by Natasha Gilani

Created on: June 12, 2009   Last Updated: June 23, 2009

BETTE DAVIS


Contribution of Bette Davis as an Actor and Her Role as a Female in her Time Period

Abstract

I was a legendary terror. I was insufferably rude and ill-mannered in the cultivation of my career. I had no time for pleasantries. I said what was on my mind and it wasn't always printable. I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and oft-times disagreeable. I suppose I'm larger than life. (Bette Davis)

Larger than life she was with a career spanning six decades, including Broadway, film and the small screen; having made more than a hundred films and receiving ten Best Actress nominations and being the first woman to be honored with the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award and equally larger in death, was Bette Davis. Fearless, ambitious and daring, her strong-mindedness won her a few friends and many enemies in her lifetime, but continues to draw audiences to her appeal and aspiring actresses everywhere look up to her as a role-model.

In this report, I will focus on Bette Davis's contribution as an actor and her role as a female icon of her time.

Contribution of Bette Davis as an Actor and Her Role as a Female in her Time Period

One of the most talented and the biggest stars of the thirties was Bette Davis. Her strong personality off-screen often found its way into the characters she played. She made her wide range of roles realistic, from a sixty-year old queen in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex to a young beauty in Jezebal. Olivia de Havilland called Bette Davis a basically benevolent volcano. Jack Warner described her as an explosive little girl with a sharp left. Bette ruffled a few feathers in her career, but looking back, any trouble she caused was usually for the betterment of her films rather than from her merely playing the prima donna. Off-screen, her life was filled with as much drama as any role she played, having weathered a broken home, four failed marriages, literary revenge brought forth by her daughter and frail health in her later years (Bubbeo, 2001, p. 43 51). In this report, I will highlight the important contributions as well as this screen diva's achievements in a male-dominated industry, and how her success paved the way for many other women, who emulated her example to carve a niche for themselves in the traditionally male-dominant world.

Bette Davis once joked that her epitaph should read, Here lies Ruth Elizabeth Davis She did it the hard way (Ware, 1993,

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