 Bette Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989), was a two-time Academy
Award-winning American actress of film, television and theatre.
After appearing in Broadway productions in the early 1930s, Davis moved to
Hollywood where she appeared in several films for Universal Studios, before she
signed a contract with Warner Brothers. In a 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 and
occasional comedies, her greatest successes were in romantic dramas.
Known for her forceful and often intense dramatic style, Davis was recognized
for her willingness to play unsympathetic 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.
Davis was the co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, and was the first female
president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She maintained a
high profile within the Hollywood community, earning ten Academy Award
nominations and becoming the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award
from the American Film Institute. Davis's forthright manner, her clipped vocal
style and ubiquitous cigarette contributed to a public persona which has often
been imitated and satirized. She admitted that her dedication to her career had
often been at the expense of her personal relationships; 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. She
continued acting until shortly before her death from cancer, with more than one
hundred film and television roles to her credit.
In 1999, she was ranked as the second greatest female star of all time by the
American Film Institute (AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars).
Background and Early Acting Career
Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known from early childhood as Betty, was born in Lowell,
Massachusetts, to Harlow Morrell Davis and Ruth Augusta Favor; her sister,
Barbara, was born October 25, 1909. The family was of English, French, and Welsh
ancestry. In 1915, Davis's parents separated and, in 1921, Ruth Davis moved to
New York City with her daughters, where she worked as a photographer. Betty was
inspired to become an actress after seeing Rudolph Valentino in The Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and Mary Pickford in Little Lord Fauntleroy
(1921), and changed the spelling of her name to Bette after Honore de Balzac's
La Cousine Bette. She received encouragement from her mother, who had aspired to
become an actress.
She attended Cushing Academy, a finishing school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts
where she met her future husband, Harmon Ham Nelson. In 1926, she saw a
production of Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck with Blanche Yurka and Peg Entwistle.
Davis later recalled that it inspired her full commitment to her chosen career,
and said: Before that performance I wanted to be an actress. When it ended, I
had to be an actress... exactly like Peg Entwistle. She auditioned for admission
to Eva LeGallienne's Manhattan Civic Repertory, but was rejected by LeGallienne
who described her as insincere. She was accepted by the John Murray Anderson
School of Theatre, where she also studied dance with Martha Graham.
She auditioned for George Cukor's stock theatre company, and although he was not
impressed, he gave Davis her first paid acting assignment – a one week stint
playing the part of a chorus girl in the play, Broadway. She was later chosen to
play Hedwig, the character she had seen Peg Entwistle play, in The Wild Duck.
After performing in Philadelphia, Washington and Boston, she made her Broadway
debut in 1929 in Broken Dishes, and followed it with Solid South. She was seen
by a Universal Studios talent scout, who invited her to Hollywood for a screen
test.
Transition From Stage To Film
Davis arrived in Hollywood on December 13, 1930, and after failing her first
screen test, a second test was arranged for the film A House Divided (1931).
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 rejected
her with the comment, What do you think of these dames who show their chests and
think they can get jobs? Davis made her film debut in The Bad Sister (1931).
Producer Carl Laemmle Jr. was hostile, and Davis recounted overhearing his
insult that she had 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 (1931)
was too brief to attract attention.
Universal Studios renewed her contract for three months, and she appeared in
Waterloo Bridge (1931) before being loaned to Columbia Pictures for The
Feathered Serpent and The Menace, and to Capital Films for Hell's House (all
1932). After nine months, and six unsuccessful films, Laemmle elected not to
renew her contract.
George Arliss chose Davis for the lead female role in The Man Who Played God
(1932), and for the rest of her life, Davis credited him with helping her
achieve her break in Hollywood. The Saturday Evening Post wrote that she is not
only beautiful, but she bubbles with charm, and compared her to Constance
Bennett and Olive Borden. Warner Brothers signed her to a five year contract.
In 1932, she married Ham Nelson, who was scrutinized by the press; his $100 a
week earnings compared unfavorably 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.
After more than twenty film roles, the role of the vicious and slatternly
Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage (1934) earned Davis her first major critical
acclaim. Many actresses feared playing unsympathetic characters, and several had
refused the role, but Davis viewed it as an opportunity to show the range of her
acting skills. Her costar, Leslie Howard, was initially dismissive of her but as
filming progressed his attitude changed and he subsequently spoke highly of her
abilities. The director, John Cromwell, allowed her relative freedom, and
commented, I let Bette have her head. I trusted her instincts. She insisted that
she be portrayed realistically 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.
The film was a success, and Davis's confronting characterization won praise from
critics, with Life Magazine writing that she gave probably the best performance
ever recorded on the screen by a US actress. When she was not nominated for an
Academy Award, The Hollywood Citizen News questioned 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 the only time in the
Academy's history, the consideration of a candidate not officially nominated for
an award. 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 from all eligible members of a particular
branch, rather than by a smaller committee, with results independently tabulated
by the accounting firm Price Waterhouse.
