Bette Davis life and biography

Bette Davis (Also known as: Ruth Elizabeth Davis, Ruth Elizabeth, Bette Ruth Elizabeth Davis ) born April 5, 1908 in Lowell, Massachusetts - died August 6, 1989 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France was an American actress and writer.

"Sidelights"

Few actresses achieved the legendary stature that Bette Davis enjoyed. Her distinctive screen persona--a sardonic woman with large, expressive eyes--was recognized instantly by moviegoing audiences the world over. "The famous lines of Bette Davis," Gerald Clarke wrote in Time, "are as fixed in the national consciousness as the Pledge of Allegiance." In a career lasting some six decades, Davis won two Academy Awards (and was nominated for eight others), an Emmy Award for her television work, and was the first woman to receive the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. Davis was, James McCourt wrote in Film Comment, "the fairest contender for the all-time American talking-picture Best Actress palm. She lasts, the performances last; the life becomes the legend."

Davis began her career with stock theater companies in the late 1920s. In 1929 she appeared on Broadway in the play Broken Dishes, where she caught the attention of Universal Pictures. Universal signed her to a six-month contract in 1930, and Davis moved to Hollywood. Her first few films were unexceptional vehicles in which she played minor roles. A chance to appear in Frankenstein fell through when studio bosses decided that Davis wasn't right for horror films. By 1932 her film career seemed over, but then she was cast in The Man Who Played God for Warner Brothers. The film's success led Warner Brothers to sign her to a seven-year contract. She was to remain with the studio for the next eighteen years.

The 1934 film Of Human Bondage first brought Davis to widespread critical attention. Her role as Mildred Rogers, a cockney waitress who cruelly exploits an infatuated medical student, was described by Morduant Hall of the New York Times as an "enormously effective portrayal." Speaking to Mel Gussow of the New York Times about the part, Davis revealed: "I was lucky enough to get it, because no one else would play it. She was the first bitch heroine." In his book Bette Davis: Her Films and Career, Gene Ringgold maintained that Davis's performance in this film was "still alluded to as one of the screen's greatest acting accomplishments."

The following year Davis won an Academy Award for her performance in Dangerous, a melodrama in which a failed actress tries to murder her husband. Winning the award spurred Davis to seek roles in better movies. "She was constantly banging on the door of Jack Warner, the head of the studio, demanding better roles," Clarke recounted. "Finally, in disgust at his refusal, she bolted and tried to break her contract." Davis lost her contract battle and was forced to return to Warner Brothers in 1936, but her insistence on better roles was heeded. Beginning with Jezebel in 1938, for which she won her second Academy Award, Davis appeared in a string of movies which made her the most popular actress of the 1940s and established her as a screen legend.

These films also made enormous profits for Warner Brothers studio. As Ringgold quoted Davis saying years later, "I hope [Jack Warner] thanks me for those seven sound stages that I built at Warners." Ringgold commented: "The profits with which those seven sound stages were built, if Miss Davis' statement can be taken as valid--and there is little doubt that it should!--came from the films of her golden years. They comprise an admirable record, one that may never be equalled by another film actress."

Dark Victory, the story of a woman dying from a brain tumor, won Davis an Academy Award nomination and was, she told Harry Bowman of the Dallas News, her favorite film. "I have many favorites," Davis says. "But I suppose that is the one I love the most." McCourt agreed, calling Davis's character in the film, Judith Traherne, her "supreme cinematic achievement. . . . Every color on the Davis palette, every semitone in the voice, every elegant, frenzied, awkward, and wistful physical flourish is employed to achieve a self-directed, self-propelled realization of . . . The Self, forthright, energetic, driven, desperate, broken, reclaimed, resigned. The fadeout on Judith Traherne in Dark Victory is the single most perfect shot of [Davis's] face on film."

During the 1940s, Davis also won Academy Award nominations for her performances in The Letter, The Little Foxes, Now, Voyager, and Mr. Skeffington. "The films of her great acclaim period are all deserving of re-examination," Ringgold wrote. "A surprising number of them may collectively or individually be regarded as her best work." Speaking of the film Now, Voyager, McCourt saw a parallel between Charlotte Vale, the film's protagonist, and Davis herself. Vale is a shy and withdrawn New Englander who blossoms into a confident, outgoing woman after undergoing analysis. Davis, McCourt wrote, "found the character closest to her own self in terms of ethnicity, age, nascent psychic potential, and eventual stance. . . . Charlotte Vale, transformed from Miss Without to Lady Bountiful, is [Davis's] own spiritual bio up to 1942."

