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from the trailer of Jezebel (1938)

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress of film, television and theatre. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres; from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, though her greatest successes were romantic dramas.

After appearing in Broadway plays, Davis moved to Hollywood in 1930, but her early films for Universal Studios were unsuccessful. She joined Warner Bros. in 1932 and established her career with several critically acclaimed performances. In 1937, she attempted to free herself from her contract and although she lost a well-publicized legal case, it marked the beginning of the most successful period of her career. Until the late 1940s, she was one of American cinema's most celebrated leading actresses, known for her forceful and intense style. Davis 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 forthright manner, clipped vocal style and ubiquitous cigarette contributed to a public persona which has often been imitated and satirized.

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 was the first actress to receive 10 Academy Award nominations and the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. Her career went through several periods of decline, and she admitted that her success 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, but she continued acting until shortly before her death from breast cancer, with more than 100 film, television and theater roles to her credit.

In 1999, Davis was placed second, behind Katharine Hepburn, on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of all time.

[edit] Background and early acting career

Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known from early childhood as "Betty", was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ruth ("Ruthie") Augusta (née Favor), and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney; ^[1] her sister, Barbara ("Bobby"), was born October 25, 1909. The family was Protestant, of English, French, and Welsh ancestry.^[2] In 1915, Davis's parents separated and Betty and Bobby attended a Spartan boarding school called Crestalban in Lanesborough, which is located in the Berkshires.^[3] In 1921, Ruth Davis moved to New York City with her daughters, where she worked as a portrait 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),^[4] and changed the spelling of her name to "Bette" after Honoré de Balzac's La Cousine Bette.^[5] She received encouragement from her mother, who had aspired to become an actress.

She attended La Cousine Bette, a boarding school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, where she met her future husband, Harmon O. Nelson, known as "Ham". 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."^[6] She auditioned for admission to Eva LeGallienne's Manhattan Civic Repertory, but was rejected by LeGallienne who described her attitude as "insincere" and "frivolous".^[7] She was accepted by the John Murray Anderson School of Theatre (where Lucille Ball was also a pupil), and studied dance with Martha Graham.

She auditioned for George Cukor's stock theater company, and although he was not very impressed, he gave Davis her first paid acting assignment anyway – 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 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. A Universal Studios talent scout saw her perform and invited her to Hollywood for a screen test.

[edit] Transition from stage to film

In Hell's House (1932)

Accompanied by her mother, Davis traveled by train to Hollywood, arriving on December 13, 1930. She later recounted her surprise that nobody from the studio was there to meet her; a studio employee had waited for her, but left because he saw nobody who "looked like an actress". She failed her first screen test but was used in several screen tests for other actors. In a 1971 interview with Dick Cavett, she related the experience with the observation, "I was the most Yankee-est, most modest virgin who ever walked the earth. They laid me on a couch, and I tested fifteen men ... They all had to lie on top of me and give me a passionate kiss. Oh, I thought I would die. Just thought I would die."^[8] A second test was arranged for Davis, for the film A House Divided (1931). Hastily dressed in an ill-fitting costume with a low neckline, she was rebuffed by the director William Wyler, who loudly commented to the assembled crew, "What do you think of these dames who show their chests and think they can get jobs?"^[9] Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Studios, considered terminating Davis's employment, but cinematographer Karl Freund told him she had "lovely eyes" and would be suitable for The Bad Sister (1931), in which she subsequently made her film debut.^[10] Her nervousness was compounded when she overheard the Chief of Production, Carl Laemmle Jr., comment to another executive that she had "about as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville", one of the film's co-stars.^[11] The film was not a success, and her next role in Seed (1931) was too brief to attract attention.

Universal Studios renewed her contract for three months, and she appeared in a small role in Waterloo Bridge (1931) before being lent to Columbia Pictures for 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, "she is not only beautiful, but she bubbles with charm", and compared her to Constance Bennett and Olive Borden.^[12] Warner Bros. 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 $1,000 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.^[13]

As the shrewish Mildred in Of Human Bondage (1934), Davis was acclaimed for her dramatic performance.

