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Born 99 years ago
Lowell, MA

Contacting Bette

"This became a credo of mine...attempt the impossible in order to improve your work."

"Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism."

"I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and ofttimes disagreeable... I suppose I'm larger than life."

"I survived because I was tougher than anybody else."

"Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I'm not a bitch. Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies."

"I was never beautiful like Miss Hayworth or Miss Lamarr. I was known as the little brown wren. Who'd want to get me at the end of the picture?"

"Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life."

"I was thought to be 'stuck up.' I wasn't. I was just sure of myself."

"Until you're known in my profession as a monster, you are not a star, I've never fought for anything in a treacherous way. I've never fought for anything but the good of the film."

This 'N That

Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908

Winner of an Emmy, 2 Oscars, the first actress to receive ten Academy Award nominations

Late in 1930 Bette arrived in Hollywood. The studio representative who went to meet her train left without her because he could find no one who looked like a movie star.

For an MGM screen test, she wore a long dress. When the producers asked to see her legs, Davis at first refused, "what have my legs to do with whether I have talent or not?"

In Marked Woman (1937), Davis is forced to testify in court after being worked over by some Mafia hoods. Disgusted with the tiny bandage supplied by the makeup department, she left the set, had her own doctor bandage her face more realistically, and refused to shoot the scene any other way.

Famous job-wanted ad on September 21, 1962:

“Mother of three—10, 11 & 15—divorcée. American. Thirty years experience as an actress in motion pictures. Mobile still and more affable than rumor would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood (has had Broadway).”

Named #2 on The Greatest Screen Legends actress list by the American Film Institute.

The "red dress" sequence in Jezebel was based on a real-life "white ball" in Hollywood, at which all the women dutifully appeared in white - except Mrs. MGM, Norma Shearer. Comment from another guest: "Who does Norma think she is? The house madam?"

In January 1941, Davis became the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 1977, Davis became the first woman to receive the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1980, she was awarded the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, the Defense Department's highest civilian award, for founding and running the Hollywood Canteen during World War II. "There are few accomplishments in my life that I am sincerely proud of. The Hollywood Canteen is one of them," Bette later commented.

Bette has 2 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One is for television, while the other is for motion pictures.

Bette lost her long battle with cancer, dying in France October 6th, 1989. This is a tribute to the world’s greatest actress.

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