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Bette Davis - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography

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Bette Davis - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography

Bette Davis - biography, date of birth, place of birth, filmography, clips, Actress, Producer.
April 5, 1908 - October 6, 1989 - American actress.
The daughter of a Massachusetts lawyer, she dreamed of becoming an actress since childhood. The first step to fame was the conquest of Broadway for her. Davis made his film debut in 1931. The following year she performed her first major role in the film The Man Who Played God. Over the next two years, her repertoire was dominated by the roles of fatal seductresses, traditional for Hollywood of those years. Davis' breakthrough to a new level of acting came in 1934, when she starred in the film version of Somerset Maugham's novel The Burden of Human Passion. A more psychologically complex role has not yet been given to any Hollywood movie star. Although Davis's work in this film seems to be one of her biggest accomplishments from a modern perspective, the rivalry between the studios left the Oscar-nominated actress without a statuette, losing out to actress Claudette Colbert.
Having finally won the most prestigious award in the American film industry for her role as an alcoholic in the film Dangerous (1935), Davis entered a legal battle with her studio, Warner Bros.. She demanded more independence in choosing film roles and, to confirm the seriousness of her intentions, left Hollywood for a while and went to London. Although the studio was the winner of the dispute, Davis was given the freedom to perform her signature roles. According to the TSB definition, these were the roles of "strong, powerful women, striving at any cost, disregarding the opinion of society, the laws of morality, to achieve their goal." Such is the southern beauty in Jezebel (1939), the largely controversial film for which Davis won her second Oscar. This role was, to a certain extent, a consolation for the fact that due to inter-studio agreements, the famous actress was not destined to play in "Gone with the Wind" .
In the forties, Davis remained one of the most famous and respected film actresses in the world. In 1939, she starred opposite Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in her first film in color, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Even more successful at the box office was her next picture, "All this and the sky to boot" (1940). At Warner Bros. Studios she enjoyed such authority that she was jokingly called "the fourth brother Warner." In addition, in January 1941 she was elected president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts. As the actress approached her 40s, it became increasingly difficult for her to withstand the competition of young starlets. Critics began to complain that Davis was trapped by the cutesy postures and gestures developed over the years. In 1943, her second husband died under mysterious circumstances. Two years later, Davis married artist William Sherry, and they soon had a daughter. In 1950, the actress played in one of the brightest films of classic Hollywood - "All About Eve". Many of the lines she uttered diverged into quotations, and the picture itself was nominated for 14 Oscars and brought Davis the Cannes Film Festival prize. In the wake of her success, Davis parted ways with Sherry and married her co-star, Gary Merrill, but this was not a happy union either. Virtually all of Davis's subsequent films were unsuccessful. In 1961, she was forced to advertise in a newspaper for a job, and soon agreed, albeit reluctantly, to work with longtime enemy Joan Crawford in the thriller What Happened to Baby Jane ?, in which they played two aging movie stars. Davis's nomination for an Oscar for the role in this film further intensified the feud with Crawford. She did not develop relationships with the stars of the younger generation: she accused them of lack of proper training and professionalism. In 1962, Davis published a book of memoirs. Like many of her interviews, the book was notable for its rare frankness.
In the 1960s, the actress tried to return to Broadway, but without much success. She was constantly unwell, but she continued to act in films, for example, in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel Death on the Nile (1978). She was awarded an Emmy in 1979, and the year before she became the first woman to receive the American Film Institute honorary award. In 1983, after filming an experimental episode for the television series Hotel, Davis was diagnosed with breast cancer and scheduled for a mastectomy. Within two weeks of the surgery, she suffered four strokes, which caused paralysis in the right side of her face and in her left arm, also causing slurred speech. Davis began a long period of physical therapy, partially relieving her paralysis.
During 1988 and 1989, Davis was honored for her career achievements: she was awarded the Legion of Honor in France, the Campione d'Italia Prize in Italy and the Film Society Achievement Award at Lincoln Center. In 1989, the actress was again diagnosed with cancer. Having recovered her health, towards the end of the summer the actress went to Spain, where she was awarded an award at the San Sebastian Film Festival, but during this trip her health began to deteriorate rapidly. Too weak to fly to the United States, she traveled to France, where she died on October 6, 1989 in an American clinic in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Buried in the Hollywood Hills.


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