59 Fun Facts About Bette Davis

Bette Davis was born in 1908 in which Massachusetts mill city?

Lowell-born Davis was a small child when her parents split up; her mother raised Bette and her younger sister alone and later worked as a portrait photographer.

The spelling of Davis's first name changed from Betty to Bette after a character by which novelist?

Honoré de Balzac's novel La Cousine Bette supplied only the spelling: on paper she became Bette, but the name was still pronounced Betty.

Before her long Warner Bros. career, which studio gave Davis her film debut in Bad Sister (1931)?

Universal dropped her after about a year and six forgettable films. She was ready to return to the New York stage when George Arliss asked for her in The Man Who Played God.

Davis left Warner Bros. after which 1949 film she loathed, the origin of the line 'What a dump!'?

Beyond the Forest appalled her: she tried to get out of it, and it ended with Jack Warner releasing her from her contract.

Davis broke through as waitress Mildred Rogers in a 1934 adaptation of which Maugham novel?

Of Human Bondage belonged to rival studio RKO, so Davis begged Warner Bros. to lend her out for the vicious Mildred; the acclaim made her name.

After an outcry when Davis missed a 1934 Best Actress nomination, what did the Academy allow for the first time?

Write-in votes did not save Davis, who still lost, but the rule stayed one more year: long enough for cameraman Hal Mohr to become the only write-in ever to win an Oscar.

Davis won her first Academy Award for playing a washed-up Broadway actress in which 1935 film?

Dangerous won Davis the Oscar she always called a consolation prize: she believed voters were making amends for passing her over the year before.

Bette Davis long claimed she nicknamed the Academy Award 'Oscar' because its rear resembled whose?

Her first husband, bandleader Harmon Oscar Nelson, had the middle name to match. In 1974, though, Davis wrote that she gave up 'once and for all' any claim to have named it.

Who anonymously bought Davis's first Oscar at auction in 2002 and returned it to the Academy?

Steven Spielberg paid $207,500 to rescue it. Winners since 1950 must offer their Oscars back to the Academy for $1 before selling, but older statuettes like hers can be sold freely.

What happened in 1936 when Warner Bros. took Davis to court in England for signing to film outside her contract?

She lost the case, and the court barred her from filming for anyone else. Yet Warner Bros. welcomed her back with better roles, and the most successful years of her career followed.

Davis's second Oscar came for playing headstrong 1850s Southern belle Julie Marsden in which 1938 film?

Jezebel turns on a dress: Julie shocks New Orleans by wearing red to a ball where unmarried women wear white, and the stunt costs her her fiancé.

At the 1963 Oscars, Davis watched rival Joan Crawford collect the Best Actress statuette on behalf of which absent winner?

Anne Bancroft was busy on Broadway. Crawford, with no nomination of her own, had offered to accept for any absent winner, and took the stage beaming while a livid Davis looked on.

Who played Davis's leading man Preston Dillard in her 1938 antebellum drama?

Henry Fonda had to leave the shoot by a set date to be in New York for the birth of his daughter Jane, so Davis filmed her remaining close-ups without him.

In Dark Victory (1939) Davis's socialite Judith Traherne is diagnosed with what?

A brain tumour dooms Judith in a role Davis later named as a favourite, though she tried to quit the shoot in despair over her collapsing marriage until her producer talked her round.

Which actor made eleven films with Davis, including Dark Victory?

George Brent was, she wrote, 'the dearest' of the men she never married: their screen partnership turned into a love affair while they were making Dark Victory.

Davis starred opposite Errol Flynn in which 1939 costume drama?

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex gave her Flynn against her wishes: she had lobbied for Laurence Olivier. To play the ageing queen she shaved her hairline and eyebrows.

In The Letter (1940), Davis's Leslie Crosbie shoots a man on a rubber plantation in which part of the British Empire?

Malaya was the setting of the real case behind Maugham's story: in 1911 a headmaster's wife in Kuala Lumpur shot a man dead, was convicted of murder and then pardoned by the sultan.

How did Davis's term as the first woman president of the Motion Picture Academy end?

She resigned within months: the board had wanted a figurehead, and when her own proposals met resistance Davis walked away from the post.

Which actress created Davis's roles Regina Giddens and Judith Traherne on Broadway?

Tallulah Bankhead had won acclaim as Regina on stage. Making the film, Davis and director William Wyler fought bitterly over how the part should be played, and they never worked together again.

Davis co-founded the Hollywood Canteen, a free wartime club for servicemen, with which actor?

