A website dedicated to Bette Davis.

Bette Davis News

The news regarding Bette on this site, have been copied from the original source. Bette Davis Online has not written the original source of the articles, therefore does not claim ownership of the articles written. If a source is listed for the articles, a link to the source or other herein will be mentioned as a credit for the original source.

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Bette Davis Doll collection

2-15-2009

Robert Tonner continues his homage to screen legends with Bette Davis™, one of the top ten ‘Greatest Female Stars of All Time’ according to the American Film Institute.

Fully authorized by the Bette Davis™ Estate, Robert Tonner’s portrait will enchant you through a deliciously captive likeness, and a stylish wardrobe inspired by an American legend.

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These dolls in this collection range in price of $89 to $189. There are different dolls in this collection that are featured. A nice addition for anyone who collects Bette Davis, or celebrity dolls. For more information on this collection, visit the website below.


http://www.tonnerdoll.com/bettedavis.htm.

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Bette Davis Paper Doll Reproduction

12-15-2008

Back in the 1940's and 1950's there was the creation of many series of paper dolls of some of Hollywoods biggest stars at that time which included Bette Davis. At that time, paper dolls were a huge hit which led into a growth in popularity for many years.

These paper dolls of Hollywood screen legends, over the years, have become difficult to find. Moreso in mint condition. Then came a website called ebay. Ebay, the worlds leading auction site, was on of the few places you could find the original versions of these paper dolls. The downside, due to the age, and the vintage collectable status, the price for the paper dolls were outrageous. Prices for these original collectable paper dolls ranged between $50-$200.

Now, thanks to a company called Paper Studio Press, a reproduction of these paper dolls have been produced. These replica versions, look just like the originals that were released back in the 1940's and are offered at a more affordable price. The paper dolls, which include Bette Davis, are priced at $12.99. To see an image of the Bette Davis paper dolls, click on the image below. Although, it is a replica of the original product, this is still a great collectable for any Bette Davis fan to have for their own collection.




For more information go to the following link:

Click here to go to Paper Studio Press


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GREAT ROLES ALMOST WEREN'T

11-27-2008

IT'S hard to imagine "All About Eve" without Bette Davis, "Rebel Without a Cause" without James Dean or "The Graduate" without Dustin Hoffman.

But "Vanity Fair's Tales of Hollywood," an upcoming book edited by Graydon Carter about legendary movies of the 20th century, reveals how some of the most iconic characters almost never made it to the big screen.

*"All About Eve" (1950) revived Davis' career, even if she was "a last resort" for director Joseph Mankiewicz. The book reveals that Claudette Colbert was up for the part of Margo Channing, but she ruptured a disc in her back and couldn't work. Gertrude Lawrence declined the role because she was already working on "The King and I," but Davis accepted thinking "somebody was playing a joke on her."

* James Dean was almost fired from the set of "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) before filming began. "A few days before [shooting the first scene], Dean had disappeared, and no one could find him," the book reports. "The executives and Warner Bros. considered . . . replacing him." Dean "returned just in time for his first scene" and brought legendary character Jim Stark to life, only to die in a car crash two weeks before the picture's release.

* It's no secret that Robert Redford was up for Hoffman's role in "The Graduate" (1967), but lesser-known names also on producer Larry Turman's "wish list" for the part included Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty and George Hamilton. Hoffman even turned down the role at first, insisting, "this guy is a super-WASP" - prompting director Mike Nichols to suggest, "Maybe he's Jewish inside."

* And the plot of "The Producers" (1968), the Mel Brooks comedy he turned into a hit Broadway musical 30 years later, was born from his frustration at writing a novel titled "Springtime for Hitler."

