Bette Davis

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April 5, 1908 - Aries

October 6, 1989 (age 81) in Neuilly, France (metastasized breast cancer)
Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA, just outside and to the left of the main entrance to the Court of Remembrance.

Ruth Elizabeth Davis

Gary Merrill (28 July 1950 - 6 July 1960) (divorced) 2 children

William Grant Sherry (30 November 1945 - 5 July 1950) (divorced) 1 child

Arthur Farnsworth (31 December 1940 - 25 August 1943) (his death)

Harmon Nelson (18 August 1932 - 6 December 1938) (divorced)

Actress:

Wicked Stepmother (1989)

The Whales of August (1987)

As Summers Die (1986) (TV)

Murder with Mirrors (1985) (TV)

Right of Way (1983) (TV)

Hotel (1983) (TV)

"Hotel" (1 episode, 1983)

Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982) (TV)

A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (1982) (TV)

Family Reunion (1981) (TV)

Skyward (1980) (TV)

The Watcher in the Woods (1980)

White Mama (1980) (TV)

Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979) (TV)

The Children of Sanchez (1978) (uncredited)

Death on the Nile (1978)

Return from Witch Mountain (1978)

"The Dark Secret of Harvest Home" (1978) TV mini-series

"Laugh-In" (1 episode, 1977)

"Hallmark Hall of Fame" (1 episode, 1976)

Burnt Offerings (1976)

Hello Mother, Goodbye! (1974) (TV)

Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973) (TV)

The Judge and Jake Wyler (1972) (TV)

Lo Scopone scientifico (1972)

Madame Sin (1972)

Bunny O'Hare (1971)

Connecting Rooms (1970)

"It Takes a Thief" (1 episode, 1970)

The Anniversary (1968)

Gunsmoke (1 episode, 1966)

The Nanny (1965)

Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

Where Love Has Gone (1964)

Dead Ringer (1964)

"Perry Mason" (1 episode, 1963)

La noia (1963)

"The Virginian" (1 episode, 1962)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

"Wagon Train" (3 episodes, 1959-1961)

Pocketful of Miracles (1961)

The DuPont Show with June Allyson (1 episode, 1959)

The Scapegoat (1959)

John Paul Jones (1959)

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1 episode, 1959)

"Suspicion" (1 episode, 1958)

"General Electric Theater" (2 episodes, 1957-1958)

"Studio 57" (1 episode, 1958)

"Telephone Time" (1 episode, 1957)

"The Ford Television Theatre" (1 episode, 1957)

"Schlitz Playhouse of Stars" (1 episode, 1957)

Storm Center (1956)

The Catered Affair (1956)

"The 20th Century-Fox Hour" (1 episode, 1956)

The Virgin Queen (1955)

The Star (1952)

Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)

Another Man's Poison (1951)

Payment on Demand (1951)

All About Eve (1950)

Beyond the Forest (1949)

June Bride (1948)

Winter Meeting (1948)

Deception (1946)

A Stolen Life (1946)

The Corn Is Green (1945)

Mr. Skeffington (1944)

Old Acquaintance (1943)

Watch on the Rhine (1943)

Now, Voyager (1942)

In This Our Life (1942)

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

The Little Foxes (1941)

The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)

Shining Victory (1941) (uncredited)

The Great Lie (1941)

The Letter (1940)

All This, and Heaven Too (1940)

If I Forget You (1940)

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)

The Old Maid (1939)

Juarez (1939)

Dark Victory (1939)

The Sisters (1938)

Jezebel (1938)

It's Love I'm After (1937)

That Certain Woman (1937)

Kid Galahad (1937)

Marked Woman (1937)

Satan Met a Lady (1936)

The Golden Arrow (1936)

The Petrified Forest (1936)

Dangerous (1935)

Special Agent (1935)

Front Page Woman (1935)

The Girl from 10th Avenue (1935)

Bordertown (1935)

Housewife (1934)

Of Human Bondage (1934)

Fog Over Frisco (1934)

Jimmy the Gent (1934)

Fashions of 1934 (1934)

The Big Shakedown (1934)

Bureau of Missing Persons (1933)

Ex-Lady (1933)

The Working Man (1933)

Parachute Jumper (1933)

Just Around the Corner (1933)

20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)

Three on a Match (1932)

