She had made up her mind, though, and she headed for New York City. She also worked at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts, as an usherette a female guide who escorts people to correct seats in theaters or in other events and a bit-part player. Her first major role was in a stage production of The Earth Between The comedy Bette Davis. Broken Dishes opened in November and ran for six months. That led to a production of Solid South, after which she failed a screen test in Hollywood.
Davis was also tested at Universal Studios and hired, even though studio executives were not very supportive. She appeared in two films in , Bad Sister and Seed. The critics ignored her in both. She received good reviews and a long-term contract from the Warner Brothers studio. This began a series of films with Warner, mostly unremarkable and insignificant, but critics began to notice Davis's talent and unique quality.
Davis began to claw her way to the top of the film world. She fought for and won the right to appear in another studio's production of Of Human Bondage.
Suddenly, the world was introduced to a brilliant new actress. Warner continued to cast Davis in poor-quality films, with two exceptions. Playing a failed actress who tries to murder her husband in Dangerous, she won her first Best Actress Academy Award in Growing disgusted with the studio's offerings, Davis refused any more roles.
The studio suspended her. She wrote the last chapter in San Sebastian, Spain. Many of her fans refused to believe she was gone. Sign In. Edit Bette Davis. Showing all items. While she was the star pupil at John Murray Anderson 's Dramatic School in New York, another of her classmates was sent home because she was "too shy". It was predicted that this girl would never make it as an actress. The girl was Lucille Ball. In , she was asked to perform in a musical, "Two's Company".
After several grueling months at rehearsals, her health deteriorated due to osteomyelitis of the jaw and she had to leave the show only several weeks after it opened.
She was to repeat this process in when she rehearsed for the musical version of The Corn Is Green , called "Miss Moffat", but bowed out early in the run of the show for dubious medical reasons. On her sarcophagus is written "She did it the hard way". Mankiewicz for coming up with the line. Mother of Barbara Merrill aka B. Hyman and grandmother of J. Ashley Hyman. Marion Sherry was B. At which time, the Sherrys reached out to B. When Bette learned that her new brother-in-law was a recovering alcoholic, she sent the couple a dozen cases of liquor for a wedding present.
She resigned less then two months later, publicly declaring herself too busy to fulfill her duties as president while angrily protesting in private that the Academy had wanted her to serve as a mere figurehead. She considered her debut screen test for Universal Pictures to be so bad that she ran screaming from the projection room.
Her second husband Arthur Farnsworth died after a fall on Hollywood Boulevard in which he took a blow to the head. He had shortly before banged his head on a train between LA and New England, followed by another fall down the stairway at their New Hampshire home. This is the only marriage of hers that ended in death, not divorce. It is said that one of her real true loves was director William Wyler but he was married and refused to leave his wife. In Marked Woman , Davis is forced to testify in court after being worked over by some Mafia hoods.
Disgusted with the tiny bandage supplied by the makeup department, she left the set, had her own doctor bandage her face more realistically, and refused to shoot the scene any other way. When she first came to Hollywood as a contract player, Universal Pictures wanted to change her name to Bettina Dawes. She informed the studio that she refused to go through life with a name that sounded like "Between the Drawers".
Nominated for an Academy Award five years in a row, in , , , and She shares the record for most consecutive nominations with Greer Garson. One of the reasons Davis loved the song is that her grandson heard it and thought it "cool" that his grandmother had a hit song written about her. Warner replied: "I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for either of those two old broads. The following day, she reportedly received a telegram from Crawford: "In future, please do not refer to me as an old broad!
Who wants to get her at the end of the picture? Attended Cushing Academy; a prep school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. An award in her namesake is given annually to one male and one female scholar-athlete of exceptional accomplishment in both fields. Joan Crawford and Davis had feuded for years, some of it instigated by publicists and studio heads.
Joan got her revenge by putting weights in her pockets when Davis had to drag her across the floor during certain scenes. Crawford died in , and ten years later, Davis spoke more freely about her. In a interview with Bryant Gumbel , she said that Crawford acted professionally on the movie set, since she showed up on time and knew her lines, and that the rift happened only after she campaigned against Davis, making sure she didn't win her third Oscar.
That same year, she told Barbara Walters that she was hurt and angry by Crawford's actions. However, she also added that she won't tarnish Crawford's accomplishments: "She came a long way from a little girl from where she came from. This, I will never take away from her". It was the general feeling among Academy voters that while Davis was superb, the movie itself was little better than a potboiler exploitation film, the kind that doesn't deserve the recognition that an Oscar would give it.
Blondell called Davis' brace of husbands the "Four Skins". According to her August Playboy magazine interview, in her youth she posed nude for an artist, who carved a statue of her that was placed in a public spot in Boston, MA. After the interview appeared, Bostonians searched for the statue in vain. The statue, four dancing nymphs, was later found in the possession of a private Massachusetts collector.
In , she came to Cardiff for a theatre tour and went to the Welsh Valleys in search of relatives - and found them. She had been learning Welsh in order to come to Wales; however, she only used the words "Nos Da" meaning "good night" while in the country and had forgotten all the other phrases she had learned.