Davis appeared in Dangerous (1935) as a troubled actress and 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. The New York Times hailed her as becoming one of the most
interesting of our screen actresses. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress
for the role, but considered it was belated recognition for Of Human Bondage.
For the rest of her life Davis maintained that she gave the statue its familiar
name of Oscar because she felt it resembled her husband, whose middle name was
Oscar.
In her next film, The Petrified Forest (1936), Davis costarred with Leslie
Howard and Humphrey Bogart, but Bogart, in his first important role, received
most of the critics' praise. Davis appeared in several films over the next two
years but most were poorly received.
War Effort, and The Hollywood Canteen
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Davis spent the early months of
1942 traveling across the US selling war bonds. Criticized by Jack Warner for
her tendency to cajole and harangue crowds into buying, she reminded him that
her audiences responded most strongly to her bitch performances. She considered
herself to be proven correct when she sold two million dollars worth of bonds in
two days, as well as a picture of herself in Jezebel for $250,000. She also
performed for black regiments as the only white member of an acting troupe
formed by Hattie McDaniel, that also included Lena Horne and Ethel Waters.
When John Garfield discussed opening a serviceman's club in Hollywood, Davis
responded enthusiastically. With the aid of Warner, Cary Grant and Jule Styne,
they transformed an old nightclub into the Hollywood Canteen, which opened on
October 3, 1942. Hollywood's most important stars volunteered their time and
talents to entertain servicemen prior to them being sent to war. Davis ensured
that every night there would be at least a few important names for the visiting
soldiers to meet, often calling on friends at the last moment to ensure the
soldiers would not be disappointed. She appeared as herself in the film
Hollywood Canteen (1944) which used the canteen as the setting for a fictional
story. The canteen remained in operation until the end of World War II. Davis
later commented, There are few accomplishments in my life that I am sincerely
proud of. The Hollywood Canteen is one of them. In 1980, she was awarded the
Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, the United States Department of Defense's
highest civilian award, for her work with the Hollywood Canteen.
Davis had initially shown little interest in the film Now, Voyager (1942) until
Hal Wallis advised her that female audiences needed romantic dramas to distract
them from the reality of their lives. It became one of her best known women's
pictures. The cigarette, often used by Davis as a dramatic prop, featured
prominently in one of the film's most imitated scenes, in which Paul Henreid
lights two cigarettes before passing one to Davis. Film reviewers complimented
Davis on her performance despite some perceived weaknesses in the film's
narrative, with the National Board of Review commenting that Davis gives it a
dignity not fully warranted by the script.
During the early 1940s several of Davis's film choices were influenced by the
war; Watch on the Rhine (1943) featured her in a relatively low-key role, as the
wife of the leader of an underground anti-Nazi movement, while Thank Your Lucky
Stars (1943) was a lighthearted all-star musical cavalcade, with each of the
featured stars donating their fee to the Hollywood Canteen. Davis performed a
novelty song, They're Either Too Young or Too Old, which became a hit record
after the film's release.
Old Acquaintance (1943) reunited her with Miriam Hopkins in a story of two old
friends who deal with the tensions created when one of them becomes a successful
novelist. Davis felt that Hopkins tried to upstage her throughout the film's
production, and the director Vincent Sherman and costar Gig Young later recalled
the intense competitiveness and animosity between the two actresses.
Late Career
In the early 1970s, Davis was invited to appear in New York, in a stage
presentation, Great Ladies of the American Cinema. Over five successive nights,
a different female star discussed her career and answered questions from the
audience; Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell, Lana Turner and Joan Crawford were the
other participants. Davis was well received and was invited to tour Australia
with the similarly themed, Bette Davis in Person and on Film, and its success
allowed her to take the production to the United Kingdom.
In the US, she appeared in the stage production, Miss Moffat, a musical
adaptation of The Corn is Green, but abandoned the show shortly into its run
after aggravating a back injury. She played supporting roles in Burnt Offerings
(1976) and The Disappearance of Aimee (1976), but she clashed with Karen Black
and Faye Dunaway, respectively the stars of the two productions, because she
felt that neither extended her an appropriate degree of respect, and that their
behavior on the film sets was unprofessional.
In 1977, Davis became the first woman to receive the American Film Institute's
Lifetime Achievement Award. The televised event included comments from several
of Davis's colleagues including William Wyler who joked that given the chance
Davis would still like to re-film a scene from The Letter to which Davis nodded.
Jane Fonda, Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland were among the actors who paid
tribute, with de Havilland commenting that Davis got the roles I always wanted.
