Bette Davis Net Worth

Bette Davis's Quotes

• [when told by director Robert Aldrich that the studios wanted Joan Crawford as her co-star for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)] I wouldn't piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire.
• [in 1982] Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should ALL be bigger than life.
• Getting old is not for sissies.
• I see - she's the original good time that was had by all.
• Until you're known in my profession as a monster, you're not a star.

Interesting Facts about Bette Davis

1. While she was the star pupil at John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School in New York, another of her classmates was sent home because she was "too shy". It was predicted that this girl would never make it as an actress. The girl was Lucille Ball.
2. Ranked #15 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
3. In 1952, she was asked to perform in a musical, "Two's Company". After several grueling months at rehearsals, her health deteriorated due to osteomyelitis of the jaw and she had to leave the show only several weeks after it opened. She was to repeat this process in 1974 when she rehearsed for the musical version of The Corn Is Green (1945), called "Miss Moffat", but bowed out early in the run of the show for dubious medical reasons.
4. On her sarcophagus is written "She did it the hard way". She credited her writer/director from All About Eve (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz for coming up with the line.
5. She suffered a stroke and had a mastectomy (1983).
6. Attended Northfield Mount Hermon High School in Norfield, Massachusetts.
7. Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA, just outside and to the left of the main entrance to the Court of Remembrance.
8. Mother of Barbara Merrill (aka B.D. Hyman) and grandmother of J. Ashley Hyman. Marion Sherry was B.D.'s nanny until William Grant Sherry left Davis for her. B.D. had minimal contact with the Sherrys until her tell-all book on her mother, who stopped talking to her. At which time, the Sherrys reached out to B.D. and formed a bond.
9. Director Steven Spielberg won the Christie's auction of her 1938 Best Actress Oscar for Een gevaarlijke vrouw (1938) for $578,000. He then gave it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. [July 2001]
10. When Bette learned that her new brother-in-law was a recovering alcoholic, she sent the couple a dozen cases of liquor for a wedding present.
11. She was elected as first female president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in October 1941. She resigned less then two months later, publicly declaring herself too busy to fulfill her duties as president while angrily protesting in private that the Academy had wanted her to serve as a mere figurehead.
12. She considered her debut screen test for Universal Pictures to be so bad that she ran screaming from the projection room.
13. Her second husband Arthur Farnsworth died after a fall on Hollywood Boulevard in which he took a blow to the head. He had shortly before banged his head on a train between LA and New England, followed by another fall down the stairway at their New Hampshire home. This is the only marriage of hers that ended in death, not divorce.
14. It is said that one of her real true loves was director William Wyler but he was married and refused to leave his wife.
15. In Gebrandmerkt (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.
16. When she first came to Hollywood as a contract player, Universal Pictures wanted to change her name to Bettina Dawes. She informed the studio that she refused to go through life with a name that sounded like "Between the Drawers".
17. Nominated for an Academy Award five years in a row, in 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943. She shares the record for most consecutive nominations with Greer Garson.
18. After the song "Bette Davis Eyes" became a hit single, she wrote letters to singer Kim Carnes and songwriters Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, asking how they knew so much about her. One of the reasons Davis loved the song is that her grandson heard it and thought it "cool" that his grandmother had a hit song written about her.
19. While touring the talk show circuit to promote Wat is er toch van Baby Jane terechtgekomen? (1962), she told one interviewer that when she and Joan Crawford were first suggested for the leads, Warner studio head Jack L. Warner replied: "I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for either of those two old broads." Recalling the story, Davis laughed at her own expense. The following day, she reportedly received a telegram from Crawford: "In future, please do not refer to me as an old broad!".
20. Was one of two actresses (with Faye Dunaway) to have two villainous roles ranked in the American Film Institute's 100 Years of The Greatest Heroes and Villains, as Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes (1941) at #43 and as Baby Jane Hudson in Wat is er toch van Baby Jane terechtgekomen? (1962) at #44.