After more than 20 film roles, the role of the vicious and slatternly Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage (1934), a film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel, 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 said, "the last stages of consumption, poverty and neglect are not pretty and I intended to be convincing-looking".^[14]

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 U.S. actress".^[15] Davis anticipated that her reception would encourage Warner Bros. to cast her in more important roles, and was disappointed when Jack Warner refused to lend her to Columbia Studios to appear in It Happened One Night, and instead cast her in a melodrama, Housewife.^[16] When Davis was not nominated for an Academy Award for Of Human Bondage, 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.^[17] 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,^[18] with results independently tabulated by the accounting firm Price Waterhouse.^[19]

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".^[20] She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role, but commented 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 its posterior resembled that of her husband, whose middle name was Oscar,^[21][22] although her claim has been disputed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, among others.

In her next film, The Petrified Forest (1936), Davis co-starred 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.

[edit] Academy Awards and nominations

In 1962 Bette Davis became the first person to secure 10 Academy Award nominations for acting. Since then only four people have equalled or surpassed this figure, Meryl Streep (with 14 nominations and 2 wins), Katharine Hepburn (12 nominations and 4 wins), Jack Nicholson (12 nominations and 3 wins) and Laurence Olivier (10 nominations and 1 win).^[23]

Steven Spielberg purchased Davis's Oscars for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938) when they were offered for auction for, respectively US$207,500 and US$578,000, and returned them to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.^[24][25]

• 1962: Nominated for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
• 1952: Nominated for The Star
• 1950: Nominated for All About Eve
• 1944: Nominated for Mr. Skeffington
• 1942: Nominated for Now, Voyager
• 1941: Nominated for The Little Foxes
• 1940: Nominated for The Letter
• 1939: Nominated for Dark Victory
• 1938: Won for Jezebel
• 1935: Won for Dangerous
• 1934: Davis's performance in Of Human Bondage (1934) was widely acclaimed and when she was not nominated for an Academy Award, several influential people mounted a campaign to have her name included. The Academy relaxed its rules for that year only to allow for the consideration of any performer nominated in a write-in vote, therefore any performance of the year was technically eligible for consideration. Given the well-publicized hoopla, some sources still consider this as a nomination for Davis; however, the Academy does not officially record this as a nomination.^[26]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Bret, David (2006). Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 978-0786718689.
• Carr, Larry (1979). More Fabulous Faces: The Evolution and Metamorphosis of Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Dolores del Rio, Carole Lombard and Myrna Loy. Doubleday and Company. ISBN 0-385-12819-3.
• Chandler, Charlotte (2006). The Girl Who Walked Home Alone : Bette Davis, A Personal Biography. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-6208-8.
• Collins, Bill (1987). Bill Collins Presents "The Golden Years of Hollywood". The MacMillan Company of Australia. ISBN 0-333-45069-8.
• Considine, Shaun (2000). Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud. Backinprint.com. ISBN 978-0595120277.
• Davis, Bette; Michael Herskowitz (1987). This 'N That. G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0-345-34453-7.
• Guiles, Fred Lawrence (1995). Joan Crawford, The Last Word. Conrad Goulden Books. ISBN 1-85793-268-4.
• Haver, Ronald (1980). David O. Selznick's Hollywood. Bonanza Books. ISBN 0-517-47665-7.
• Kael, Pauline (1982). 5001 Nights at the Movies. Zenith Books. ISBN 0-09-933550-6.
• Ringgold, Gene (1966). The Films of Bette Davis. Cadillac Publishing Co.
• Shipman, David (1988). Movie Talk. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-03403-2.
• Sikov, Ed (2007). Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0805075488.
• Spada, James (1993). More Than a Woman. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-90880-0.
• Sperling, Cass Warner; Cork Milner and Jack Warner Jr. (1998). Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story. Prima Publishing. ISBN 0813109582.
• Springer, John; Jack Hamilton (1978). They Had Faces Then. Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-0657-1.
• Staggs, Sam (2000). All About "All About Eve". St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-27315-0.
• Stine, Whitney; Bette Davis (1974). Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis. W.H. Allen and Co. Plc.. ISBN 1-56980-157-6.
• Wiley, Mason; Damien Bona (1987). Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-34453-7.

[edit] External links

• Bette Davis official website
• Bette Davis photographs and bibliography