Bette Davis

BETTE DAVIS: THE QUEEN OF CINEMA

One of the most beautiful, enigmatic, and astounding actress’ to ever grace Hollywood was the legendary Bette Davis. Her legendary mark was made threw portraying insensitive women and gave her audience brilliant, timeless performances for many years. She was an inspiring figure for women being the first to be on the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and the first to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. Some of her most famous works is What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, All About Eve, and Jezebel. These are only a few of her greatest works after having ten Oscar nominations and winning two Academy Awards. In her first breakout film, Jezebel, played an incredible performance as a southern belle and the role boosted her career into stardom. Davis had become a radio and fan favorite. In What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? Davis portrays the life of a childhood vaudeville actress and the story ventures into their elder age. Davis plays the perfect villain, making incredibly hard to not separate the woman from the character.

Through her career she’s been able to exceed her stardom from the screen but into real life. After the Pearl Harbor attacks, Davis spent most of 1942 selling war bonds. She also performed in African American acting troupes as the only white performer. During the war, she spoke out against the segregation within the military believing that all soldiers fighting for America should be given the same treatment. As her career went on she did fall into personal setbacks within her roles. Davis was getting older and most parts favored a younger looking actress. She was unable to get along with most people including Joan Crawford. An infamous rivalry between the two actresses stemmed from fighting over film parts to stealing the other one’s husband.

By 1949, Hollywood columnists felt like Bette Davis’ career was at an all time low and bound to end very soon. She filmed The Story of a Divorce in 1951, where she began a romantic relationship with leading man and future husband, Gary Merrill. Critics began to see light to Davis’ career giving her performance positive reviews. She won three Best Actress Awards from the Cannes Film Festival, New York Film Critics Circle Award, and the San Francisco Film Critics Award. In this year Davis received even greater news when she was invited to lend her handprints to the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. During this time of redemption of success, only very few of Davis’ movies did well.

In her latter years, Davis moved her talents back to the stage of where her acting roots originated. In the early 80’s Davis career was finally coming to an end due to illness. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and received a mastectomy but unfortunately two weeks later she suffered with four strokes, which caused her paralysis to the right side of her face and left arm. Davis was emerged under physical therapy, which slowly helped her recover but her light was starting to fade. Even though Davis was trying to deal with her recovery, her daughter, B.D. Hyman wrote a memoir called, My Mother’s Keeper. This book detailed a supposedly difficult mother-daughter relationship, which devastated Davis extremely. Davis was absolutely shocked that her own child would write a degrading book behind her back. Later on Davis collapsed during an award show to find out her cancer returned. Soon later, Bette Davis died at the age of 81 on October 6, 1989 in France.

During Davis’ savvy career, she was deeply criticized on her performance and looks. Davis was constantly questioned on what made her spark on camera. Personally, I believe people were extremely jealous of such a rare talent in a woman who knew how to portray characters in a memorable way. Most actors can’t captivate an audience or leave a magnificent impression on their audiences. Bette Davis had the gift of telling a story through character and many people will remember a woman who inspired future actresses to come. Her performances were so inspiring to me it nearly made me want to act but not just because of the glitz and glamour, for the passion of depiction. It was Bette Davis’ sex appeal, mysterious persona, classic unsympathetic roles, and stalwart personality, which will stay in the hearts of film lovers for eternity.