"theatrical actress Margo Channing in ""All About Eve"" (1950). Davis read the script, described it as the best she had ever read, and accepted the role. Within days, she joined the cast in San Francisco to begin filming. During production, she established what would become a life-long friendship with her co-star Anne Baxter and a romantic relationship with her leading man Gary Merrill, which led to marriage. The film's director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, later remarked: ""Bette was letter perfect. She was syllable-perfect. The director's dream: the prepared actress."" Critics responded positively to Davis' performance, and several of her lines became"
"for the aging diva role, before giving it to Bette Davis. Davis, who had recently ended an 18-year association with Warner Bros. after several poorly received films, immediately accepted the role after realizing it was one of the best she had ever read. Channing had originally been conceived as genteel and knowingly humorous, but with the casting of Davis, Mankiewicz revised the character to be more abrasive. Mankiewicz praised Davis both for her professionalism and for the caliber of her performance. Anne Baxter had spent a decade in supporting roles and had won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Supporting"
"1950 films include: the psychological thriller directed by Mel Ferrer, ""The Secret Fury"", starring Claudette Colbert and Robert Ryan; the Bette Davis vehicle, ""Payment on Demand"" (1951), which also stars Barry Sullivan; the 1951 color musical, ""Two Tickets to Broadway"", starring Tony Martin and Janet Leigh; the musical comedy ""Double Dynamite"", starring Jane Russell, Groucho Marx, and Frank Sinatra; the 1953 romantic comedy ""Susan Slept Here"", starring Debbie Reynolds and Dick Powell, in his last screen appearance; the Civil War Western, ""Great Day in the Morning"", starring Robert Stack and Virginia Mayo; the 1956 musical comedy, ""Bundle of Joy"", starring"
"the famous painting of Siddons costumed as the tragic Muse by Joshua Reynolds, a copy of which hangs in the entrance of Margo's apartment and often visible during the party scene. In 1952, a small group of distinguished Chicago theater-goers began to give an award with that name, which was sculpted to look like the one used in the film. It has been given annually, with past honorees including Bette Davis and Celeste Holm. The first radio adaptation was broadcast on the Lux Radio Theatre on NBC on October 1, 1951 starring Bette Davis, Gary Merrill and Anne Baxter. A"
"The Star (1952 film) The Star is a 1952 American drama film directed by Stuart Heisler and starring Bette Davis. The plot tells the story of an aging, washed up actress who is desperate to restart her career. Even though the film was a critical and commercial failure, Bette Davis received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Academy Award-winning star Margaret ""Maggie"" Elliot (Bette Davis) is a bankrupt actress of a certain age struggling to accept her new non-wealthy reality. She is in denial, and confident she can somehow build herself up again and re-launch her career to its"
"film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were all cast in their original Broadway roles. Although Jessica Tandy originated the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway, Vivien Leigh, who had appeared in the London theatre production, was cast in the film adaptation for her star power. Upon release of the film, Marlon Brando, virtually unknown at the time of the play's casting, rose to prominence as a major Hollywood film star, and received the first of four consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. The film earned an estimated $4,250,000 at the US and Canadian box office in 1951,"
"lukewarm reviews and failed at the box office, Hollywood columnists wrote that Davis' comeback had petered out, and an Academy Award nomination for ""The Star"" (1952) did not halt her decline. In 1952, Davis appeared in a Broadway revue, ""Two's Company"" directed by Jules Dassin. She was uncomfortable working outside of her area of expertise; she had never been a musical performer, and her limited theater experience had been more than 20 years earlier. She was also severely ill, and was operated on for osteomyelitis of the jaw. Margot was diagnosed as severely brain-damaged due to an injury sustained during"
"She didn't invite us to our own daughter's wedding."" The Star (1952 film) The Star is a 1952 American drama film directed by Stuart Heisler and starring Bette Davis. The plot tells the story of an aging, washed up actress who is desperate to restart her career. Even though the film was a critical and commercial failure, Bette Davis received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Academy Award-winning star Margaret ""Maggie"" Elliot (Bette Davis) is a bankrupt actress of a certain age struggling to accept her new non-wealthy reality. She is in denial, and confident she can somehow build"
