March 31, 2008. Copyright 2008, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Uncompromising Hollywood star Bette Davis, born 100 years ago
By Susan Shepherd

LONDON, March 31, Graphic News:  In the Forest Lawn cemetery in the hills above Los Angeles, the headstone where Bette Davis lies, reads: ÒShe did it the hard wayÓ. Behind that epitaph is a life full of notable battles: famously, with Warner Brothers, against whom she lost a legal challenge to be released from her contract; privately, in four turbulent marriages; notoriously, with her co-star and arch rival, Joan Crawford; and publicly, with her daughter B.D., who published a none-too-fond memoir in 1985 entitled, My MotherÕs Keeper. The book caused Davis to reflect in her own autobiography, two years later, that there was no more shattering experience than having Òa child of mine...write about me behind my backÓ. Davis cut her daughter out of her will, leaving her adopted son, Michael, and her lifelong friend and secretary, Kathryn Sermak, as executors of her estate.
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Looking back, Davis herself concluded: ÒI survived because I was tougher than anybody elseÓ and the facts would seem to bear that out. Unconventional in looks -- her large, slightly bulging eyes were celebrated in a chart-topping single by Kim Carnes in 1981 -- the story goes that the Warner Brothers assistant sent to collect her from the railway station on her first day at the studios returned without her because he couldnÕt find anyone resembling a film star. When, in 1939, she played Elizabeth I, opposite one of the most handsome men of his day, Errol Flynn, Davis shaved her eyebrows and hairline to achieve the unflattering but hugely authentic appearance of the queen. Nearly 50 years later, in her penultimate film, The Whales of August (1987), she brought her post-stroke frailty to the part of a blind widow, waiting for death. ÒHollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realismÓ, she said.
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Davis dominated the big screen throughout the 1930s and 40s, a period during which she was nominated for an Oscar on five consecutive occasions. She won Best Actress twice, for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938), in which she co-starred with Henry Fonda. In 1950, when the French actress Claudette Colbert fell ill while making All About Eve, Davis stepped in and made the role of the ageing screen actress Margo Channing, her own. Among the filmÕs many one-liners is DavisÕs memorable quip: ÒFasten your seatbelts, itÕs going to be a bumpy night!Ó
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Davis was nominated again for her performance as a demented former child actress in ÒWhatever Happened to Baby Jane?Ó (1962), in which Joan Crawford played her crippled sister. The two were cast as tortured, destructive characters, which they played to the hilt, having a mutual dislike of one another off-screen. The film marked a move away, for Davis, from the romantic roles of her earlier career to more chilling parts, including the spooky aristocrat on board a star-studded cruise ship in Death on the Nile (1987).
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The first woman to be honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, Davis never retired. She died in France on October 6th, 1989, at the age of 81, after a six-year battle with breast cancer.
/ENDS