She claimed to have given the Academy Award the nickname "Oscar" after her first husband, Harmon Nelson , whose middle name was Oscar, although she later withdrew that claim. Most sources say it was named by Academy librarian and eventual executive director Margaret Herrick, who thought the statuette resembled her Uncle Oscar. During divorce proceedings, Nelson was successful in sustaining his charge of mental cruelty by testifying that Davis had told him that her career was more important than her marriage.
Brabazon writes that Davis, claiming she was beaten by all four of her husbands, believed that she should have remained single. She was voted the 25th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere magazine. In , she accepted the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role on behalf of Kim Hunter , who wasn't present at the awards ceremony.
She is one of the many movie stars mentioned in the lyrics of Madonna 's song "Vogue". She is also mentioned in the song "Industrial Disease" by rock band Dire Straits. She said that among the jokes told about her, her favorite came from impressionist Charles Pierce who, dressed as her, demanded of the audience "Someone give me a cigarette". When the request was granted, the performer threw it on the floor and shouted "LIT!
For many years, she was a popular target for impressionists but she was perplexed by the often used phrase "Pee-tah! She said she had no idea who Pee-tah was and had never even met anyone by that name. While filming Death on the Nile , aboard ship, no one was allowed his or her own dressing room, so she shared a dressing room with Angela Lansbury and Maggie Smith.
Declined a role in 4 for Texas which turned out to be a big hit to do Dead Ringer which turned out to be a big flop. Described the last three decades of her life as a "my macabre period". She hated being alone at night and found growing older "terrifying".
Had a long-running feud with Miriam Hopkins that started before they even entered films, because of jealousy. They were both stage actresses with the same company where Hopkins had been the bigger star who first made it to Hollywood to become a star in films. They were both nominated for Best Actress Oscar in , and Davis won and became the bigger star. She won her second Oscar for Jezebel , which had been a flop on Broadway for Hopkins back in Davis had an affair with director Anatole Litvak , who at one point was married to Hopkins, although there have been conflicting reports whether the affair took place while he was still married to Hopkins.
They competed with each other for screen time in the two films they acted together: The Old Maid and Old Acquaintance Long after Hopkins died, the only good thing that Davis said about her was that she was a good actress, but otherwise she was a "real bitch". Previously, she had said that her biggest secret was brown mascara.
She was of English descent, and also had remote Scottish and Welsh roots. Most of her ancestors had lived almost exclusively in New England since moving to the United States in the s. Volume Two, , pages New York: Charles Scribner's Sons Was first offered the role of Luke's mother in Cool Hand Luke , but refused the small role. Jo Van Fleet accepted the role. Her daughter, Barbara Merrill aka B. Hyman, was left nothing due to her lurid book about life with her mother.
During her long life, she spent the majority of her wealth supporting her mother, three children, and four husbands. She was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of her outstanding contribution to film culture. In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She said it in a more subtle, low-key manner, but it has passed into legend that she said it the way Elizabeth Taylor delivered it in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
During the interview, the clip of Bette delivering the line in Beyond the Forest was shown to prove that she was correct. It always brought down the house. Her father was Harlow Morrell Davis, a lawyer. Her mother was Ruth Favor. She had a sister, Barbara Davis. If Bette had won, it would have set a record number of wins for an actress. Instead, she took the less showy role of Maggie Patterson and suggested her good friend Mary Astor for the role of Sandra -- Davis thought it would help boost Astor's career, which had been hurt by a very nasty custody battle, in , with her ex-husband.
Astor went on to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance. Became pregnant by first husband Harmon Nelson in and , by her lover William Wyler in , and by her second husband Arthur Farnsworth in , and On all of these occasions she had abortions.
She only publicly admitted to the two abortions with her first husband. Was originally sought for the role of Shirley Drake in the drama film Career , which went to Carolyn Jones. Returned to work three months after giving birth to her daughter Barbara Merrill in order to begin filming June Bride She was a lifelong liberal Democrat.
She was a solid supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt , Harry Truman , John F. Kennedy , Robert F. Kennedy , Adlai Stevenson , Lyndon B. She was 81 years old. In her final years, Davis received numerous honors, including:. Davis received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for film and one for television. Billboard chart in Bette Davis, who was dubbed "The First Lady of the American Screen" at the height of her fame, remains an iconic actress in Hollywood history.
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Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. However, she was cast in two films in , Bad Sister and Seed. The critics ignored her in both.
She won good reviews and a long-term contract. Thus began a succession of films with Warner, most mediocre and unmemorable. But poor as the films were, the talent and unique quality of Davis began to emerge so that critics started to praise her while panning her movies. Fighting the studio for better roles became a way of life for Davis as she clawed her way to the top of the film world. She fought for and won the right to be loaned out to RKO in to play Mildred, the selfish waitress who manipulates an infatuated medical student, in John Cromwell's Of Human Bondage.
Suddenly, the world was introduced to a brilliant new actress. One might have thought that Davis's career was on the upswing, but Warner continued to cast her in poor quality films. There were two exceptions. In Dangerous, Davis played a failed actress who tries to murder her husband.
For this role, she won her first Best Actress Academy Award in Growing disgusted with the studio's offerings, Davis refused any more roles and was suspended without pay. She sued. Warner Brothers and the movie world were astounded; this was not expected behavior of the time.
Although Davis lost her battle in court, Warner Brothers apparently got the message for they paid her legal fees and began offering her more suitable roles. The stature of Davis, the actress, continued to grow.
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