One of Davis's most popular portrayals is that of Margo Channing in 1950's All about Eve. Channing, a temperamental stage star and "an aging, acid creature with a cankerous ego and a stinging tongue, is the end-all of Broadway disenchantment, and Miss Davis plays her to a fare-thee-well," Bosley Crowther explained in the New York Times. Channing hires a young girl as her secretary/companion and discovers too late that the girl is using her to further her own ambitions. What Channing "is finally all about," McCourt stated, "is honest stardom. Not self-service take-out fast-fabulous fame that all seek after in their lives, but forthright, downright honest stardom." Crowther called Davis's performance a "superb illumination of the spirit and pathos" of Margo Channing.

"After being the top female box office attraction in the 30's and 40's," John Culhane wrote in the New York Times, "[Davis] lived through nearly 10 years, from 1953 to 1962, when no picture with her in it made money." Davis's comeback film was the box office smash What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, in which she co-starred with Joan Crawford. Her performance as Jane Hudson, former child star now reduced to poverty and alcoholism, won Davis her tenth Academy Award nomination. It also marked the beginning of a new phase in her career: playing in gothic thrillers. Although critical reaction to the change was mixed, Crowther, who assessed What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? as "synthetic and a contrivance," still allowed that "as a `chiller' of the old-fashioned type--as a straight exercise in studied horror--you may find it a fairly gripping film." Ringgold called the film "grotesquely riveting."

Hush. . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte was in the same gothic vein as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and was as popular with audiences. Davis played the aging recluse Charlotte Hollis, who is haunted by the unsolved murder of her lover many years before, and is now the target of her cousin Miriam's efforts to drive her insane and gain control of the family fortune. The Nanny, Madame Sin, Burnt Offerings, and Return from Witch Mountain were later horror films in which Davis starred.

After the 1970s, much of Davis's work was for television, making an average of one new movie every year. Her role in 1979's Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter won her an Emmy Award. She also toured the country with a successful live show featuring excerpts from her movies and a question-and-answer period with the audience. "In these performances, before a live audience," Ringgold stated, "the humor, the charm, the authority, and the still-valiant and resilient, survivor-against-all-odds Bette Davis comes through with telling impact." Bowman, describing one of these shows, maintained that Davis's "honest, forthright character asserted itself and practically bounded across the footlights."

In her books The Lonely Life: An Autobiography and Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis, Davis looked back and recounted the highs and lows of her long career. As Culhane remarked, "the life of Bette Davis has been a mixture of setbacks, defeats and triumphs as dramatic as those in her films. . . . But the high points have been so high as to turn Miss Davis's career into a legend." Evaluating The Lonely Life for the New York Herald Tribune Book Review, Judith Crist called Davis "honest, tactless, witty, ready with a dagger or a dart, unsparing of herself as well as others." Crist found the book to be "written in its own intense, brisk style," telling the story of a "woman obviously worth knowing." The Kirkus reviewer found The Lonely Life "fascinating because the woman is herself a highly intelligent, sensitive, petulant human being."

Several reviewers commented on the drive and determination that led Davis to persevere over a five-decade long career. Daphne Merkin of Film Comment praised the "versatility and dedication of this actress" and called Davis "a born professional." Clarke cited Davis's "drive and single-minded ambition." Speaking to Gussow, Davis admitted: "There must be something in me, some innate quality--my drive--that made me able to play those parts." She told Clarke: "I believe there are no short cuts. None! If you want to do something, do it!"

This determination was reflected in many of the roles Davis has played during her career. In fact, Henry Hart wrote in the foreword to Bette Davis: Her Films and Career that Davis was an early example of the feminist woman. "In her every role," Hart stated, "audiences sensed an exemplar of `the new woman.' The result was women had a double pleasure watching her since, in addition to a good acting performance, they saw one of their own confront the male with a new independence, as well as with the immemorial web." Her film portrayals were even "cited in film courses as portraits of liberated women," Culhane pointed out. Davis did not share this assessment, and explained to Culhane: "I was born liberated. . . but I wasn't supporting the cause of women being liberated by playing these strong women."