John Garfield, kept out of the forces by his heart, served as vice-president to Davis's president. At their club the stars themselves waited tables, washed dishes and mopped up.

In Now, Voyager (1942), which actor famously lights two cigarettes at once and hands one to Davis?

Paul Henreid said the move came from a habit he shared with his wife. In the film it is the private ritual of two lovers who cannot marry, because his character Jerry already has a wife.

What was the name of Davis's repressed spinster heroine in Now, Voyager?

Charlotte Vale begins as a dowdy spinster crushed by her domineering mother; a stay in a sanatorium and an ocean cruise turn her into a confident, elegant woman.

In 1961 Davis returned to Broadway as the hotel keeper Maxine in which new Tennessee Williams play?

The Night of the Iguana opened that December, and Davis lasted four months: she left pleading chronic illness, and Shelley Winters took over the part.

Davis longed to play which heroine of a 1939 film, a part she never got?

Scarlett O'Hara went to Vivien Leigh. Davis blamed a quarrel with her studio boss for losing the part; the producer's side held that he never seriously considered her.

In All About Eve (1950) Davis played which fading Broadway star?

Margo Channing arrived just when Davis needed her, months after her break with Warner Bros. She called the script the best she had ever read, and later said the film saved her professionally.

How does Davis's All About Eve line 'Fasten your seat belts…' end?

'It's going to be a bumpy night' is the line as spoken: the 'bumpy ride' that many people quote is a misquote. She delivers it on the stairs at her own party.

Which film first matched All About Eve's record 14 Oscar nominations?

Titanic drew level in 1998 with 14 nominations of its own. Eve's included Best Actress nods for both Davis and Anne Baxter, and neither won: the Oscar went to Judy Holliday.

Which future star appears in one of her earliest roles in All About Eve?

Marilyn Monroe has just two scenes as the starlet Miss Caswell, and made a nervous start: a co-star recalled that her brief scene in a theatre lobby needed 25 takes.

Which All About Eve co-star became Davis's fourth and final husband in July 1950?

Gary Merrill played her lover Bill Sampson in the film; they married weeks after her divorce came through, and he adopted her daughter B.D.

Davis was a last-minute replacement in All About Eve after which star injured her back?

Claudette Colbert hurt her back filming Three Came Home, with the sets already booked. Davis read the script, said yes at once and was on set in San Francisco within days.

Davis's final Oscar nomination was for playing a demented ex-child star in which 1962 film?

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? was made cheaply, with both stars on cut salaries plus a share of the profits. It became a surprise hit, and Davis's ten per cent paid handsomely.

Who directed Davis and Crawford in their 1962 horror hit, and then Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte?

Robert Aldrich owed the pairing to Crawford herself: she came to him wanting to make a film with her old rival, and the two settled on a novel about a pair of feuding sisters.

Which close friend of Davis replaced Joan Crawford in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte?

Olivia de Havilland took some persuading: after other stars had said no and a phone call had failed, the director flew to Switzerland to talk her into the part in person.

The Davis-Crawford feud supposedly began in 1933 when Crawford's divorce from whom stole headlines from a Davis film?

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was Crawford's first husband; in one telling their split upstaged Ex-Lady, Davis's first starring role. Two years later Crawford married Franchot Tone, the co-star Davis had fallen for.

In the 2017 series Feud: Bette and Joan, who played Davis?

Susan Sarandon played a woman the show's creator had met: Ryan Murphy interviewed Davis months before she died in 1989, and the promised 20 minutes ran to four hours.

In 1977 Davis became the first woman to receive which honour?

The AFI Life Achievement Award had gone to four men before her. Her own verdict on being fifth: after four men, 'they decided, let's give it to a dame.'

Davis played the wealthy kleptomaniac Mrs Van Schuyler in which 1978 Agatha Christie film?

Death on the Nile was shot on location in the Egyptian heat, which did not impress her: in Hollywood's golden age, she said, 'they'd have built the Nile for you.'

Davis won which award for the 1979 TV film Strangers, as Gena Rowlands's estranged mother?

An Emmy went to Davis for playing a mother whose daughter comes home after years of estrangement because she is dying.

Whose 1981 recording of 'Bette Davis Eyes' became Billboard's biggest hit of the year?

Kim Carnes held number one for nine weeks with her remake of a 1974 album track. Davis, then 73, wrote to thank her and the songwriters for making her 'a part of modern times'.

The 1981 hit 'Bette Davis Eyes' opens by comparing a woman's golden hair to which 1930s screen star's?

Jean Harlow, the platinum-blonde star of 1930s Hollywood, gets the first line. The hit remade an older recording, swapping its jaunty piano for a synthesizer riff its keyboard player came up with.

