Bette Davis: The Life Story Behind Hollywood's Fiercest Star

Bette Davis had eyes that could cut through a room and a will that could break a studio. She was not a sweet Hollywood star, and she did not want to be one. She was a fighter, a woman who argued with directors, who sued her own studio, who demanded better parts, and who played women who were difficult, dangerous, and unforgettable. Audiences loved her for it, because they had never seen a woman on screen who was so honest about anger, about ambition, and about the price of wanting more than the world would give her.

She was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1908, to a family that broke apart when she was young. Her father left, her mother raised her, and she went to school, and she found the theatre, and she knew at once that it was what she wanted to do with her life. She went to New York, she studied acting, she went to Hollywood, and she became a star in Of Human Bondage, and then she won two Academy Awards, for Dangerous and for Jezebel, and she was nominated eight more times, more than any other actress of her generation.

The story of her life is a story of a woman who refused to be controlled. She fought Warner Bros. in court, she fought directors on set, she fought for the right to play parts that other actresses would not touch, and she won, again and again, because she was right, and because she was talented, and because audiences believed her. She died in 1989, at the age of eighty-one, in France, after a long and full life that was rich in work, in love, in loss, and in laughter, and her films are still watched today, by people who wonder how one woman could do so much with so little.

A Girl From Lowell With a Dream of the Stage

Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born on 5 April 1908 in Lowell, Massachusetts, a mill town in the north-east of the United States. Her father, Harlow, was a lawyer, and her mother, Ruth, was a woman who loved the theatre, and the family was comfortable, but not rich, and the girl grew up in a house where books and music mattered, and where a child was encouraged to learn, to read, and to dream. When she was seven years old, her parents divorced, and her father left, and her mother raised her and her younger sister, Barbara, alone, working hard, keeping the family together, and teaching them to be strong, to be independent, and to look after themselves.

As a girl, Bette, as she was called, was not a pretty child in the usual sense, but she had large, expressive eyes, and a sharp mind, and a will that was stronger than most adults. She went to school in Massachusetts, and she took part in school plays, and she found that she liked being on stage, that she liked the feeling of a room turning its attention toward her, and that she was good at making people believe her. She saw a play, Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen, when she was a teenager, and she knew at once that acting was what she wanted to do with her life. She did not want to be a wife, or a mother, or a teacher. She wanted to be an actress, and she wanted to play women like Hedda, women who were difficult, dangerous, and real.

She went to New York, and she studied at the John Murray Anderson School of Theatre, and she worked on Broadway, appearing in plays, and she built a reputation as a serious, hard-working actress who could play many kinds of parts. She was not a star, but she was a working actress, and she was in demand, because directors knew that if they cast Davis, the part would be played well, and the play would be better for it. She played in Broken Dishes, in Solid South, and in many other plays, and she learned her craft, night by night, by working, by listening, and by paying attention.

In 1930, she went to Hollywood, because the film business was growing fast, and because it offered more money and a larger audience than the theatre. Her first films were small, and she played small parts, and she learned how to act for the camera, which was different from acting for the stage, because the camera was close, and it could see everything, every small movement, every small change in the face. She learned to be still, to be quiet, to let the camera come to her, and that stillness became one of her greatest tools.

Of Human Bondage and the Fight for Real Parts

Davis’s first real success in Hollywood came in 1934, when she played Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage, a film based on a famous novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Mildred was a waitress, a cruel, selfish woman who destroys the man who loves her, and Davis played her with a power and an honesty that audiences had never seen before. She was not beautiful in the film, she was not sweet, she was not kind, and she made Mildred feel like a real person, a person who was cruel because she was afraid, because she was poor, because she did not know how to love. The film was a success, and Davis’s performance was praised by critics and by audiences, but she was not nominated for an Academy Award, and many people in Hollywood thought that was unfair.

She was angry, and she said so, in public, because she believed that she had given one of the best performances of the year, and that the Academy had ignored her because she was not a star, and because she had played a woman who was not likeable. She was right, and the Academy later changed its rules to allow write-in votes, and Davis was nominated, though she did not win. That anger, that willingness to speak the truth in public, became a part of who she was, a woman who would not be silent when she thought something was wrong.