"a 91% approval rating on movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on eleven reviews. AllMovie called it ""one of Hammer Films' better non-supernatural outings of the 1960s"". The movie screening rights were sold to American television for nearly $400,000. The Nanny (1965 film) The Nanny is a 1965 British suspense film directed by Seth Holt, and starring Bette Davis, Wendy Craig, and Jill Bennett. Davis appears as a supposedly devoted nanny caring for a 10-year-old boy recently discharged from a home for disturbed children. It is based on the novel of the same title by Evelyn Piper (a pseudonym"
"Look for the Silver Lining (film) Look for the Silver Lining is a 1949 American biographical musical film directed by David Butler and written by Phoebe Ephron, Henry Ephron and Marian Spitzer. A biography of Broadway singer-dancer Marilyn Miller, it stars June Haver and Ray Bolger. It was nominated for an Academy Award for best scoring for a musical picture in 1950. Although the film was popular and made a profit, Haver's performance of Marilyn Miller has been somewhat overlooked in comparison to the more memorable portrayal of Miller by Judy Garland in ""Till the Clouds Roll By"", the 1946"
"Pretty Baby (1950 film) Pretty Baby is a 1950 American comedy film starring Dennis Morgan, Betsy Drake, Zachary Scott and Edmund Gwenn. A young woman's little white lie leads to unforeseen complications. Cary Grant aggressively promoted Betsy Drake, his wife, to Jack L. Warner for the lead in ""Pretty Baby"". Patsy Douglas (Betsy Drake) comes up with an ingenious way to get a seat on the crowded New York subway: she pretends to have a baby, using a doll discarded by the advertising agency where she works. One day, however, her agency's primary client, short-tempered Cyrus Baxter (Edmund Gwenn), happens"
"Age of Anxiety, The Cage, Afternoon of a Faun, and The Concert, in all of which LeClercq played leading roles. He continued working on Broadway, as well as, staging dances for Irving Berlin's ""Call Me Madam"", starring Ethel Merman, Rodgers and Hammerstein's ""The King and I,"" in which he created the celebrated ""Small House of Uncle Thomas"" ballet in addition to other dances, and the revue Two's Company, starring Bette Davis. He also performed uncredited show doctoring on the musicals ""A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"" (1951), ""Wish You Were Here"" (1952), ""Wonderful Town"" (1953), and choreographed and directed several sketches"
"popular musicals of the 1950s include ""Love Me Tender"" which starred Elvis Presley, ""High Society"", ""An American in Paris"", ""Singin' in the Rain"", ""Guys and Dolls"", ""The Band Wagon"", ""Show Boat"", ""Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"", ""Gigi"", ""Daddy Long Legs"", ""Funny Face"", ""Calamity Jane"", ""Porgy and Bess"", ""Carmen Jones"", and many others. The Walt Disney Studios enjoyed a decade of prosperity with animated feature-length films ""Cinderella"", ""Alice in Wonderland"", ""Peter Pan"", ""Lady and the Tramp"" (Disney's first wide-screen animated film), and ""Sleeping Beauty"". The studio began producing live-action period and historical films such as ""The Sword and the Rose"", ""Davy"
"Old Acquaintance Old Acquaintance is a 1943 comedy-drama film made by Warner Bros. It was directed by Vincent Sherman and produced by Henry Blanke with Jack L. Warner as executive producer from a screenplay by John Van Druten, Lenore Coffee and Edmund Goulding based on Van Druten's play. The film starred Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins with Gig Young, John Loder, Dolores Moran, Roscoe Karns and Anne Revere. The John Van Druten play on which the film is based had its premiere at the Morosco Theatre, New York City on 23 December 1940 in a production staged by Auriol Lee"
"war raging, the theatre went mainly dark. During this time, it did however became a target spot for military planes to practice their diving maneuvers during the war and sporadically played as a movie house. By 1947, during the Golden Era of Summer Stock, TBTS was again in full swing and entered into a long and fruitful stretch that lasted for almost 10 years. Famous ""golden era"" stars that played TBTS include Marlon Brando, Carol Channing, Groucho Marx, Tallulah Bankhead, Mae West, Judy Holiday, Shelley Winters, and many others. The passing of Mrs. Tyler in 1951, Hurricane Carol in 1954"
"Marie,"" ""Papa Loves Mambo,"" and ""Catch a Falling Star."" Other major stars in the early 1950s included Frank Sinatra (""Young at Heart,"" ""Three Coins in the Fountain,"" ""Witchcraft""), Tony Bennett (""Cold, Cold Heart,"" ""Because of You,"" ""Rags to Riches""), Kay Starr (""Bonaparte's Retreat,"" ""Wheel of Fortune,"" ""Rock and Roll Waltz""), Rosemary Clooney (""Come On-a My House,"" ""Mambo Italiano,"" ""Half as Much,"" ""This Ole House""), Dean Martin (""That's Amore,"" ""Return to Me,"" ""Sway""), Georgia Gibbs (""Kiss of Fire,"" ""Dance With Me, Henry,"" ""Tweedle Dee""), Eddie Fisher (""Anytime,"" ""Wish You Were Here,"" ""Thinking of You,"" ""I'm Walking Behind You,"" ""Oh! My Pa-Pa,"""
