I always had the will to win. I felt it baking cookies. They had to be the best cookies anyone baked.
–Bette Davis
Today, April 5th, is Bette Davis’ birthday. If you’ve never seen a Bette Davis movie, your life is not complete. In a career spanning five decades, her legacy includes a dozen movies that are all classics. The hallmark of a Davis film is that you can’t take your eyes off her when she’s on screen. As the Internet would say, “You won’t believe what she’ll do next…” Whether playing a vixen, starlet, waitress, apple seller, murderer, nanny, queen, or washed-up film star, Davis could squeeze every drop of drama out of a line. She would work a scene like nobody’s business, and that was the hallmark of her talent – in that way, uniquely American and uniquely female. Her characters always had to defeat the odds and they had to work like the devil to do it. Continue reading “Bette Davis: Champion of the Pictures”