In 1935, she won her first Academy Award for Best Actress, for Dangerous, a film in which she played Joyce Heath, a woman who destroys the lives of the men around her, and who is redeemed, in the end, by love. The film was a success, and the Oscar made her a star, and it gave her the power to demand better parts, better directors, and better scripts. She did not waste that power. She used it to fight for the right to play women who were real, women who were difficult, women who were not sweet, and women who were not easy to love.

In 1938, she won her second Academy Award for Best Actress, for Jezebel, a film set in the American South before the Civil War, in which she played Julie Marsden, a strong-willed woman who wears a red dress to a ball where white is expected, and who is punished for her defiance. The film was a great success, and Davis’s performance was praised for its fire, its passion, and its honesty. She was thirty years old, and she had won two Oscars, and she was one of the most famous actresses in the world, and the best years of her career were still ahead of her.

Dark Victory, The Letter, and the Warner Bros. Years

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Davis was the queen of Warner Bros., the studio that had signed her, and she played in a series of films that are still watched today. She played in Dark Victory in 1939, in which she played Judith Traherne, a young woman who learns that she has a brain tumour and that she will die, and who decides to live her remaining months with joy and with love. The film was a success, and Davis’s performance was praised for its tenderness, its courage, and its honesty, and it showed that she could play a woman who was dying, and make the audience feel her fear, and her hope, and her love.

She played in The Letter in 1940, in which she played Leslie Crosbie, a woman who shoots a man and who lies about why she did it, and who is slowly revealed to be a liar, a murderer, and a woman who is trapped by her own choices. The film was a success, and Davis’s performance was praised for its cold, quiet power, a power that was more frightening than any shouting, because it was so controlled, so polite, so calm. She was nominated for an Academy Award for the role, and the film is still seen as one of the greatest of her career.

She played in Now, Voyager in 1942, in which she played Charlotte Vale, a woman who is controlled by her mother, who goes to a sanatorium, who learns to be herself, and who finds love with a married man. The film was a success, and Davis’s performance was praised for its warmth, its humour, and its honesty, and it showed that she could play a woman who grows, who changes, and who becomes herself, and that is a rare thing, to play a woman who is not the same at the end of a film as she was at the beginning.

She fought with Warner Bros. throughout those years, because she wanted better scripts, better directors, and better parts, and the studio wanted her to play in films that were safe, that were profitable, and that did not challenge audiences. She sued the studio in 1937, in a famous case in London, in which she argued that her contract was unfair, and that she should be free to work elsewhere. She lost the case, but she won the respect of actors all over the world, because she had stood up to a studio, and she had said, in public, that an actor should have the right to choose her own work. That courage mattered, and it changed Hollywood, slowly, over many years.

The Old Maid, The Little Foxes, and the Peak of the 1940s

In 1939, Davis played Charlotte Lovell in The Old Maid, a film about two cousins who love the same man and whose lives are shaped by pride, by jealousy, and by a secret that lasts for many years. Charlotte gives up her own child and watches the girl grow up believing another woman is her mother, and Davis played that quiet pain with a sadness that audiences had not seen from her before. She did not shout, and she did not rage, as she had in some of her other films. She played a woman who suffers in silence, and who keeps her secret because she believes it is the right thing to do, and the performance showed that Davis could be gentle as well as fierce.

Two years later, in 1941, she played Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes, a film based on a play by Lillian Hellman about a Southern family that will do almost anything for money. Regina is ruthless, clever, and cold, and she watches her sick husband die rather than give up the money she wants, and Davis played her with a calm and polite cruelty that was more frightening than any shouting. The film earned her another nomination for the Academy Award, and it is still seen as one of her finest performances, because Regina is a woman who is honest about her greed, and Davis did not soften her, and did not ask the audience to forgive her.