Source for the article:

Click here to read the NY Post Article


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Thank you for smoking

10-13-2008

This stamp honoring Bette Davis was issued by the U. S. Postal Service on Sept. 18. The portrait by Michael Deas was inspired by a still photo from "All About Eve." Notice anything missing? Before you even read this far, you were thinking, Where's her cigarette? Yes reader, the cigarette in the original photo has been eliminated. We are all familiar, I am sure, with the countless children and teenagers who have been lured into the clutches of tobacco by stamp collecting, which seems so innocent, yet can have such tragic outcomes. But isn't this is carrying the anti-smoking campaign one step over the line?

Depriving Bette Davis of her cigarette reminds me of Soviet revisionism, when disgraced party officials disappeared from official photographs. Might as well strip away the toupees of Fred Astaire and Jimmy Stewart. I was first alerted to this travesty by a reader, Wendell Openshaw of San Diego, who wrote me: "Do you share my revulsion for this attempt to revise history and distort a great screen persona for political purposes? It is political correctness and revisionist history run amok. Next it will be John Wayne holding a bouquet instead of a Winchester!"

The great Chicago photographer Victor Skrebneski took one of the most famous portraits of Davis. I showed him the stamp. His response: "I have been with Bette for years and I have never seen her without a cigarette! No cigarette! Who is this impostor?" I imagine Davis might not object to a portrait of her without a cigarette, because she posed for many. But to have a cigarette removed from one of her most famous poses! What she did to Joan Crawford in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" wouldn't even compare to what ever would have happened to the artist Michael Deas.

Look, I hate smoking. It took my parents from me, my father with lung cancer, my mother with emphysema. They both liked Luckies. When my dad's cancer was diagnosed, they played it safe and switched to Winstons. When my mother was breathing oxygen through a tube, she'd take out the tube, turn off the oxygen, and light up. I avoid smokers. It isn't allowed in our house. When I see someone smoking, it feels like I'm watching them bleed themselves, one drip at a time.

So we've got that established. On the other hand, I have never objected to smoking in the movies, especially when it is necessary to establish a period or a personality. I simply ask the movies to observe that, these days, you rarely see someone smoking except standing outside a building, on a battleground, in a cops' hangout, in a crack house, in rehab, places like that. In an ordinary context, giving a character a cigarette is saying either (1) this is a moron, or (2) this person will die. Smoking no longer even works to add a touch of color to an action hero. Does Jason Bourne smoke? I haven't seen James Bond with a cigarette since Pierce Brosnan took over the role in 1995. Daniel Craig smoked cigars in "Casino Royale" (2006), but the producers cut them out. (Craig: "I can blow someone's head off but I can't light a good cigar.")

Two of the most wonderful props in film noir were cigarettes and hats. They added interest to a close up or a two-shot. "Casablanca" without cigarettes would seem to be standing around looking for something to do. These days men don't smoke and don't wear hats. When they lower their heads, their eyes aren't shaded. Cinematographers have lost invaluable compositional tools. The coil of smoke rising around the face of a beautiful women added allure and mystery. Remember Marlene Dietrich. She was smoking when she said, "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily."Everybody smoked cigarettes in the movies. Even Katharine Hepburn. Even Loretta Young. Ronald Reagan posed for Chesterfield ads. On the radio, it wasn't "The Jack Benny Program," it was "The Lucky Strike Program with Jack Benny," although in that PBS documentary you only see him smoking cigars. Robert Mitchum smoked so much, he told me, that when the camera was rolling on "Out of the Past," Kirk Douglas offered him a pack and asked, "Cigarette?" And Mitchum, realizing he'd carried a cigarette into the scene, held up his fingers and replied, "Smoking." His improvisation saved the take. They kept it in the movie.

If virtually all actresses smoked, Bette Davis smoked more than virtually all actresses. When she appeared on the Tonight Show the night after she co-hosted the Oscars, she walked onstage, shook Johnny's hand, sat down, pulled out her Vantages, and lit up. Tumultuous applause. I would guess it is impossible for an impressionist to do Bette Davis without using a cigarette. Remember Paul Henried lighting two cigarettes and giving her one? Read this quote from the first paragraph of Wiki's entry on Davis: Her forthright manner, clipped vocal style and ubiquitous cigarette contributed to a public persona which has often been imitated and satirized. Ubiquitous.

