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Bette Davis




Ruth Elizabeth Davis (April 5, 1908 - October 6, 1989), better known as
Bette Davis, was an Academy Award winning American actress.

Davis was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Although Davis had wanted to be an
actress from an early age, she was denied admission to Eva LeGallienne's
Manhattan Civic Repertory because she was considered insincere. So she
enrolled in John Murray Anderson's dramatic school, and became a star.

Her first professional stage performance was The Earth Between, off-Broadway
in 1923. Her first Broadway performance was in 1929, in Broken Dishes and
later in Solid South. The next year, she was hired by Universal Studios, but
they felt she was not star material, and in 1932, they let her sign with
Warner Brothers. Her first starring role was in The Man Who Played God, and
she became a star in Of Human Bondage.

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Dangerous and Jezebel, and
was able to name her own roles, with the exception of Gone With the Wind in
1939. Her career began to stagnate through the 1940s, but her performance in
All About Eve, for which she received another Oscar nomination, put her back
on top. When her career began to fade again, in 1961, she placed a notorious
ad for "job wanted" in the trade papers. Her role in 1962's over-the-top
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, in which she played a parody of herself
opposite her long-time rival Joan Crawford, earned her another Oscar
nomination.

In 1977, Davis received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement
Award, and in 1979 she won a Best Actress Emmy. She wrote a biography, The
Lonely Life, in the 1960s, and Mother Goddam in 1975. In 1985, her daughter,
B.D. Hyman, wrote a tell-all book, My Mother's Keeper, in which she savaged
her mother. Davis wrote another book, This N That, in the late 1980s, and
Bette Davis, The Lonely Life, which appeared the year after her death,
updating what had happened since her first biography had been published.

On July 19, 2001, Steven Spielberg purchased Davis' Oscar statuette for
Jezebel at a Christie's auction and returned it to the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences. This was to protect an Oscar from commercial
exploitation.

Bette Davis died in 1989 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France following a long
battle with breast cancer, and after having suffered at least one serious
stroke. On Davis's tombstone is written, "She did it the hard way."

Academy Awards and Nominations

   * Nominated What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
   * Nominated The Star (1952)
   * Nominated All About Eve (1950)
   * Nominated Mr. Skeffington (1944)
   * Nominated Now, Voyager (1942)
   * Nominated The Little Foxes (1941)
   * Nominated The Letter (1940)
   * Nominated Dark Victory (1939)
   * Won Jezebel (1938)
   * Won Dangerous (1935)
   * Nominated Of Human Bondage (1934)

Filmography

   * Mina Tannenbaum (1994)
   * Wicked Stepmother (1989)
   * The Whales of August (1987)
   * As Summers Die (1986)
   * Murder with Mirrors (1985)
   * Right of Way (1983)
   * Hotel (1982)
   * Little Gloria, Happy at Last (1982)
   * A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (1982)
   * Family Reunion (1981)
   * Skyward (1980)
   * The Watcher in the Woods (1980)
   * White Mama (1980)
   * Strangers, The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979)
   * Return from Witch Mountain (1978)
   * Death on the Nile (1978)
   * "Dark Secret of Harvest Home" (1978)
   * The Disappearance of Aimee (1976)
   * Burnt Offerings (1976)
   * Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973)
   * Connecting Rooms (1972)
   * The Judge and Jake Wyler (1972)
   * The Scientific Cardplayer (1972)
   * Madame Sin (1972)
   * Bunny O'Hare (1971)
   * The Anniversary (1968)
   * The Nanny (1965)
   * Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
   * Where Love Has Gone (1964)
   * Dead Ringer (1964)
   * The Empty Canvas (1964)
   * What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
   * Pocketful of Miracles (1961)
   * The Scapegoat (1959)
   * John Paul Jones (1959)
   * Storm Center (1956)
   * The Catered Affair (1956)
   * The Virgin Queen (1955)
   * The Star (1952)
   * Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)
   * Another Man's Poison (1952)
   * 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)
   * Shining Victory (1941)
   * The Little Foxes (1941)
   * The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)
   * The Great Lie (1941)
   * The Letter (1940)
   * All This, and Heaven Too (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)
   * 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
   * Three on a Match (1932)
   * 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)

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