In 1946, Davis took on a different kind of challenge in A Stolen Life, in which she played twin sisters, Kate and Patricia Bosworth, who look the same but who are very different inside. Kate is kind and thoughtful, while Patricia is selfish and bold, and the story follows what happens when one sister takes the other’s place. Davis had to make the audience tell the twins apart, not by their faces, which were the same, but by the way each one moved, spoke, and looked at the world, and she did it so well that people who watched the film could feel the difference. It was a hard piece of acting, and it showed how much she had learned about her craft.

These three films sit at the heart of Davis’s career, between her early triumphs at Warner Bros. and her later work in All About Eve. They show the range she had by the early 1940s, a woman who could play a mother who gives up her child, a wife who will do anything for money, and two sisters at once, and make each one feel like a real person. That range is the reason she was so respected, because directors knew that if they gave Davis a hard part, she would find the truth in it, and she would not let the audience look away.

All About Eve and the Woman Who Would Not Fade

In 1950, Davis played Margo Channing in All About Eve, a film about an ageing actress who is threatened by a young fan, Eve Harrington, who wants to take her place. Margo was a woman of forty, who was afraid of getting older, who was afraid of losing her fame, and who was fighting to hold on to her career, her lover, and her life. Davis played her with a fire, a humour, and an honesty that audiences had never seen before, and the film became one of the most famous ever made, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, and earning Davis another nomination for Best Actress.

The film was a success, and it showed that Davis, at forty-two, was still one of the best actresses in the world, and that she could play a woman who was ageing, who was afraid, and who was still fighting, with a truth that younger actresses could not match. She did not try to be young. She played her age, and she played it with dignity, and audiences loved her for it, because they recognised something true in her, something that felt like real life.

In the 1950s, her career slowed, as it does for many actresses when they grow older, and the parts grew smaller, and the films grew less important, but Davis did not give up. She worked in television, she worked on stage, she worked in films made in England and in other countries, and she kept looking for parts that would let her show what she could do. She was a professional, and she behaved like one, even when the work was not what she had hoped for.

In 1962, she played Baby Jane Hudson in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, a film about two ageing sisters, former child stars, who live together in a decaying house, and who hate each other, and who are trapped by their past. Davis played Baby Jane as a woman who is mad, who is cruel, and who is sad, and her performance was praised for its power, its horror, and its honesty. The film was a great success, and it made Davis famous again, to a new generation of viewers, and it showed that she could still command a screen, still make an audience watch her, still bring a lifetime of skill to a part. She was fifty-four years old, and she was still one of the best actresses in the world.

Four Marriages, a Daughter, and a Book That Hurt

Davis was married four times, to Harmon Nelson, to Arthur Farnsworth, to William Grant Sherry, and to Gary Merrill, an actor she met while making All About Eve. Each marriage ended in divorce, except for the second, which ended when Farnsworth died, and Davis often said that her career came first, and that she was not easy to live with, because she was strong-willed, because she was honest, and because she would not pretend to be something she was not. She had three children, including a daughter, Barbara, known as B.D., and a son, Michael, and she tried to be a good mother, even when her work took her away from home.

Her relationship with her daughter B.D. was difficult, and in 1985, B.D. wrote a book, My Mother’s Keeper, in which she said that Davis had been a cruel and difficult mother. The book hurt Davis deeply, and she denied many of the things in it, and she said, in public, that she had loved her daughter, and that she had done her best. The book was a bestseller, and it damaged Davis’s reputation, and it made her sad, because she had always believed in family, and in love, and the book said that she had failed at both. She never forgave her daughter, and she never spoke to her again, and that is a sad ending to a family story.

She also became the first woman to be president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organisation that gives the Oscars, though she resigned after only a few months, because she found the job frustrating, and because she did not like the politics of it. She was a woman who believed in doing her duty, and in doing it properly, but she was also a woman who would not stay in a job that she thought was wrong, and she left, as she had left many things in her life, with her head held high.

