Actors - Bette Davis

Home > Listing Index > Actors > Bette Davis

	Actors - Bette Davis

This article is about Bette Davis the actress; there is also a singer named Betty Davis.

Bette Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989), was an American actress of stage, screen and television.

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and christened Ruth Elizabeth Davis, Bette Davis was renowned for her intense, forceful personae and artistic versatility during a career that spanned six decades and almost one hundred films.

Co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen with actor John Garfield and one of the most respected divas of cinema's Golden Age, Davis is remembered for her tremendous screen presence and portrayals of strong women. Her equally turbulent offscreen life included stormy marriages, affairs, and legendary battles with both male studio bosses and other actresses.

Alternately referred to as the "Queen of Hollywood", the "First Lady of the American Screen", and "the Fifth Warner Brother", Davis held the record for most Oscar nominations (10) for Best Actress until bested by Katharine Hepburn (12). Davis was the first woman to serve as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as the first actress to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award (1977) from the American Film Institute (AFI) (in 1999 AFI voted her the second greatest female film legend of all time, second to Katharine Hepburn). In 2005 Davis tied Vivien Leigh as the actress with the most memorable film quotes (AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes). She has inspired a #1 song, and has been both the author and subject of several books.

Offscreen, Davis was the source of several now-famous quips about womanhood, acting, and Hollywood, often offered with biting wit. Davis also earned a reputation as combative and difficult to work with. Her physical presence, manner of speaking, and frequent histrionic and mannered acting contributed to her status as a gay icon. Film critic Leonard Maltin noted, "by the time she died Davis had won a status enjoyed by no other Hollywood actress", and many fans and film professionals consider her the best screen actress of all time.

The early years

Davis was born to Harlow Morrell Davis, a descendant of Welsh Puritans, and Ruth Favor, a descendant of Huguenot and upper-class English pioneers. In 1918 Davis' father ran off, 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. She then enrolled in John Murray Anderson's dramatic school (where three years younger classmate Lucille Ball was sent back home to upstate New York because she was "too shy"), and Davis became a star pupil.

The ingenue

Her first professional stage performance was in The Earth Between, Off-Broadway in 1923. Her first Broadway performance was in 1929 in the comedy Broken Dishes and later in Solid South. Broken Dishes would be made into an early sound movie, under a different name, with the five years younger Loretta Young playing Davis' role of Elaine Bumstead.

The next year she was hired by Universal Studios, but they felt she was not star material and, in 1932, let her sign with Warner Brothers. Her first major role was in The Man Who Played God.

Until the end of Davis' life she would credit the film's star, George Arliss, with personally insisting upon her as his leading lady, giving her a chance to show her mettle. More moderately successful movies followed, but the role of the cynical and disturbed Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage
(1934) earned Bette major critical acclaim. The Motion Picture Academy did not nominate Davis for this tour de force, which prompted write-in votes from disgruntled Academy members.

A much-publicized legal battle with Warner Brothers, which was aimed at stopping them from putting her in inferior movies, led to a dramatic improvement in the quality of her films (although she lost the case). She went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for Dangerous
(1935) and the romantic melodrama Jezebel
(1938), directed by William Wyler, with whom she was rumored to be having an affair.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Bette Davis ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Bette Davis; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Actors - Bette Davis

The early years

The ingenue

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay