This made for television movie, based on the Agatha Christie mystery They Do It with Mirrors, featured Helen Hayes, in her last film, as Miss Marple and Bette Davis as her friend Carrie. When Miss Marple investigates why her friend’s health is failing, a dead body shows up, and the two old friends need to solve the mystery quickly.
"Both Anne Baxter and Bette Davis were nominated for best actress in this film. Neither won, but Bette Davis' leading role as Margo Channing is considered her greatest career performance and her most memorable, signature role. The screen play by Joseph L. Mankiewicz was based on a radio play by Mary Orr and tells the story of an ambitious young actress who tries to build a career by worming her way into the life of the great Broadway star Margo. When Margo finally understands the extent of Eve's treachery Davis gets to utter her most famous line,'Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night.'"
She could look demure while behaving like an empress. Blonde, with eyes like pearls too big for her head, she was very striking, but marginally pretty and certainly not beautiful . . . But it was her edge that made her memorable--her upstart superiority, her reluctance to pretend deference to others.
"Bette Davis was the commanding figure of the great era of Hollywood stardom, with a drive and energy that put her contemporaries in the shade. She played queens, jezebels, and bitches; she could out-talk any male costar; she warred with her studio, Warner Bros., worked like a demon, got through four husbands, was nominated for seven Oscars, and--no matter what--never gave up fighting. This is her story."
"In this book the leading lady and woman ahead of her time speaks for herself in more than a dozen interviews conducted by journalist and author Boze Hadleigh."
"'Until you're known in my profession as a monster, you're not a star,' Bette Davis once said. Let's just say in Hollywood she was considered the ultimate star. The Academy Award-winning actress was one of the movies' most riveting and volatile personalities both on and off the screen. She comes to life in the pages of this lavish, fully illustrated tribute produced in conjunction with her estate.
"Bette Davis remains one of the most acclaimed and well-known stars in the history of film. Breaking new ground for women, she was a fighter who took on the Hollywood establishment at the drop of a dime. She reveled in lifelong feuds (such as with arch nemesis and co-star Joan Crawford). She was a mother, wife, and friend. She was also a no-nonsense New Englander who happened to have more talent than the movies seemed able to contain.
"Her personality leapt off the screen and earned her an unprecedented number of high-profile nominations and awards for her work in films like Jezebel, Dark Victory, All About Eve, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? As the epitaph on Davis's tombstone reads, 'She did it the hard way.' Through a biography, comprehensive filmography, and hundreds of rare photos, readers will find out why."
By Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Cora Witherspoon. Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers
Davis stars as a glamorous and somewhat frivolous socialite who matures and falls in love with her doctor while dying from a brain tumor. Geraldine Fitzgerald is wonderful as her best friend. Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan also have small parts in this film. Have a box of tissues handy.
"She was magnificent and exasperating in equal measure. Jack Warner called her 'an explosive little broad with a sharp left.' Humphrey Bogart once remarked, 'Unless you're very big she can knock you down.' Bette Davis was a force of nature--an idiosyncratic talent who nevertheless defined the words 'movie star' for more than half a century and who created an extraordinary body of work filled with unforgettable performances. In Dark Victory, the noted film critic and biographer Ed Sikov paints the most detailed picture ever delivered of this intelligent, opinionated, and unusual woman who was--in the words of a close friend--'one of the major events of the twentieth century.'
"Drawing on new interviews with friends, directors, and admirers, as well as archival research and a fresh look at the films, this stylish, intimate biography reveals Davis's personal as well as professional life in a way that is both revealing and sympathetic. With his wise and well-informed take on the production and accomplishments of such movie milestones as Jezebel, All About Eve, and Now, Voyager, as well as the turbulent life and complicated personality of the actress who made them, Sikov's Dark Victory brings to life the two-time Academy Award-winning actress's unmistakable screen style, and shows the reader how Davis's art was her own dark victory."
The story concerns two twin sisters: unmarried Edith with no money, no future and widow Margaret who has fabulous wealth - all because of her marriage to the man she stole from Edith years ago. Seeking revenge, Edith kills Margaret and takes her place. But new friends and new surroundings may expose her masquerade.
"Appearing soon after Davis's death, Quirk's monumental book is actually the culmination of years of research by the celebrity biographer. Though Davis's six-decade film career is discussed, as is her personal life, what is most evident here is the passion of this woman, so often hidden behind an outspoken, and in later life, crusty exterior. This effort may or may not stand as definitive, but right now it's the only one that reveals as much. Highly recommended." (Library Journal)
By Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, George Brent, Dennis Morgan, Hattie McDaniel
Bette Davis stars as Stanley Timberlake, the kind of villainess audiences love to hate. Jilting her fiance, she runs off with her sister's husband, drives him to booze & suicide, then tries to tear apart the romance that's blossomed between her sister & her former flame.
