All All. Sign In. Advanced search. Search filters Expand all. Birth date. Enter full date. Page topics. Only includes names with the selected topics. Death date. Gender identity. Male Female Non-binary Other. Adult names. Exclude Include. Bette Davis. Her parents divorced when she was She and her sister were raised by their mother. Her early interest was dance.
To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but then she discovered the stage, and gave up dancing for acting. To her, it presented much more of a challenge. She also appeared in "Solid South". Late in , she was hired by Universal, where she made her first film, called Bad Sister When she arrived in Hollywood, the studio representative who went to meet her train left without her because he could find no one who looked like a movie star.
An official at Universal complained she had "as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville " and her performance in "Bad Sister" didn't impress. In , she signed a seven-year deal with Warner Brothers Pictures. She became a star after this appearance, known as the actress that could play a variety of very strong and complex roles.
She had a significant number of write-in votes for the Best Actress Oscar, but didn't win. Warner Bros. They had a genuine star on their hands. With this success under her belt, she began pushing for stronger and more meaningful roles. In , she received her first Oscar for her role in Dangerous as Joyce Heath. In , she was suspended without pay for turning down a role that she deemed unworthy of her talent. She went to England, where she had planned to make movies, but was stopped by Warner Bros.
They did not want her to work anywhere. Although she sued to get out of her contract, she lost. Still, they began to take her more seriously after that. Returning after losing her lawsuit, her roles improved dramatically. In , Bette received a second Academy Award win for her work in Jezebel opposite the soon-to-be-legendary Henry Fonda.