I think some smoking is okay even in contemporary stories, if only to acknowledge it exists. Movies can't rewrite reality. The MPAA cautiously mentions smoking in their descriptions of movie ratings (even if it's Alice's caterpillar and his hookah). If, by the time you're old enough to sit through a movie, you haven't heard that smoking is bad for you, you don't need a movie rating, you need a foster home.

And yet, and yet...I could not do without that moment in "Sweet Smell of Success," where Burt Lancaster plays the big-shot Broadway columnist T. J. Hunsaker, and Tony Curtis is the desperate press agent Sidney Falco, trying to get an item into T.J.'s column. Hunsaker holds a cigarette in his fingers and, without looking, says "Match me, Sidney." A relationship defined in two words. That still leaves "Cigarette me." I predict it will turn up as dialog within 12 months.


Source for the article:

Click here to read the article on Roger Eberts journal


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U.S. Postage Stamp Honors Hollywood legend Bette Davis at Prestigious Auto Auction

10-10-2008

A special stamp commemoration ceremony will be held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, NV, on Oct. 16, 2008. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. with remarks by long-time personal assistant Kathyrn Sermak and Las Vegas Postmaster Yul Melonson.

The ceremony is being held in conjunction with the auctioning of her “Black Beauty,” a 1980 Ford Mustang, which she ordered on the morning of her 72nd birthday. A portion of the proceeds from the sale will be given to the Bette Davis Foundation, which helps young actors and actresses fulfill their dreams.

The car is one of more than 500 vehicles that will be auctioned by the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company, which is hosting its inaugural Las Vegas event Oct. 16-18, 2008. The firm caters to collector car enthusiasts around the world. Other celebrity vehicles auctioned will include those owned by Toby Keith, Evel Knievel, Nicholas Cage and others.

“Bette Davis was one of the brightest lights of Hollywood,” Postmaster Melonson said. “We are honored to celebrate the life and legacy of one of America’s finest actresses through our stamp program.”

Special First-Day Bette Davis Stamp collectibles will be available throughout the day. The newly released “50s Fins and Chrome” stamps will also be featured.

Artist Michael Deas based his painting for the stamp on a black-and-white still of Bette Davis made during the filming of All About Eve (1950).

The Bette Davis Stamp is the 14th stamp issued in the Legends of Hollywood Stamp Series. Past stamp subjects include James Cagney, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn and others.


Source for the article:

Click here to read the article on bettedavis.com


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Lauren Bacall Honors Bette Davis at BU

9-22-2008

Boston University rolled out the red carpet on Thursday, September 18, during a star-studded event that honored the 100th birthday of Hollywood legend and Massachusetts native Bette Davis. The celebration marked the debut of the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center’s latest exhibition, A Retrospective Exhibition of the Life and Work of Bette Davis, and included appearances by two-time Tony Award–winning actress Lauren Bacall and Academy Award–winning actress Susan Sarandon, as well as New York Observer film critic Rex Reed.

“Bette Davis lives in our memories as a woman of colossal strength — a working girl until the day she died,” said Vita Paladino (MET'79, SSW'93), director of the Gotlieb Center. “She persevered in Hollywood during a time when Hollywood treated women as disposable objects, and that persistence paved the way for future actresses.”

The Bette Davis Foundation chose to award two of those actresses, Bacall and Sarandon, with the Bette Davis Medal of Honor and the Bette Davis Lifetime Achievement Award, respectively. Davis’ son, Boston lawyer Michael W. Merrill (LAW'76), and longtime family friend Kathryn Sermak presented the awards during a ceremony at the Metcalf Ballroom on Thursday evening.

“These two women share much in common with my mother,” Merrill said. “Like her, they juggled careers with motherhood and persevered to play strong, independent roles on-screen. And like my mother, they are also advocates for social change and justice.”

