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One of the most sought after actresses that ever lived in Hollywood is Bette Davis. She was born on April 5, 1908 in Lowell, Massachusetts. She had a sister and they were raised by there mother after her father left when she was a child. Bette Davis always wanted to be the center of everybody’s attention, which became her impetus towards an acting career.

Bette Davis graduated at the Cushing Academy. She was supposed to attend at Eva Le Gallienne’s Manhattan Civic Repertory, but she was not accepted because she seemed too fickle to be part of the drama school. She then enrolled in John Murray Anderson’s Dramatic School and soon became the star in the class. Bette Davis was soon cast in theatre productions such as The Earth Between in 1923 and Broadway’s Broken Dishes in 1929. Bette Davis then moved to Hollywood and was signed by Warner Brothers Pictures, and became the star in The Man Who Played God. In 1934, she was loaned to RKO for Of Human Bondage in which she gained more fame and stardom. She won her Best Actress Oscar in 1935 for her role in Dangerous, and it was followed by Jezebel in 1938.

Her career went quite slow during the forties despite her films being successful in the box office. Her contract with Warner Brothers Pictures ended in 1949, which made her appear on less appealing films such as Beyond the Forest in 1949. In 1950 however, Bette Davis made a stellar comeback in All About Eve wherein she received an Oscar nomination for the role of Margo Channing. But her career went on a standstill once again, and it took Bette Davis a decade before getting back on her feet.

Bette Davis regained her spark as a superstar upon receiving another Oscar nomination in What Ever happened to Baby Jane? in 1962. She as well became active on television all throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and garnered an Emmy Award for Best Actress for Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter in 1979. Bette Davis continued to be visible on television during the 1980s, even after suffering from a stroke in 1983.

In 1985, Bette Davis’ daughter Barbara Merrill wrote a book about her entitled My Mother’s Keeper which caused some controversy about her being a relatively bad mother. Bette Davis spent her last years in Europe, where she completed the final chapter of her last book, Bette Davis, The Lonely Life. She died of cancer on October 6, 1989 in France.

During her lifetime, Bette Davis was married four times, all of which ended in divorce. She had three children, one of them being retarded.