Bette Davis: Larger than Life

“Until you’re known in my profession as a monster, you’re not a star,” Bette Davis once said. Let’s just say in Hollywood she was considered the ultimate star. The Academy Award-winning actress was one of the movies’ most riveting and volatile personalities both on and off the screen. She comes to life in the pages of this lavish, fully illustrated tribute produced in conjunction with her estate.

Bette Davis remains one of the most acclaimed and well-known stars in the history of film. Breaking new ground for women, she was a fighter who took on the Hollywood establishment at the drop of a dime. She reveled in lifelong feuds (such as with arch nemesis and co-star Joan Crawford). She was a mother, wife, and friend. She was also a no-nonsense New Englander who happened to have more talent than the movies seemed able to contain. Her personality leapt off the screen and earned her an unprecedented number of high-profile nominations and awards for her work in films like Jezebel, Dark Victory, All About Eve, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? As the epitaph on Davis’s tombstone reads, “She did it the hard way.” Through a biography, comprehensive filmography, and hundreds of rare photos, readers will find out why.

“Until you’re known in my profession as a monster, you’re not a star,” Bette Davis once said. Let’s just say in Hollywood she was considered the ultimate star. The Academy Award-winning actress was one of the movies’ most riveting and volatile personalities both on and off the screen. She comes to life in the pages of this lavish, fully illustrated tribute produced in conjunction with her estate.

Bette Davis remains one of the most acclaimed and well-known stars in the history of film. Breaking new ground for women, she was a fighter who took on the Hollywood establishment at the drop of a dime. She reveled in lifelong feuds (such as with arch nemesis and co-star Joan Crawford). She was a mother, wife, and friend. She was also a no-nonsense New Englander who happened to have more talent than the movies seemed able to contain. Her personality leapt off the screen and earned her an unprecedented number of high-profile nominations and awards for her work in films like Jezebel, Dark Victory, All About Eve, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? As the epitaph on Davis’s tombstone reads, “She did it the hard way.” Through a biography, comprehensive filmography, and hundreds of rare photos, readers will find out why.

Richard Schickel was a movie critic for Life, Time, and Time.com from 1965 through 2008. He is the author, co-author, or editor of close to forty books, including You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story. He is also the director, writer, and producer of a similar number of documentary films. His latest, a profile of Ron Howard, is nineteenth in his series of director portraits, which constitute an unparalleled history of film authorship in America.

George Perry is a film critic, journalist, and broadcaster who has interviewed an array of film greats in his distinguished career. He is also author of many books on film history and the stars who lived it, his most recent work as co-author being You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story. George lives in London.