Q 01/05

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

A) Lawrence

B) Lowell

C) Fall River

D) New Bedford

Answer · why

B) Lowell

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 pho...

Q 02/05

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

A) Charles Dickens

B) Gustave Flaubert

C) Honoré de Balzac

D) Jane Austen

Answer · why

C) Honoré de Balzac

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

Q 03/05

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

A) Paramount

B) Universal

C) Columbia

D) MGM

Answer · why

B) Universal

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 ...

Q 04/05

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

A) Winter Meeting

B) June Bride

C) Beyond the Forest

D) A Stolen Life

Answer · why

C) Beyond the Forest

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

Q 05/05

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

A) The Razor's Edge

B) The Painted Veil

C) Of Human Bondage

D) The Moon and Sixpence

Answer · why

C) Of Human Bondage

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.