She died on 6 October 1989, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, of breast cancer, at the age of eighty-one. She had been ill, and she had been under treatment, and her health had failed, but she had kept working, and she had kept living, until the end. Her death was mourned by actors and directors all over the world, and tributes came from people who had worked with her in every decade of her career. She had won two Oscars, she had been nominated eight more times, she had played in some of the most famous films ever made, and she was remembered as one of the greatest actresses in the history of Hollywood.

She also played in The Old Maid in 1939, a film about two sisters who love the same man, and who are separated by pride, by jealousy, and by the choices they make. Davis played Charlotte Lovell, a woman who gives up her child, and who lives with that giving up for the rest of her life, and her performance was praised for its sadness, its honesty, and its power. The film was a success, and it showed that Davis could play a woman who is quiet, who is sad, and who is strong, all at the same time, and that is a rare thing, to play a woman who does not shout, and who still commands a screen.

She played in The Little Foxes in 1941, a film based on a play by Lillian Hellman, in which she played Regina Giddens, a woman who is ruthless, who is ambitious, and who will do anything to get money, even if it means destroying her own family. The film was a success, and Davis’s performance was praised for its cold, quiet power, a power that was more frightening than any shouting, because it was so controlled, so polite, so calm. She was nominated for an Academy Award for the role, and the film is still seen as one of the greatest of her career.

She played in A Stolen Life in 1946, a film in which she played twin sisters, one good and one bad, and she did it so well that audiences could tell them apart, not by their faces, but by the way they moved, by the way they spoke, by the way they looked at the world. The film was a success, and it showed that Davis could play two parts in one film, and make each of them feel different, feel real, and feel alive. She was thirty-eight years old, and she was at the height of her fame, and the best years of her career were still ahead of her.

She played in The Star in 1952, a film about an ageing actress who is trying to hold on to her fame, and who is fighting to be remembered, and her performance was praised, and she was nominated for an Academy Award for it. The film was a sad one, in a way, because it was about a woman who had been famous, and who was now forgotten, and who could not accept that, and Davis played it with a truth that came from her own life, from her own knowledge of what it is to be famous, and to be afraid of being forgotten.

She also worked on stage in her later years, appearing in plays, and in television, in shows that were popular with audiences who liked a good story, and a strong woman, and she kept working, kept living, and kept believing that her work mattered, even when the parts were small, even when the films were not what she had hoped for, because she was a professional, and she behaved like one, even when the world had turned against her.

My Take:

When I think about Bette Davis, I think about a woman who would not be controlled, and that is the part of her story that stays with me. She was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1908, to a family that broke apart, and she grew up with a mother who taught her to be strong, to be independent, and to look after herself. That strength stayed with her for the rest of her life, through Hollywood, through four marriages, through a lawsuit, through a book that hurt her, and through old age, and I admire that kind of strength more than I admire beauty, because beauty fades, but strength does not.

I think about her eyes, and about how they could cut through a room, and about how she used them to play women who were difficult, dangerous, and real. She did not play sweet women, and she did not play easy women. She played women who were angry, who were ambitious, who wanted more than the world would give them, and who paid a high price for that wanting. That is a brave way to act, because it asks the audience to like a woman who is not likeable, and Davis did it again and again, with an honesty that made audiences believe her, even when they did not want to.

The lawsuit against Warner Bros. is the part of her career that I respect the most. It would have been easy for her to accept her contract, to play the parts the studio gave her, to take the money and be quiet, but she did not do that. She sued the studio in London, in 1937, and she argued, in public, that an actor should have the right to choose her own work, and that a contract should be fair. She lost the case, but she won the respect of actors all over the world, because she had stood up to a powerful studio, and she had said, in plain words, that an actor is a person, not a piece of property. That courage mattered, and it changed Hollywood, slowly, over many years.

I love her performance in All About Eve, because it is a film about an ageing actress who is afraid of losing her fame, and Davis plays her with a fire, a humour, and an honesty that is hard to watch, because it feels so true. Margo Channing is a woman of forty, who is afraid of getting older, who is afraid of being replaced by a younger woman, and who is fighting to hold on to her career, her lover, and her life. Davis was forty-two when she played the part, and she brought to it a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of fighting, a lifetime of being afraid, and a lifetime of refusing to give up. That is great acting, and it is acting that deserves to be remembered.