Bacall, best known for her roles in The Big Sleep (1946), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress, grew up idolizing Davis. “I used to cut class and sneak into movie theaters to watch her films,” she said. “I memorized every line from every movie she was in."

“There have been other great actresses, but no one else could ever touch her, and no one else ever will,” she continued. “I watch every one of her movies as though I’ve never seen them before, and I’ve probably seen some of them 40 or 50 times. She had a quality that you just couldn’t nail.” Davis made more than 100 movies over a career spanning more than six decades; nominated 10 times for an Academy Award, she won twice, for best actress.

Sarandon, who is arguably as famous for her political outspokenness as she is for her acting career, which includes acclaimed films such as Atlantic City (1980), Thelma and Louise (1992), and Dead Man Walking (1995), said Davis was an inspiration for all women. “She broke the mold, surviving in a system that was dominated by men,” she said. “More importantly, she retained her integrity in a business that can really break your heart and spirit.”

The awards ceremony coincided with the issuance of the U.S. Postal Service’s Bette Davis commemorative stamp. The 14th in the Legends of Hollywood series, the stamp was unveiled in the Metcalf Ballroom earlier that afternoon.

Painted by New Orleans artist Michael J. Deas, the stamp is a replica of a black-and-white still from the 1950 film All About Eve, in which Davis portrayed an aging Broadway star.

“Now every time I mail a letter, I can lick the face of Bette Davis,” Reed quipped.

Davis’ arrival in Hollywood marked the beginning of a new era in film, Reed said. “She filled the void on screen with a texture that was sorely missing,” he said. “Whether courageous victim or scheming vixen, she took up cinematic space with meticulous care.”

And her legacy endures. “Nearly 20 years after her death,” said Reed, “people are still writing books about her, girls are still imitating her in acting classes, and drag queens everywhere are still lighting cigarettes and declaring, ‘Fasten your seatbelts — it’s going to be a bumpy night!’”

Before introducing Bacall and Sarandon, Reed recalled that Davis had once cooked him scrambled eggs in her bare feet — and later “condemned him to journalistic hell” for quoting her criticizing President Richard Nixon. “She was fearless one minute and longing for acceptance and love the next,” he said. “Truly, she is the stuff legends are made of.”

A Retrospective Exhibition of the Life and Work of Bette Davis will be on display in the Frost Reading Room on the first floor of Mugar Memorial Library for the next year. The exhibition is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Vicky Waltz can be reached at vwaltz@bu.edu.


Source for the article:

Click here to read the full article


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A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF BETTE DAVIS

9-3-2008

The first, though not a Friends event, takes place on September 18, 2008 when the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center and the Bette Davis Foundation will host the Bette Davis Centenary Tribute. At 5:00 p.m., the Gotlieb Center will host a champagne reception and viewing of the exhibition: A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF BETTE DAVIS. You can enjoy a rare glimpse at the original scripts, photographs, letters and awards that comprise this vast archival collection of items Ms. Davis personally saved and collected for over six decades.

The Bette Davis Foundation Awards Ceremony at 6:30 p.m. will honor Miss Susan Sarandon and Miss Lauren Bacall by presenting them with awards. The program will include film clips, introduced by film critic Rex Reed who will also pay tribute to all three great actresses. Cocktails and bountiful hors d'oeuvres will follow, and the cost to attend is $50 per person.

You may be interested to know that the United States Postal Service is honoring Bette Davis, on the 100th anniversary of her birth, with the issuance of a Legends of Hollywood commemorative stamp. This official ceremony will take place at 1:00 p.m. in the Metcalf Ballroom in the George Sherman Student Union at Boston University and the issuance will be in the Stone Lobby from 1:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. This event is open to the public.

The first Friends of the Libraries event is on Tuesday September 23, 2008 with an exhibition opening entitled: A VIEW FROM THE VAULT: Celebrating Forty-Five Years of Collecting, and a cocktail reception including remarks by our special guest Mr. Dan Rather. At 7 p.m. Mr. Rather will deliver the Howard Gotlieb Lecture on the topic of the current presidential campaign. There will be a "Question and Answer" period following the lecture, and also a chance to view an exhibition of Mr. Rather's archive. Members of the Friends are free and guests are $25.

