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Happy 117th birthday, Bette!
Bette Davis: First Lady of the American Screen
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Happy Birthday in heaven Bette Davis
My mums fav actress
Pics C/O Follies of God xx
My mums fav actress
Pics C/O Follies of God xx
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The title of this thread is curious. Why is Bette Davis the "First Lady of the American Screen? If it refers to chronological time, then Florence Lawrence or Mary Pickford would be the first. If it refers to most decorated then Katherine Hepburn would be first. If its based on highest box office achieved in the golden age of Hollywood, then Betty Grable would be bigger than Bette Davis. What exactly qualifies Bette Davis as being the first lady of the American Screen?
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Not "first" in terms of the first to arrive, but in terms of prominence, stature and perceived importance during the golden age. (The term was bestowed upon Bette even by the '40s).
Katharine Hepburn was cited as No. 1 on the AFI list a few years ago, and some people carped that Davis should have been in the top spot -- but even though Davis was the bigger box office draw in the '30s and '40s, in their later decades Hepburn's aliveness and "class" seemed to upstage Bette's embittered crumbling. (Davis had no LION IN WINTERs nor ON GOLDEN PONDs during her sunset years).
While making THE DUCKS OF DECEMBER (or whatever it was, with Lillian Gish) someone in the press referred to Helen Hayes as "the first lady of the American stage" and cranky Bette snapped that she herself had that title and wouldn't have the title usurped. (Gish said Bette was a royal pain on that set).
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They dont make them like this anymore
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I recall watching THE WHALES OF AUGUST once, maybe twice, several years back and liking it alright. I've seen interviews of Ann Sothern (who received her only Oscar nod for this particularly movie) where she spoke on how Bette was very rude and harsh with Lillian Gish.
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“She talked to me. She said she trusted me. I was a ‘real’ actress, but I didn’t fight enough. I would never ‘make it.’ She liked my book [‘The Bright Lights’] and said it was a true book about acting, but it made her sad because I was so small. I could have been bigger. When you see me, she said, you don’t just see talent, you see the rage, the quest, the fight. People applaud my talent, she said, but they also applaud that I am standing, unbowed.”—Marian Seldes on Bette Davis
Bette Davis by Eliot Elisofon off-set of Now Voyager (1942 Warner Bros.)
Restoration ©2026 Mark A. Vieira
With thanks to Follies of God for this one
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Bette Davis in Madame Sin (1972), a movie made for ABC.
With thanks to Follies of God for this one too x
With thanks to Follies of God for this one too x
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One of those TV pilots that didn't sell.
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This one was shown in theaters in Spain, with the title of "The Amazing World of Madame Sin" or something like that. I think she was underused here...because the part fit her. But the same thing happened in "The Anniversary", where she was even more underused...
"Happy birthday...to MOI!"
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Without much prior knowledge, I decided to watch ANOTHER MAN'S POISON (1951) today because it's available you-know-there. For some reason, I also get the title of this movie confused with Davis' other movie, PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER, where she plays a much smaller role (I've yet to see that movie). Don't ask me why... it's just one of those things that get jumbled in my head somehow.
Anyhoo, ANOTHER MAN'S POISON was actually a good little British suspense/thriller film that I thoroughly enjoyed. Davis is a woman spinning a web of deception (as per usual of her in many of her films), and it all comes back to her in the end. She has some good on-screen chemistry with her then-husband Gary Merrill (whom she met on the set of ALL ABOUT EVE the previos year), and I liked the performances of the rest of the main cast: Emlyn Williams, Anthony Steel, and Barbara Murray. The film has a good, engaging, and intriguing story that I was honestly not expecting. I was certainly ready to write this movie off as one of Davis' post-ALL ABOUT EVE misfires, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out otherwise. There is some good B&W cinematography and scenery sprinkled throughout. Davis does ham-it-up in some scenes, but are we to expect her to do anything else? In some of her lines, she even tries a slight British accent, but she isn't consistent with it.
If you haven't seen it, you might want to check it out. I'm glad I did.
Anyhoo, ANOTHER MAN'S POISON was actually a good little British suspense/thriller film that I thoroughly enjoyed. Davis is a woman spinning a web of deception (as per usual of her in many of her films), and it all comes back to her in the end. She has some good on-screen chemistry with her then-husband Gary Merrill (whom she met on the set of ALL ABOUT EVE the previos year), and I liked the performances of the rest of the main cast: Emlyn Williams, Anthony Steel, and Barbara Murray. The film has a good, engaging, and intriguing story that I was honestly not expecting. I was certainly ready to write this movie off as one of Davis' post-ALL ABOUT EVE misfires, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out otherwise. There is some good B&W cinematography and scenery sprinkled throughout. Davis does ham-it-up in some scenes, but are we to expect her to do anything else? In some of her lines, she even tries a slight British accent, but she isn't consistent with it.
If you haven't seen it, you might want to check it out. I'm glad I did.
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I watched this one a couple of years ago and I agree with you. Bette did few "noir" movies but this was one of them (along with "Deception"). I guess that Stanwyck got the best roles of that genre... About Merrill, not sure if they had any chemistry in "All About Eve", but here there is none, IMHO.
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I find the movie to be quite good, especially as I was already prepared to dismiss it as bad.
DECEPTION, as I recall, was one I remember liking, even if Davis herself wasn't a fan of it. As she put it in one of her interviews with Dick Cavett, the only good thing about it was Claude Rains.
Really? I thought the two of them played well together on-screen, but as they say, to each their own.
I'd agree with you here. Davis never had the equivalent of a DOUBLE INDEMNITY among her films.
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I agree. The critics were dismissive of it -- as was Bette, who admitted she and Gary took their roles for a free trip to England. But I really like it. I saw it again on the television machine a couple of weeks ago. It's really pretty good, atmospheric, kinda fun.