What makes me sad about her story is the book her daughter wrote, My Mother’s Keeper, and the pain it caused her. Davis loved her daughter, and she tried to be a good mother, and the book said that she had failed, that she had been cruel, that she had been difficult. I do not know what the truth is, because I was not there, and because a family is a private thing, and because a daughter and a mother can see the same life in very different ways. But I do know that the book hurt Davis deeply, and that she never forgave her daughter, and that is a sad ending to a family story, a sad ending that no one wanted, and that no one could fix.

I also think about her four marriages, and about what it must have been like to be married to a woman who was as strong, as honest, and as difficult as Davis. She often said that her career came first, and that she was not easy to live with, and I believe her, because she was a woman who knew what she wanted, and who would not pretend to be something she was not. That is a hard thing to live with, for a husband, and for a wife, and for children, but it is also an honest thing, and I respect honesty, even when it is hard.

The performance in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? matters to me because it shows how well Davis aged as an actress. She was fifty-four, and she played a woman who is mad, who is cruel, and who is sad, and she played her with a power that made audiences gasp, and with a sadness that made them pity her, even when she was doing terrible things. That is a performance that a young actress could not have given, because it needs a lifetime of experience behind it, and Davis had that experience, and she used it, and the film is better because of her.

If I have a criticism, it is not really a criticism of Davis herself. It is a sadness that the film world did not give her more leading roles when she was older, and that she was so often cast as the difficult woman, the ageing star, the mother who is hard to love. She could have played many other kinds of women, and I think she would have been wonderful in them, but the industry saw her age, and her reputation, and put her in a box. She made the box work for her, and she turned it into a long career, but I still wonder what she might have done if she had been given a wider range of parts. That is a question I cannot answer, and it is a question that makes me a little sad.

For a young reader, I think the lesson of Davis’s life is about standing up for yourself, and about the courage to say no. She said no to Warner Bros., she said no to bad scripts, she said no to parts that were not worthy of her, and she paid a price for those nos, but she kept her self-respect, and she kept her honour, and those are things that no one can take away from you. I hope that young people who read this story understand that, and that they learn that it is sometimes better to lose a job than to lose yourself, and that a woman who stands up for herself is a woman worth remembering.

I also think about her death, in France, at eighty-one, of breast cancer, after a long and full life. She had worked hard, she had loved, she had lost, and she had given the world a hundred films, and then she died, far from Hollywood, in a quiet town in France, with her family around her. That is a sad ending, but it is also a dignified ending, a ending that shows that she was a woman who lived on her own terms, and who died on her own terms, and that is a good way to live, and a good way to die.

In the end, I think Bette Davis teaches us that a woman can be difficult, and can be great, at the same time, and that we should not ask women to be sweet, or easy, or likeable, in order to be worthy of respect. She was difficult, she was great, and she was worthy of respect, and those three things can live together in one person, and they did, in her. I am glad that she lived to be eighty-one, I am glad that she worked for so long, and I am glad that we still have her films to watch, because in those films, she is still alive, still fighting, still showing us what a great actress can do.

One more thought stays with me, and it is about the girl in Lowell who saw Hedda Gabler and knew at once that she wanted to be an actress. That girl could not have known that she would one day win two Oscars, or that she would sue Warner Bros., or that she would play Margo Channing, or Baby Jane, or that she would die at eighty-one, in France, after a long and full life. She only knew that she wanted to act, and that she was willing to work hard to learn how. She followed that feeling, step by step, for more than eighty years, and it led her to a life that was rich, full, and full of work that mattered. If a young person reads this story and feels that they are difficult, or that they are angry, or that they do not fit in, I hope they think of Bette Davis, and I hope they remember that being difficult can be a gift, and that a difficult girl can grow into a great artist.