The second Friends lecture is Tuesday October 7, 2008. The Friends will welcome Retired Col. Andrew Bacevich who will speak about his recent book THE LIMITS OF POWER: The End of American Exceptionalism. The evening will be dedicated to the memory of our beloved friend and supporter Mason Hartman. Members of the Friends are free and guests are $25.


Source for the article:

Click here to read the article on bettedavis.com


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Academy Honors Legend Bette Davis

4-24-2008

Beverly Hills, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in association with the Film Department of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will present “A Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis” on Thursday, May 1, at 8 p.m. in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Hosted by Robert Osborne, the program will honor the legendary actress with an evening featuring clips of her indelible screen performances as well as onstage discussions with several of her colleagues, friends and family, including Joan Leslie, James Woods, Kathryn Sermak, Gena Rowlands, and Davis’s son, Michael Merrill.

In the studio era, Bette Davis was a star in a Hollywood constellation that included Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland and Barbara Stanwyck. While she was well known for her expressive eyes and instantly recognizable voice, Davis distinguished herself by excelling at untraditional, often unsympathetic characters in a range of genres, earning in the process the considerable respect of her peers. Among her nine Best Actress nominations during that era were an unprecedented five consecutive nominations between 1938 and 1942; she took home Oscars® for her performances in “Dangerous” in 1935 and “Jezebel” in 1938. She received her 10th and final Academy Award® nomination in 1962 for her role in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”

Her performances in such notable films as “Of Human Bondage” (1934), “Dark Victory” (1939), “The Letter” (1940), “The Little Foxes” (1941), “Now, Voyager” (1942), “Watch on the Rhine” (1943) and “All About Eve” (1950) secured not only her stardom, but her reputation as a versatile and fearless performer.

Davis was an equally strong presence off the screen. She was elected the Academy’s first female president in 1941, although her tenure was brief and contentious. A staunch supporter of the war effort, Davis was one of the founders of the Hollywood Canteen and an active fund-raiser on the home front.

Tickets for the Academy’s “A Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis” may be purchased online at www.oscars.org, in person at the Academy box office or by mail. Doors open at 7 p.m. All seating is unreserved. The Academy is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For more information, call (310) 247-3600.

“A Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis” continues with a screening series at LACMA’s Leo S. Bing Theater.

Friday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m.
“Jezebel” (1938)
“The Old Maid” (1939)

Saturday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m.
“All About Eve” (1950)
“Of Human Bondage” (1934)

Friday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m.
“The Letter” (1940)
“Beyond the Forest” (1949)

Saturday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m.
“Now, Voyager” (1942)
“Old Acquaintance” (1943)

Saturday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m.
“The Little Foxes” (1941)
“Payment on Demand” (1951)

Friday, May 23, at 7:30 p.m.
“Dark Victory” (1939)
“Marked Woman” (1937)

Saturday, May 24, at 7:30 p.m.
“The Star” (1952)
“The Catered Affair” (1956)

Saturday, May 31, at 7:30 p.m.
“What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962)
“The Nanny” (1965)

For more information, call the LACMA box office at (323) 857-6010 or visit www.lacma.org.