"and her ocular expression, Davis achieves a state of grace which is astonishing to behold."" ""Time Out London"" says, ""Riddled with act and scene pauses . . . it's a fairly classic condensation of several fetishistic concerns endemic to British cinema."" ""TV Guide"" calls it a ""dull, sappy melodrama."" Connecting Rooms Connecting Rooms is a 1970 British drama film written and directed by Franklin Gollings. The screenplay is based on the play ""The Cellist"" by Marion Hart. The film stars Bette Davis, Michael Redgrave, and Leo Genn. The plot explores the relationships shared by the residents of a seedy boarding"
"well-known, particularly ""Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night"". She was again nominated for an Academy Award, and critics such as Gene Ringgold described her Margo as her ""all-time best performance"". Pauline Kael wrote that much of Mankiewicz' vision of ""the theater"" was ""nonsense"", but commended Davis, writing ""[the film is] saved by one performance that is the real thing: Bette Davis is at her most instinctive and assured. Her actress - vain, scared, a woman who goes too far in her reactions and emotions - makes the whole thing come alive."" Davis won a Best Actress"
"""Watch on the Rhine"" and ""Deception"". The Great Lie The Great Lie is a 1941 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Bette Davis, George Brent, and Mary Astor. The screenplay by Lenore J. Coffee is based on the novel ""January Heights"" by Polan Banks. When concert pianist Sandra Kovak (Mary Astor) and her aviator husband Peter Van Allen (George Brent) discover their impulsive marriage is invalid because her divorce had not been finalized before they wed, he leaves her and marries his old flame Maggie Patterson (Bette Davis). Peter travels to Brazil on business and, when his"
"Tiffany Bolling Tiffany Bolling (born Tiffany Royce Kral; born February 6, 1947) is a retired American actress, model and singer, best known for her appearances in cult movies. Bolling was raised in Santa Monica, California. Her father was singer/pianist Roy Kral and her mother was singer/comedian Bettie Miller. Singer Irene Kral was her aunt. Bolling guest-starred on a number of television series, including ""The Sixth Sense"" (as Damaris in ""Witch, Witch, Burning Bright""), ""Ironside"" (""The Wrong Time, the Wrong Place"", 1970, as a film actress who falls in love with Don Galloway's Sgt. Ed Brown), and Marcus Welby, M.D. (as"
"on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit in the 1910's"". Betty Farrington Betty Farrington (May 14, 1898 – February 3, 1989) was an American character actress active from the 1920s through 1960. Born in Missouri's largest city, Kansas City, Betty Farrington would play mostly supporting and minor roles during her career, although she would occasionally be given a featured or leading part, appearing in almost 100 films during her career. Some of the more notable films she appeared in include: Preston Sturges' ""The Lady Eve"" (1941), starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda; 1942's ""My Favorite Blonde"" and 1947's ""My Favorite Brunette"", both"
"Winter Meeting Winter Meeting is a 1948 American drama film directed by Bretaigne Windust, written by Catherine Turney from the novel of the same title by Grace Zaring Stone (under the pseudonym Ethel Vance), and starring Bette Davis with Jim Davis. Disenchanted poet Susan Grieve, escorted by her friend Stacy Grant, meets embittered World War II naval hero Lieutenant Slick Novak at a Manhattan restaurant where a dinner party is being held in his honor. He is more interested in Susan than his blind date Peggy Markham and offers to take her home at the end of the evening. The"
"Is Yours"" (1952), ""Give a Girl a Break"" (1953, with Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse), ""Jupiter's Darling"" (1955, with Keel and Esther Williams), and ""Three for the Show"" (1955, with Betty Grable and Jack Lemmon). All were made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer except ""Mr. Music"" (Paramount) and ""Three for the Show"" (Columbia). Throughout the 1950s, they performed on a number of television variety shows, and in 1957 they starred in their own short-lived CBS sitcom, ""The Marge and Gower Champion Show"", which was based on their actual career experiences. In 1948, Champion had begun to direct as well, and he won the"
"was the first artist to record a song from the musical. The song on her TV show, ""The Patti Page Olds Show"", helping to promote the Broadway show. In the early 1960s, Page's success began to decline. She did not chart again until 1961, with ""You'll Answer to Me"" and ""Mom and Dad's Waltz"". Page's last major chart hit was in 1965, ""Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte"", from the film of the same name starring Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland. It peaked at No. 8. It was her last top 10 hit (and her first since 1957)., was nominated for a"
"Mr. Skeffington Mr. Skeffington is a 1944 American drama film directed by Vincent Sherman, based on the novel of the same name by Elizabeth von Arnim. The film stars Bette Davis as a beautiful woman whose many suitors, and self-love, distract her from returning the affections of her husband Job Skeffington. It also makes a point about Skeffington's status as a Jew in 1914 high society, and later, in relation to Nazi Germany. It stars Claude Rains as Skeffington, along with Walter Abel, George Coulouris and Richard Waring. In 1914, spoiled Fanny Trellis (Bette Davis) is a renowned beauty with"