In 1977, Davis became the first woman to receive the prestigious Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute, a tribute Time quoted her as calling "the frosting on the cake of my career." In 1980, her fiftieth year as a film actress, Davis starred in The Watcher in the Woods. Culhane remarked that Davis was "one of the very few stars in the history of Hollywood ever to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the beginning of a screen career by starring in a new film." Although illness curtailed her working schedule in later years, and forced her in 1982 to drop out of her role on the television series Hotel, Davis was still active. She told Clarke, "I wouldn't stop working for anything!"

Bette Davis of died of cancer on October 6, 1989, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. She had recently attended Spain's San Sebastian Film Festival, where she had been honored for her achievements in a career spanning sixty years. In the last five years of her life, the actress had undergone a mastectomy, experienced a recurrence of cancer, and suffered a stroke and a broken hip.


PERSONAL INFORMATION
Professionally known as Bette Davis; born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, MA; died of cancer, October 6, 1989, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France; daughter of Harlow Morrell (an attorney) and Ruth (a photographer; maiden name, Favor) Davis; married Harmon Oscar Nelson (a bandleader), August 18, 1932 (divorced); married Arthur Farnsworth (a businessman), December, 1940 (died, August, 1943); married William Grant Sherry (an artist), November 30, 1945 (divorced); married Gary Merrill (an actor), August, 1950 (divorced); children: Barbara (Mrs. Jeremy Hyman), Margot Merrill, Michael Merrill.
Education: Attended Mariarden School of Dancing and John Murray Anderson Drama School. Memberships: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (president, 1941).

AWARDS

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award ( "Academy Award"), for best performance by an actress, 1935, for Dangerous, and 1938, for Jezebel; nominated for Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award, for best performance by an actress, 1939, for Dark Victory, 1940, for The Letter, 1941, for The Little Foxes, 1942, for Now Voyager, 1944, for Mr. Skeffington, 1950, for All about Eve, 1952, for The Star, and 1962, for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?; Picturegoer Annual Gold Medal, 1940, for performance in Dark Victory; New York Film Critics Circle Award, 1951, for performance in All about Eve; Life Achievement Award, American Film Institute, 1977; Emmy Award, 1979, for performance in Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter; Rudolph Valentino Life Achievement Award, 1982; American Academy Arts Award, 1983; Crystal Award, Women in Films, 1983; Department of Defense medal for distinguished public service, 1983; Cesar Award, 1986.

CAREER

Actress, 1929-89. Began acting career with stock companies in Rochester, NY and Dennis, MA; gave first performance on Broadway at the Ritz Theatre in Broken Dishes. 1929; became film actress in 1930 and has appeared in over 85 films, including: The Man Who Played God, 1932; Of Human Bondage, 1934; Bordertown, 1935; Dangerous, 1935; Petrified Forest, 1936; Jezebel, 1938; Dark Victory, 1939; The Letter, 1940; The Little Foxes, 1941; Now, Voyager, 1942; Mr. Skeffington, 1944; All about Eve, 1950; Payment on Demand, 1951; Phone Call from a Stranger, 1952; The Star, 1953; The Virgin Queen, 1955; The Catered Affair, 1956; What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, 1962; Hush. . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte, 1964; The Nanny, 1965; The Anniversary, 1967; Bunny O'Hare, 1971; Death on the Nile, 1978; Return from Witch Mountain, 1978; Watcher in the Woods, 1980; The Whales of August, 1986. Television performances include: Madame Sin, 1971; Sister Aimee, 1977; Burnt Offerings, 1977; The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, 1978; Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter, 1979; White Mama, 1980; Skyward, 1980; Family Reunion, 1981; Little Gloria, Happy at Last, 1982; A Piano for Mrs. Cimino, 1982; Right of Way, 1983; Murder with Mirrors, 1984; As Summers Die, 1985. Founder and first president, Hollywood Canteen, 1942.

WRITINGS:

* (Author of introduction) Peter Noble, Bette Davis, Robinson, 1948.
* The Lonely Life: An Autobiography, Putnam, 1962.
* (With Whitney Stine) Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis, Hawthorn, 1974.
* (With Michael Herskowitz) This 'n That, Putnam, 1987.
* Whitney Stine, "I'd Love to Kiss You": Conversations with Bette Davis, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1990.

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