# # #

©A.M.P.A.S.®
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
8949 Wilshire Boulevard Beverly Hills, CA 90211-1972
(310) 247-3000
www.oscars.org
publicity@oscars.org


Source for the article:

Click here to read the article on bettedavis.com


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Fasten Your Seatbelts: The Essential Bette Davis

4-9-2008

"She was no drama queen. She was drama in the flesh."-Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times

Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts and after a brief stint on Broadway was signed by Warner Bros as a contract player in 1932. Over the next seventeen years (her career at Warners ended in 1949) the acting dynamo that first stunned critics as the slatternly Mildred in Of Human Bondage became a cinematic icon known by many names among them: 'the Fifth Warner Brother'; 'Mother Goddam', Davis's own moniker; and 'Frankenstein', the nickname Edmund Goulding gave the actress he directed in three films including Dark Victory, her favorite. Demanding, a relentless perfectionist, and in later years a fascinating raconteur, Davis reigned as the 'Queen of the Warners lot' from her Oscar-winning performance in Jezebel through a string of carefully crafted women's pictures (Now, Voyager) and prestige stage adaptations (The Little Foxes) the success of which kept her bankable into the late 1950s when a lack of roles inspired her to place a 'Job Wanted' ad in the trades.

Her acting style may have been mannered at times, but her range was extraordinary: prostitutes, molls, society girls, career girls, feminist rebels, upper and lower class killers, greedy shrews, noble wives, teachers and governesses, duplicitous twins, and the Broadway diva Margo Channing! Margo in All About Eve was Davis' last glamorous lead, but the frumpy characters she played during the 1950s - culminating in the sadistic Baby Jane - are among her most memorable performances. Davis often said "I can act with my back", and Jane Fonda, Ellen Burstyn, and Meryl Streep are among the modern stars who recognized in Davis an 'actress's actress', and who have credited her influence on their own careers.

In all, Bette Davis appeared in 121 films prior to her death in 1989. She is interred at Forest Lawn and on her tombstone is written "She did it the hard way". In honor of her centenary and fifty-five years after she delivered the line "C'mon Oscar, let's you and me get drunk" in The Star, the face of Bette Davis will grace the new forty-two cent postage stamp that will be unveiled on May 2 by a post office official on the stage of the Bing Theater prior to the screening of Jezebel. Davis's son Michael Merrill and her long-time companion Kathryn Selmak will both be present for the ceremony.

Presented in association with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. On May 1, the Academy honors Davis with A Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis at 8:00pm in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Information: (310) 247-3600 or www.oscars.org.



Source for the article:

Click here to read the article on bettedavis.com


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BETTE DAVIS TURNS 100!

4-4-2008

Legendary actress Bette Davis, who made “Fasten Your Seat Belts” a household phrase, would be 100 years-old tomorrow, Saturday, April 5 and her fans have planned a special event in celebration.

With a donation from Teleflora, the world’s leading floral service offering the best choice in floral arrangements and convenient local delivery, devout fans will be passing out 400 multicolored individual roses in honor of this remarkable woman.

Miss Davis’s fans will be gathered in front of Mann/Grauman’s Chinese Theater between 12 p.m. – 2 p.m., the exact spot she placed her hands, foot prints and signature in concrete in 1950. For more on Bette Davis, please visit our website at: www.Bettedavis.com.


Source for the article:

Click here to read the article on bettedavis.com


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Postal Service Previews 2008 Bette Davis Stamp

1-8-2008

Film diva Bette Davis becomes the 14th inductee into the Legends of Hollywood series on the 100th anniversary of the year of her birth. A consummate actress with a magnetic screen presence, Davis (1908-1989) played a wide variety of powerful and complex roles during her six-decade career. Her riveting performances, acclaimed by critics and fans alike, resulted in 10 Academy Award nominations for best actress; she won twice for her starring roles in Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). Artist Michael Deas of Brooklyn Heights, NY, based his painting for the stamp on a black-and-white still of Davis made during the filming of All About Eve (1950). The selvage, or margin, photograph is a black-and-white still from Jezebel. Deas worked under the direction of Richard Scheaff of Scottsdale, AZ.

Bette Davis is not the only featured stamp in the collection. The 2008 stamp program recognizes a range of subjects as diverse as America itself, from the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrated in Chinatowns all over the country, to 20th century movie icons and literary figures, to the flags of our states and territories and many more.

Click here to view the entire 2008 Postal Service Stamp Collection

Source for the article:

Click here to read the article on bettedavis.com


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"Stardust" receives Emmy nomination

10-6-2006

Stardust: The Bette Davis Story has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Non-Fiction Special.