The Cabin in the Cotton (1932)

The Dark Horse (1932)

The Rich Are Always with Us (1932)

So Big! (1932)

The Man Who Played God (1932)

Hell's House (1932)

The Menace (1932)

Way Back Home (1931)

Waterloo Bridge (1931)

Seed (1931)

The Bad Sister (1931)

Producer:

A Stolen Life (1946) (producer) (uncredited)

Appearances

"Larry King Live" (1 episode, 1988)

"De película" (1 episode, 1988)

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (5 episodes, 1963-1988)

The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts (1987) (TV)

The 59th Annual Academy Awards 1987 (TV)

Directed by William Wyler (1986)

"La nuit des Césars" (1 episode, 1986)

The 43rd Annual Golden Globe Awards 1986 (TV)

"Étoiles et toiles" (1 episode, 1985)

"Arena" (1 episode, 1983)

Bette Davis: A Basically Benevolent Volcano (1983) (TV)

All-Star Party for Carol Burnett (1982) (TV)

The American Film Institute Salute to Frank Capra (1982) (TV)

Night of 100 Stars (1982) (TV)

The 50th Annual Academy Awards 1978 (TV)

The American Film Institute Salute to Henry Fonda (1978) (TV)

"Dinah!" (1 episode, 1977)

The American Film Institute Salute to Bette Davis (1977) (TV)

Jimmy Carter's Inaugural Gala (1977) (TV)

"The Mike Douglas Show" (1 episode, 1976)

"V.I.P.-Schaukel" (2 episodes, 1975-1976)

Parkinson (1 episode, 1975)

The 28th Annual Tony Awards 1974 (TV)

"The Dean Martin Show" (2 episodes, 1973)

"ABC's Wide World of Entertainment" (1 episode, 1973)

Johnny Carson Presents the Sun City Scandals '72 (1972) (TV)

"The Dick Cavett Show" (2 episodes, 1970-1971)

"This Is Your Life" (1 episode, 1971)

"The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" (3 episodes, 1967)

Think Twentieth (1967)

"The Hollywood Palace" (3 episodes, 1964-1966)

What's My Line? (5 episodes, 1952-1965)

Bette Davis - Star und Rebellin (1965) (TV)

"I've Got a Secret" (2 episodes, 1964-1965)

"Hollywood and the Stars" (1 episode, 1963)

"Reflets de Cannes" (1 episode, 1963)

The 35th Annual Academy Awards 1963 (TV)

"Here's Hollywood" (2 episodes, 1962)

"The Andy Williams Show" (1 episode, 1962)

"The Jack Paar Program" (1 episode, 1962)

The 31st Annual Academy Awards 1959 (TV)

The 30th Annual Academy Awards 1958 (TV)

"The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" (1 episode, 1958)

Person to Person (1 episode, 1956)

The 27th Annual Academy Awards 1955 (TV)

Hollywood Canteen (1944)

The Present with a Future (1943) (uncredited)

Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)

Show Business at War (1943)

Breakdowns of 1941 (1941) (uncredited)

For Auld Lang Syne (1938) (uncredited)

Screen Snapshots Series 17, No. 9 (1938)

Screen Snapshots Series 17, No. 5 (1938)

Breakdowns of 1938 (1938) (uncredited)

A Day at Santa Anita (1937) (uncredited)

Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 8 (1937)

Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 1 (1936)

Screen Snapshots Series 15, No. 10 (1936)

A Dream Comes True (1935) (uncredited)

The 42nd. Street Special (1933) (uncredited)

Academy Awards

1963 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

1953 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: The Star (1952)

1951 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: All About Eve (1950)

1945 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: Mr. Skeffington (1944)

1943 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: Now, Voyager (1942)

1942 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: The Little Foxes (1941)

1941 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: The Letter (1940)

1940 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: Dark Victory (1939)

1939 Won Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: Jezebel (1938) On 19 July 2001 Steven Spielberg purchased Davis' Oscar statuette at a Christie's auction and returned it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This was the second time in five years Spielberg did so to protect an Oscar from further commercial exploitation.

1936 Won Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: Dangerous (1935) On 14 December 2002 Steven Spielberg anonymously bought Davis' Oscar at a Sotheby's auction in New York to return it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The statuette was among the memorabilia sold by the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain, which has emerged from bankruptcy protection.