Following the telecast she found herself in demand again, often having to choose
between several offers. She accepted roles in the television miniseries The Dark
Secret of Harvest Home (1978) and the film Death on the Nile (1978). For the
rest of her career the bulk of her work was for television. She won an Emmy
Award for Strangers: The Story of a Mother and a Daughter (1979) with Gena
Rowlands, and was nominated for her performances in White Mama (1980) and Little
Gloria... Happy at Last (1982).
She also played supporting roles in two Disney films, Return from Witch Mountain
(1978) and The Watcher in the Woods (1980).
Her name became well known to a younger audience, when Kim Carnes's song Bette
Davis Eyes became a worldwide hit and the highest selling record of 1981 in the
US, where it stayed at number one on the music charts for more than two months.
Davis was pleased, and commented to an interviewer that for the first time, her
grandson considered her to be cool.
She continued acting for television, appearing in Family Reunion (1981) opposite
her grandson J. Ashley Hyman, A Piano for Mrs Cimino (1982) and Right of Way
(1983) with James Stewart.
Illness, Betrayal and Death
In 1983, she was acting in the television series Hotel when she was diagnosed
with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. Within two weeks of her surgery
she suffered four strokes which caused paralysis in the right side of her face
and in her left arm, and left her with slurred speech. She commenced a lengthy
period of physical therapy and, aided by her personal assistant, Kathryn Sermak,
gained partial recovery from the paralysis.
During this time, her relationship with her daughter, BD Hyman deteriorated,
when Hyman became a born again Christian and attempted to persuade Davis to
follow suit. With her health stable, she traveled to England in 1984 to film the
Agatha Christie mystery, Murder With Mirrors. Upon her return, she learned that
Hyman had published a memoir, titled My Mother's Keeper in which she chronicled
a difficult mother and daughter relationship and depicted scenes of Davis's
overbearing and drunken behavior.
Several of Davis's friends commented that Hyman's depictions of events were not
accurate; one commented so much of the book is out of context. Mike Wallace
rebroadcast a Sixty Minutes interview he had filmed with Hyman a few years
earlier in which she commended Davis on her skills as a mother, and said that
she had adopted many of Davis's principles in raising her own children. Critics
of Hyman noted that Davis had supported the Hyman family for several years and
had recently saved them from losing their house. Despite the acrimony of their
divorce years earlier, Gary Merrill also defended Davis. Interviewed by CNN,
Merrill said that Hyman was motivated by cruelty and greed. Davis's adopted son,
Michael Merrill, ended contact with Hyman and refused to speak to her again, as
did Davis, who also disinherited her.
In her memoir, This 'N That (1987), Davis wrote, 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 BD's book
as I have from the stroke. Both were shattering experiences. Her memoir
concluded with a letter to her daughter, in which she addressed her several
times as Hyman, and described her actions as a glaring lack of loyalty and
thanks for the very privileged life I feel you have been given. She concluded
with a reference to the title of Hyman's book, If it refers to money, if my
memory serves me right, I've been your keeper all these many years. I am
continuing to do so, as my name has made your book about me a success.
Davis appeared in the television film, As Summers Die (1986) and Lindsay
Anderson's elegiac The Whales of August (1987), in which she played the blind
sister of Lillian Gish. The film earned good reviews, with one critic
commenting, Bette crawls across the screen like a testy old hornet on a
windowpane, snarling, staggering, twitching – a symphony of misfired synapses.
Her last performance was in the title role in Larry Cohen's film Wicked
Stepmother (1989). By this time, however, her illness had worsened, and after
disagreements with Cohen she walked off the film set. An edited version of the
film was released posthumously.
With no further film offers, Davis appeared on various talk shows and was
interviewed by Johnny Carson, Joan Rivers, Larry King and David Letterman,
discussing her career but refusing to discuss her daughter. Her appearances were
popular; Lindsay Anderson observed that the public enjoyed seeing her behaving
so bitchy. I always disliked that because she was encouraged to behave badly.
And I'd always hear her described by that awful word, feisty.
During 1988 and 1989, Davis was feted for her career achievements, receiving the
Kennedy Center Honor, the Legion of Honor from France, the Campione d'Italia
from Italy and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Lifetime Achievement Award.
She collapsed during the American Cinema Awards in 1989 and later discovered
that her cancer had returned. She recovered sufficiently to travel to Spain
where she was honored at the Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival,
but during her visit her health rapidly deteriorated. Too weak to make the long
journey back to the US, she traveled to France where she died on October 6,
1989, at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
She was interred in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles,
California, alongside her mother, Ruthie, and sister, Bobby. On her tombstone is
written: She did it the hard way, an epitaph that had been suggested to her by
Joseph L Mankiewicz shortly after they had filmed All About Eve.
In 1997, the executors of her estate, Michael Merrill, her son, and Kathryn
Sermak, her former assistant, established The Bette Davis Foundation which
awards college scholarships to promising actors and actresses.
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