Written and directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Jones and narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon, Stardust: The Bette Davis Story employs an unprecedented body of primary source material to deconstruct Davis tempestuous life and career. In addition to archival interviews with Davis and her most important collaborators, the film has original interviews with Jane Fonda, Ellen Burstyn, Gena Rowlands and James Woods who critique specific scenes from Davis greatest films.

Jones was the first filmmaker to have received unrestricted access to Davis vast and revealing personal archives. Stardust includes scores of never-before-seen photographs and letters, with annotations in Davis own handwriting, culled from over 100 of her personal scrapbooks that span the course of her entire life. Warner Bros., where Davis made 50 films in 18 tumultuous years, granted Jones unrestricted access to her entire body of work as well as the studio's voluminous photo and legal archives.

The documentary made its world premiere on Turner Classic Movies this past May. It was nominated alongside All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise, How William Shatner Changed The World,Inside 9/11 and Rome: Engineering An Empire.

Hosted by the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences, the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will take place on Sunday, Aug. 27 at 8 p.m. EDT. The program will air on NBC.


Source for the article:

Click here to read the article on bettedavis.com


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Bette Davis: A star like no other

5-5-2006

By Mary McNamara Los Angeles Times Staff Writer


This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times

It only takes a film clip to bring it all back, those eyes, that voice, the inevitable look of amused contempt cutting through a sorcerer's haze of cigarette smoke.

During her life, Bette Davis had few peers, and almost 10 years after her death, no actress has even attempted to follow in her footsteps. Probably because the walk alone is beyond the ken of most modern starlets. Two parts what-are-you-looking-at and one part scoot-forward-you'll-get-a-better-view, that elbow-levitating, hip-swaying sashay adored by drag queens for decades distilled in fascinating contradiction of the woman.

Not that there is any one Bette Davis image. Other stars of her era may be more easily summoned to mind Katharine Hepburn, say, or even Joan Crawford. The Davis oeuvre is more varied than most of the other strong-minded gals of her time she did Southern belle, she did British monarch, she did New York socialite and aging starlet. The accents may have been a bit perilous, but the stubborn New England fearlessness never was.

Here was someone who would pause mid-stride to light her cigarette off a burning orphan age and, still, you had to love her.

Two recent attempts have been made to explain why. Charlotte Chandler's recent biography, The Girl Who Walked Home Alone, which was excerpted in a recent Vanity Fair, relies much on several years worth of interviews with the star. It's a bit like a historic tour of Davis life with Davis, in all her deadpan staccato splendor, as tour guide.It was said in my family, the book opens, that one of my ancestors was a witch. Well, I certainly hope so. It would explain everything. (Davis was one of those people who spoke habitually, and effectively, in italics.)

Stardust: The Bette Davis Story, which premiers today on Turner Classic Movies, takes a longer view. Directed by Peter Jones and narrated by Susan Sarandon, the documentary obviously originates from a place of homage. Davis, the filmmakers believe, was not only a brilliant actress but also a feminist trailblazer (hence, one supposes, the odd use of Jane Fonda, who never worked with Davis, as an interview subject).

Feminist may be a bit of a reach ­­ one TV interview has Davis firmly announcing that it is the role of the girl to subsume her life to that of the man, otherwise the marriage won't work. With four failed marriages, she certainly would have known, but it didn't seem to occur to her to question these supposed requirements of marriage.

Beyond that, it is remarkably clear-eyed about its subject, who was a very complicated person, with as many obvious failings as talents. Unlike the recent TV biography of Eugene O-Neill, for instance, in which everything from the playwright?s alcoholism to his abandonment of his own children was explained neatly away by his having been haunted by an imperfect early family life, Stardust, like its dyed-in-the-wool Yankee subject, is much more matter-of-fact.