1935 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for: Of Human Bondage (1934) This was a write-in nomination.

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA

1977 Won Golden Scroll Best Supporting Actress for: Burnt Offerings (1976)

American Film Institute, USA

1977 - Life Achievement Award

BAFTA Awards

1964 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Foreign Actress for: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) USA.

CableACE Awards

1987 Nominated ACE Actress in a Movie or Miniseries for: As Summers Die (1986) (TV)

1984 Nominated ACE Actress in a Dramatic or Theatrical Program for: Right of Way (1983) (TV)

Cannes Film Festival

1951 Won Best Actress for: All About Eve (1950)

César Awards, France

1986 - Honorary César

Emmy Awards

1983 Nominated Emmy Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special for: Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982) (TV)

1980 Nominated Emmy Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Special for: White Mama (1980) (TV)

1979 Won Emmy Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Special for: Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979) (TV)

1974 Nominated Emmy Special Classification of Outstanding Program and Individual Achievement for: "ABC's Wide World of Entertainment" (1973) For episode "Warner Bros. Movies - A 50 Year Salute".

Film Society of Lincoln Center

1989 - Gala Tribute

Golden Apple Awards

1963 Won Golden Apple Most Cooperative Actress

1941 Won Golden Apple Most Cooperative Actress

Golden Globes

1974 Won Cecil B. DeMille Award

1963 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama for: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

1962 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Actress - Musical/Comedy for: Pocketful of Miracles (1961)

1951 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama for: All About Eve (1950)

Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists

1952 Won Silver Ribbon Best Actress - Foreign Film (Miglior Attrice Straniera) for: All About Eve (1950)

Laurel Awards

1965 Won Golden Laurel Dramatic Performance, Female for: Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

1965 Nominated Golden Laurel Female Star 11th place.

1963 3rd place Golden Laurel Top Female Dramatic Performance for: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Monte-Carlo TV Festival

1983 Won Golden Nymph for: A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (1982) (TV)

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

1950 Won NYFCC Award Best Actress for: All About Eve (1950)

Photoplay Awards

1962 Won Most Popular Female Star

San Sebastián International Film Festival

1989 - Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award

Venice Film Festival

1937 Won Volpi Cup Best Actress for: Kid Galahad (1937) Also for Marked Woman (1937).

Walk of Fame

Star on the Walk of Fame Motion Picture At 6225 Hollywood Blvd. Television At 6233 Hollywood Blvd.

Women in Film Crystal Awards

1983 Won Crystal Award

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After studying at John Murray Anderson's acting school in New York, Bette Davis made her first appearance on Broadway in Broken Dishes in 1929. The following year she was dropped by Universal Studios, her first studio, because she had "as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville," but plugged away at Warner Brothers throughout the 1930s as a variety of pert, pretty, chic, urban girls. Like many young actresses, she knew that the best way to stand out from the pack was to play an outrageous tramp, and lobbied hard for the role of cockney "artist's model" Mildred, opposite Leslie Howard, in Of Human Bondage (1934). However, Warner Brothers tended to cast her as molls who wait at the ringside during fights (Kid Galahad, 1937) or at home during lengthy prison spells (20,000 Years in Sing Sing, 1932), bumping her up a little as a waitress smitten with intellectual drifter Howard in The Petrified Forest (1936) and the Mary Astor "scheming woman" role in Satan Met a Lady (1936), a version of The Maltese Falcon.

Against the odds, Davis won a Best Actress Oscar as a drunken actress in Dangerous (1935), but still had to fight for parts worthy of her talents. She didn't manage to land Scarlett O'Hara, the role she most hankered after, but gained a second Oscar in the consolation role as another Southern belle in Warner Brothers's GWTW "spoiler" Jezebel (1938). After that, she became Warner Brothers's in-house "great actress" and starred in high-profile pictures built around her suffering. She frequently found herself as a woman who sacrifices personal happiness for others or who finds love against the odds - terminally ill in Dark Victory (1939), mistreated by Miriam Hopkins in The Old Maid (1939) and Old Acquaintance (1943), forced to behead her lover in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), more directly murdering another lover in The Letter (1940), gleefully ruining the lives of her whole family in The Little Foxes (1941), the neurotic spinster wooed by cigarette-brandishing Paul Henreid in Now, Voyager (1942), losing her looks to diphtheria only to find a devoted Claude Rains has gone blind in Mr. Skeffington (1944), and good-and-bad twins in A Stolen Life (1946). Amid all this, the pleasant comedy hijinks of The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) must have been a relief.