In 1983 Davis had a mastectomy for breast cancer, and then suffered a series of what?

Strokes left her partly paralysed and slurred her speech. After long physical therapy she went back to work all the same, and made The Whales of August four years later.

Davis's daughter B.D. Hyman published which 1985 memoir depicting the star as an overbearing drunk?

My Mother's Keeper came out while Davis was in poor health. Her public reply was an open letter in her own memoir two years later, and she cut her daughter out of her will.

In The Whales of August (1987), Davis played the blind sister of which silent-film legend?

Lillian Gish, then 93, played the gentle sister who nurses Davis's bitter Libby. Off camera things were no warmer: the two did not get along, and Gish found her a trial to work with.

Too ill to fly home from a festival, Davis died in October 1989 at the American Hospital outside which city?

Paris was as far as she got. Honoured for her life's work at Spain's San Sebastián festival, she was taken to hospital there instead of flying on to Los Angeles, and died aged 81.

What epitaph is carved on Davis's tomb at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills?

'She did it the hard way' was her own choice: she had written the epitaph into her 1962 autobiography, almost three decades before her tomb needed it.

On the AFI's 1999 list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood, Davis was placed second behind whom?

Katharine Hepburn headed the list of 25 actresses. Davis had long insisted that the 1935 Oscar she herself won rightly belonged to Hepburn, for Alice Adams.

Davis's 1937 drama Marked Woman was inspired by the prosecution of which mobster?

Lucky Luciano was convicted in 1936 when prosecutor Thomas Dewey put prostitutes and madams on the stand against him. The film gave their story to Davis's nightclub hostess and the Dewey part to Humphrey Bogart.

Which Mrs. Miniver star matched Davis's record five straight Best Actress nominations?

Greer Garson matched the run with nominations for 1941 to 1945, winning once. The fifth lost to a comeback by Davis's old rival, Joan Crawford, in Mildred Pierce.

Which child actress co-starred with Davis in the 1952 film The Star?

Natalie Wood played the daughter of Davis's washed-up film star, a character the writers reportedly modelled on Joan Crawford, a likeness that is said to have made Davis all the keener to take it.

Davis said she chose the theatre after seeing which actress on stage in The Wild Duck?

Peg Entwistle, remembered now for her fatal leap from the Hollywoodland sign, was playing Hedvig when the teenage Davis saw her. A few years later Davis was touring in the very same role.

Which theatrical grande dame turned away the young Bette Davis as a 'frivolous little girl'?

Eva Le Gallienne judged her not serious enough for her school. Davis enrolled at another New York drama school instead and was on Broadway before the decade was out.

Which 1990 Madonna hit name-checks Davis in its spoken roll call of golden-age Hollywood stars?

Vogue was written as a throwaway B-side and went to number one around the world. Its roll call ends 'Bette Davis, we love you'; she had died five months before the single came out.

Bette Davis's middle name was Elizabeth; what was her first name at birth?

Ruth was her mother's name too: Davis was named for her, later called her Ruthie, and herself went by Betty from early childhood.

Which award did Davis win at the 1937 Venice Film Festival for Marked Woman?

The Volpi Cup, Venice's prize for the best actress, crowned a comeback: Marked Woman was her first film back at Warner Bros. after her court battle with the studio.

Jack Warner refused to lend Davis to Columbia for which 1934 Frank Capra comedy, a part she had wanted?

It Happened One Night went on to win all five top Oscars, Best Actress included. Warner put Davis into a melodrama called Housewife instead.

By the late 1940s, Davis's Warner Bros. contract had earned her what distinction?

Highest-paid woman in the US she may have been, but her recent films had struggled at the box office, and in 1949 she left the studio.

In 1962 Davis placed a tongue-in-cheek 'situation wanted' advert, seeking steady work in Hollywood, in which trade paper?

Variety ran it that September: 'Mother of three… Thirty years' experience as an actress… Wants steady employment in Hollywood.' Within weeks she had her biggest hit in years.

Which Massachusetts university, home to Davis's personal papers, hosted the first-day ceremony for her 2008 postage stamp?

Boston University holds her scrapbooks and papers. The stamp's portrait was based on an All About Eve still, with one change: the cigarette she holds in the photograph was left out.

In which 1943 wartime musical revue did Davis sing the novelty number 'They're Either Too Young or Too Old'?

Thank Your Lucky Stars made Warner's dramatic stars sing and dance for the war effort. Davis's lament about the wartime shortage of eligible men ends with her being flung about in a jitterbug.