"1950s to her appearance on ""This Is Your Life"". Upon its release, the film was advertised as a purportedly true account of Farmer's life but the script was largely fictional and sensationalized, in particularly depicting her as having been lobotomized. ""Frances"" was released theatrically on December 3, 1982 by Universal Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics but was a box office bomb grossing $5 million against it's $8 million budget. Lange's performance was unanimously praised and has been cited by many (including her) as her best performance. At the 55th Academy Awards, it received two nominations for"
"December 15, 1952 at the Alvin Theatre, where it ran for 90 performances. In addition to Davis, the cast included David Burns, Nora Kaye, George S. Irving, Maria Karnilova, Tina Louise, Ellen Hanley, Stanley Prager, and Hiram Sherman, who won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Despite mostly unfavorable notices, the show played to sold-out houses. Davis continued to suffer from fatigue, but doctors could find no physical cause. When a wisdom tooth became inflamed, it was discovered she was suffering from osteomyelitis of the jaw, which required immediate surgery. With no hope of Davis returning"
"She's Back on Broadway She's Back on Broadway is a 1953 musical comedy-drama film in WarnerColor. It is Virginia Mayo's last musical film. Her singing voice was dubbed by Bonnie Lou Williams. The film was Mayo's unofficial follow-up to her 1952 musical hit ""She's Working Her Way Through College"". When Catherine Terris's (Virginia Mayo) career in Hollywood hits the skids, she heads back to the site of her first great triumphs...Broadway! She takes the lead in a play which is being directed by Rick Sommers (Steve Cochran), the man who was both her Svengali and her lover. Sommers is still"
"choice of film would appear to be that nothing must compete with the full display of each facet of the Davis art. Only bad films are good enough for her. Her films of this period included ""The Virgin Queen"" (1955), ""Storm Center"" (1956), and ""The Catered Affair"" (1956). As her career declined, her marriage continued to deteriorate, until she filed for divorce in 1960. The following year, her mother died. During the same time, she tried television, appearing in three episodes of the popular NBC Western ""Wagon Train"" as three different characters in 1959 and 1961; her first appearance on"
"role of Cal, now performed by Didi Conn. Some script changes were made (the night club was now known as ""Chez Manny"" and the older, drunk magician was now named ""Van Zyskin""). Some of the songs in the Broadway version were also changed (notably the risqué lyrics of Charmin's lament), or replaced totally, such as the song ""Solid Silver Platform Shoes"" (the once popular shoe style, by then out of fashion) which was replaced with ""It's Gonna Take a Magician."" The film version of the production was only aired once on Canadian television, but released on DVD decades later. Henning"
"is slick and attractively presented."" According to MGM records the film earned $1,132,000 in the US and Canada and $884,000 overseas resulting in a loss of $910,000. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: Madame Bovary (1949 film) Madame Bovary is a 1949 American romantic drama film adaptation of the classic novel of the same name by Gustave Flaubert. It stars Jennifer Jones, James Mason, Van Heflin, Louis Jourdan, Alf Kjellin (billed as Christopher Kent), Gene Lockhart, Frank Allenby and Gladys Cooper. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by Pandro S. Berman, from a"
"1950s a medley of the song and George Duning's ""Theme from ""Picnic"" orchestrated by Johnny Warrington (1911–1978), became quite popular, especially in instrumental recordings by Morris Stoloff, conductor of the film version by the Columbia Pictures Orchestra. Duning wrote the film's theme to counterpoint ""Moonglow."" Stoloff's recording spent three weeks at number one on the U.S. ""Billboard"" ""Hot 100"", and became a gold record. It is also featured in Martin Scorsese's film ""The Aviator"" (2004), when Leonardo DiCaprio (as Howard Hughes) and Cate Blanchett (as Katharine Hepburn) fly over Los Angeles at night in one of Hughes' private planes. Moonglow"
"Barbara Bel Geddes Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American stage and screen actress, artist, and children's author whose career spanned six decades. She was best known for her starring role as Miss Ellie Ewing in the television series ""Dallas"". Bel Geddes also starred as Maggie in the original Broadway production of ""Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"" in 1955. Her notable films included ""I Remember Mama"" (1948) and ""Vertigo"" (1958). Throughout her career, she was the recipient of several acting awards and nominations. Bel Geddes was born on October 31, 1922, in New"