Diminishing Star

Davis's career stalled in middle age, as the fashion for "women's pictures" faded after World War II. Her contract with Warner Brothers wound down with Beyond the Forest (1949), the trashy King Vidor movie in which she puffs on a cigarette and frawls "What a dump!" as quoted in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Joseph L. Mankiewicz put her back in the limelight in All About Eve (1950), in which she clearly channels herself as a theatrical diva challenged by a scheming, younger rival. Although an instant classic, All About Eve didn't restore Davis's fortunes, and she was reduced to reprising an old role (as Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen, 1955).

By the 1960s Davis's career had come to a standstill. She was down to guest shots on Wagon Train when Robert Aldrich gifted her with the role of Baby Jane in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), a Hollywood guignol that pits her against her offscreen rival Joan Crawford in a venomous battle to the death. As deranged former child star Jande Hudson, Davis earned yet another Best Actress Oscar nomination, and the flames of her career were reignited. She gamely turned to more Gothics, flamboyant with Aldrich and Olivia de Havilland in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), underplaying to terrifying effect as the cracked servant in The Nanny (1965), sporting a sequin eye patch as a monster matriarch in The Anniversary (1968), and a female Fu Manchu in Madame Sin (1972). She played Disney villainesses (Return from Witch Mountain, 1978) and horror hags (Wicked Stepmother, 1989) to the end, and had a last acting hurrah in The Whales of August (1987). The "First Lady of Film" took her final breath at the age of ninety-one.

A Formidable Woman

Bette Davis was a strong-minded woman and a star to be reckoned with. She once famously said, "Until you're known in my profession as a monster, you're not a star." Throughout her career, she fought for the roles she wanted, even bringing a lawsuit against Warner Brothers when they failed to produce such roles in the aftermath of her Best Actress Oscar.

- In October 1941, Davis was elected as the first female president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She lasted less than two months, however, announcing publicly that she was too busy to fulfill her duties as president, while privately fuming that the Academy had expected her to act as a mere figurehead.

- Davis openly acknowledged that her relationships with men suffered as a result of her career and driven nature. She was married (and divorced) four times, and had numerous affairs - with George Brent and William Wyler, among others - believing, "An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring. I ought to know."

- When Davis started out in Hollywood, Universal Pictures wanted to change her name to Bettina Dawes. She flatly refused, telling the studio that she would not go through life with a name that sounded like "Between the Drawers."

[on longtime rival Joan Crawford] I wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire.

I see - she's the original good time that was had by all.

I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

[on rival Joan Crawford] She has slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie.

There was more good acting at Hollywood parties than ever appeared on the screen.

On her tombstone is written "She did it the hard way".

She suffered a stroke and had a mastectomy in 1983.

Joan Crawford and Davis had feuded for years. During the making of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Bette had a Coca-Cola machine installed on the set due to Crawford's affiliation with Pepsi (she was the widow of Pepsi's CEO). Joan got her revenge by putting weights in her pockets when Davis had to drag her across the floor during certain scenes.

Declined a role in 4 for Texas (1963) (which turned out to be a big hit) to do Dead Ringer (1964) (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".

When she died, her false eyelashes were auctioned off, fetching a price of $600. Previously, she had said that her biggest secret was brown mascara.

Was first offered the role of Luke's mother in Cool Hand Luke (1967), but refused the bit part.

When she died in 1989, she reportedly left an estate valued between $600,000 and $1 million, consisting mainly of a condominium apartment she owned in West Hollywood. 50% of her estate went to her son, Michael Merrill, and the remaining 50% went to her secretary and companion, Kathryn Sermack. Her daughter, Barbara Merrill aka B.D. 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.

Salary

Wicked Stepmother (1989) $250,000

Right of Way (1983) (TV) $250,000

Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) $200,000

Where Love Has Gone (1964) $125,000

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) $60,000 + 5% of the net profits.

All About Eve (1950) $130,000

Juarez (1939) $4,000/week

Dark Victory (1939) $3,500/week

Jezebel (1938) $650/week