter said that Davis, although difficult, was a loving mother and grandmother. B.D. and her husband were completely dependent on Davis financially for many years. Davis said the book's publication was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Davis had also adopted two children with Merrill: Margot, who was eventually institutionalized due to a brain injury; and Michael, who had a close and loving relationship with his mother. Michael has repeatedly said how unhappy he was that his sister chose to publish the book, and that Davis was a loving mother. In
Stardust, a recent documentary about Bette Davis, Michael Merrill recalls begging his sister not to publish the book.
Davis was also extremely generous to her mother and sister, Barbara, supporting them financially throughout their lives.
Davis died on
October 6,
1989, at the American Hospital in
Neuilly-sur-Seine,
France, (near
Paris) following a long battle with
breast cancer, and after having suffered several strokes.
She was returning from the Donostia-San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain, where she had been honored.
She is interred in
Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in
Los Angeles, California. On her tombstone is written: "She did it the hard way".
Bette Davis had 11 nominations for the
Best Actress Oscar. This was a record for Best Actress or Best Actor category, until
Katharine Hepburn went on to achieve 12 Best Actress nominations. However
Meryl Streep has the overall record of 13 nominations in acting categories (10 for Best Actress and 3 for Best Supporting Actress).
On
July 19,
2001,
Steven Spielberg purchased Davis's Oscar for
Jezebel at a
Christie's auction and returned it to the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The money was used to help the
Bette Davis Foundation for aspiring actors, where her son, Michael, serves on the board of directors.
*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*1934: Nominated for
Of Human Bondage (Write-in Nomination)
For a full chronology of Bette Davis's film and television work, see
Bette Davis chronology of film and television performances.
Davis was married four times and had numerous affairs. Her favorite conversational topic was work; her second was men, she told
Charlotte Chandler, who wrote her biography
The Girl Who Walked Alone.
During her first six-year marriage with bandleader
Harmon Nelson, she had an affair with
Howard Hughes. The pair divorced in December 6, 1938 with Nelson citing "cruel and inhuman treatment," saying that she put her career over their marriage.
One of her most significant affairs was with director
William Wyler, whom she first met in 1931 during a screen test. Their first collaboration was
Jezebel. "He's the most exciting man I'd ever known," she told Chandler (
Vanity Fair, 3/2006). After completing
Jezebel, Davis had become pregnant. She aborted the baby without telling Wyler. She fantasized about Wyler proposing to her, but she ended up hearing of his marriage to
Margaret Tallichet over the radio. "Willie was the love of my life. No question. I've always wished I'd married him," she told Chandler. Wyler told Chandler that he remembered that Davis had told him she didn't want to marry again, and he believed her. He also said she was too emotional for him.
Her second husband was
Arthur Austin Farnsworth, an assistant manager of an inn Davis frequented in New Hampshire after finishing
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. The marriage lasted about two years until Farnsworth's sudden death.
Her next husband was the artist
William Grant Sherry, whom she had met at a
Laguna Beach party in October 1945. She had her first and only (non-adopted) child,
Barbara Davis Sherry, with him.
Her fourth husband was actor
Gary Merrill. It was at his rented
Malibu house that she conducted her affairs with billionaire
Howard Hughes. She told author Chandler, "You know, I was the only one who ever brought Howard Hughes to a sexual climax, or so he said at that time. It's true. That is to say, it's true that he said it. Or let's say I believed it when he told me that ... it may have been his regular seduction gambit... But Howard
Huge he was not."
She also had an affair with actor
George Brent with whom she appeared in several films.
*
Bette Davis at Classic Actresses*
Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Bette Davis*
Bette Davis DVD Collection*
Open Directory entry for Davis*
Bette Davis' Grave site
