In 1935, she received her first Oscar for her role in Dangerous (1935) as Joyce Heath. With this success under her belt, she began pushing for stronger and more meaningful roles. felt their seven-year deal with Bette was more than justified. She had a significant number of write-in votes for the Best Actress Oscar, but didn't win. More fairly successful movies followed, but it was the role of Mildred Rogers in RKO's Of Human Bondage (1934) that would give Bette major acclaim from the film critics. She became a star after this appearance, known as the actress that could play a variety of very strong and complex roles. Her first film with them was The Man Who Played God (1932). In 1932, she signed a seven-year deal with Warner Brothers Pictures. An official at Universal complained she had 'as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville' and her performance in 'Bad Sister' didn't impress. 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.

Late in 1930, she was hired by Universal, where she made her first film, called Bad Sister (1931).

She was in the off-Broadway play 'The Earth Between' (1923), and her Broadway debut in 1929 was in 'Broken Dishes'. She enrolled in John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School and was the star pupil. After graduation from Cushing Academy, she was refused admittance to Eva Le Gallienne's Manhattan Civic Repertory. To her, it presented much more of a challenge. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but then she discovered the stage, and gave up dancing for acting. She and her sister were raised by their mother.

Davis was bent on proving her father wrong, setting her on a path to become one of Hollywood's most legendary battlers.Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ruth Augusta (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney. But while Ruthie was supportive, Davis' father, Harlow, wasn't. Davis was so affected by Entwistle's performance that she immediately told Ruthie that she wanted to become an actress. Davis' mother, Ruthie, took her and her sister Bobby to see Henrik Ibsen's play 'The Wild Duck.' It was her first taste of serious theater, and the character of the daughter Hedvig so moved her that she 'lost herself' in her experience, just as the actress portraying her, Peg Entwistle, seemed to. Things didn't get much easier once she got there, either.Īccording to Bette Davis' memoir ' The Lonely Life,' the birth of her acting ambitions can be traced to a single evening in 1926, when she was just 18. But the future icon - who was also well-respected in her own lifetime as a campaigner for war veterans, earning a Distinguished Civilian Service Medal for her work with the Hollywood Canteen (via Biography) - didn't have an easy route to Hollywood stardom.

This 'n That by Bette Davis