Bette Davis, despite her lack of beauty and sex appeal, rose up to be a major star, making several memorable movies that would live on as classics, never to be surpassed in any remake. She had lived a rather miserable and unhappy life and most people that worked with her disliked her, and in many cases even hated her. Bette continually goaded her husbands with curses and insults into beating her, which she seemed to “get off on.” She would then have sex with her husbands, more as a release for her nervous tensions than for any enjoyment purpose. For the most part, to know Bette was to eventually dislike her.
As she grew older, a festering mental illness, a rapid aging, and ongoing physical illnesses made her bad tempered and vicious to virtually everyone, even those that tried to help her. As a person she was a miserable, nasty, foul-mouth bitch, who held everyone in contempt. From her point of view the weak sucked off the strong and the strong had to battle every minute to hold onto what they got. She, considering herself to be a strong woman, would only weaken herself to show any consideration or compassion for the weak. This is how she led her life and in the end, even her own daughter hated her. Someone best described her personality as being a spoiled 14-year-old perpetually throwing a temper tantrum.
In her greatest pictures, however, her fans see forever the consummate actress who on a number of occasions achieved an immortality reserved to only a handful. And despite her all too human frailties, she will live on long after those who read her story here of perhaps the greatest actresses in an age of great actresses. This is sometimes the irony that those same character flaws that lead to such miserable personal lives can explode into such powerful movie screen presences.