I also think about The Little Foxes, and about how Davis played Regina Giddens as a woman who is ruthless, who is ambitious, and who will do anything to get money, even if it means destroying her own family. She played her with a cold, quiet power that was more frightening than any shouting, because it was so controlled, so polite, so calm. That is a remarkable performance, and it is a performance that shows what Davis could do when she was given a real character, a real woman, with real greed, real ambition, and real fear, and it is a performance that deserves to be remembered as much as Margo Channing, or Baby Jane.

There is another part of her story that I find moving, and it is the way she became the first woman president of the Academy, even though she resigned after only a few months. She took the job because she believed in the film industry, and because she wanted to help it, and she left because she found the job frustrating, and because she did not like the politics of it. That is a brave thing to do, to take a job, to try it, to find that it is wrong, and to leave, with your head held high, and I admire her for it, because so many people stay in jobs they hate, because they are afraid to leave.

I think about her eyes again, and about how they could be soft and gentle, or hard and angry, or cold and cruel, depending on what the scene needed. That is a skill that takes a lifetime to learn, and it is a skill that young actresses should study, because eyes are an actress’s first instrument, and they should be treated with care, and with respect. Davis treated her eyes with care, and she used them well, and audiences still remember them, thirty years after her death, because great eyes, like a great voice, do not fade.

When I watch Now, Voyager today, I see a film about a woman who is controlled by her mother, who goes to a sanatorium, who learns to be herself, and who finds love with a married man, and I think about Davis, and about how she played Charlotte Vale as a woman who grows, who changes, and who becomes herself, and that is a rare thing, to play a woman who is not the same at the end of a film as she was at the beginning. That growth is the heart of the film, and it is the heart of Davis’s performance, and it is a lesson for all of us, that we can change, that we can grow, and that we can become ourselves, even when the world tells us not to.

I also think about her death, in France, at eighty-one, of breast cancer, after a long and full life, and about how she died far from Hollywood, in a quiet town, with her family around her. That is a sad ending, but it is also a dignified ending, a ending that shows that she was a woman who lived on her own terms, and who died on her own terms, and that is a good way to live, and a good way to die, and I am glad that she did it that way, because it shows that she was, in the end, a woman who knew who she was, and who was not afraid to be herself.

Finally, I want to remember her as a girl from Lowell who saw Hedda Gabler and knew at once that she wanted to be an actress, and who became one of the greatest actresses in the history of Hollywood, by working hard, by being honest, and by never giving up. She was difficult, she was great, and she was worthy of respect, and those three things can live together in one person, and they did, in her, and I am glad that we still have her films to watch, because in those films, she is still alive, still fighting, and still showing us what a great actress can do.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Academy Awards did Bette Davis win?

Bette Davis won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for Dangerous in 1935 and for Jezebel in 1938. She was nominated eight more times, for a total of ten nominations, which was more than any other actress of her generation at that time.

What is Bette Davis best known for?

She is best known for Of Human Bondage from 1934, Jezebel from 1938, Dark Victory from 1939, Now, Voyager from 1942, All About Eve from 1950, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? from 1962. Each of these films showed a different side of her talent, from tender to cruel to funny.

Did Bette Davis sue Warner Bros.?

Yes, in 1937 she sued Warner Bros. in London, arguing that her contract was unfair and that she should be free to work elsewhere. She lost the case, but she won the respect of actors all over the world for standing up to a powerful studio and demanding the right to choose her own work.

How many times was Bette Davis married?

She was married four times, to Harmon Nelson, Arthur Farnsworth, William Grant Sherry, and Gary Merrill. She had three children, and her relationship with her daughter B.D. became difficult after B.D. wrote a book about her in 1985.

How did Bette Davis die?

Bette Davis died on 6 October 1989 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, of breast cancer, at the age of eighty-one. She had been ill for some time, but she had kept working and living until the end of her life.

What was Bette Davis’s first major film success?

Her first major success was Of Human Bondage in 1934, in which she played Mildred Rogers, a cruel waitress who destroys the man who loves her. The performance was widely praised, though she was not nominated for an Oscar for it, which caused a great deal of discussion in Hollywood at the time.