Davis too came from a broken home; her father, never too pleasant to begin with, abandoned his wife and two young daughters to live with his mistress. Bette's mother, Ruthie, quickly poured her considerable energy into her daughter's nascent dramatic career. When a very young Bette came down with the measles after landing a plum role Hedvig in The Wild Duck (the part that wakened in Bette the desire to be an actress) Ruthie promised the director she'd have her daughter up on her feet in 10 days, and she did.

Their relationship would remain intense and symbiotic until Ruthie's death, but while Jones does lay some of Davis subsequent trouble with men at the feet of her childhood, he is not a Davis apologist. That she was driven, ambitious, probably alcoholic, sometimes violent, always outspoken and ruthlessly certain of her own significance is not, mercifully, fodder for biopic psychoanalysis.

Instead we are shown the extraordinary career that sprung from such a personality the woman made more than 90 films, many of them classics as well as the life required to make that career possible Because, as she said herself, many, many times, the work was what really mattered to her.

Which is a good thing because Davis did not have a particularly happy life. Along with the four marriages, she had three children, two of them adopted. One daughter was mildly retarded and institutionalized; the other, B.D., was Davis constant companion for years, until she wrote a tell-all book that severed their contact. Only her son, Michael Merrill, was interviewed for Stardust, and though he speaks of his mother with a vague fondness, he is still clearly a bit shellshocked by the experience of being Bette Davis son.

Part of this is due to the nature of the time. Davis was a movie star when being a movie star was a full-time occupation. She often made as many as three films a year; in the banner year of 1939, she made four. Her personal struggles with Jack Warner, to whom she was under contract for 18 years, were legendary. She never had an unkind word for Jack, Frank Sinatra said at the banquet honoring Davis. And the time she stabbed him, it was an accident. She was in his office and she reached for the revolver, the knife slipped out.

Even during the years when she was in hit after hit she was nominated for 10 Oscars (five in consecutive years) and won two the industry's devotion, then as now, lasted only a few minutes after the latest box office tally. When she hit her 40s, she learned, as so many actresses have, that age does matter. (It also doesn?t help when you?ve earned a reputation for being almost impossible on the set.) Even after the sweeping success of All About Eve, In which she played a fading star at the ripe age of 42, leading film roles were scarce. The late 50's and early 60's were full of television work as Davis struggled to support herself, her children, her sister and her mother.

Beyond a collection of some of the best moments in American film and a mildly intimate look at a woman so well known she was almost her own caricature, what emerges from Stardust is the vacuum that Davis and some of her contemporaries left behind. Where is an actress alive today who could utter lines like "I'd kiss ya, but I just washed my hair" or "But you are, you are in that wheelchair, Blanche" or even the classic "What a dump." And where are the writers to write them?

Davis' list of successful films is low on romantic comedies, high on character dramas, and within them she created a series of women who may have wanted to be loved (who doesn't) but who were also perfectly capable of letting their dream man go with a quip and a shrug if it looked as if he was going to get in the way of what she really wanted. The plot may have required Margo Channing to deliver a nice little soliloquy on the importance of being there for your man, but somehow the audience knew that Eve or no Eve, Margo wasn't going to change one whit.

Imagine an actress today building a successful career with a persona like that. Imagine a series of female-driven films in which the women were allowed to be smart and mouthy and not play second banana, or calculating and vulnerable but not punished for either. A film in which a happy ending was marked by a rueful smile and the admission that the star-crossed couple would just have to remain star-crossed.

Davis was perhaps one of the last of her kind a Movie Star Who Wanted to Be a Movie Star, who made no apology for grabbing the roles she wanted, who worked pretty much non-stop all her life even when it meant doing Gunsmoke and playing creepy nannies, who didn't pretend that she was just like her fans, that she also wanted a normal life.

And so she remained, to the end of her life and mostly by the force of her own will, a Big Star, whit the cigarette going and the false eyelashes fluttering while she uttered scathing one-liners in that perpetually heartbreaking, heartbroken voice.

Bette Davis, undiluted.