Biography
Bette Davis built her reputation primarily through dramatic screen roles across 87 feature films that spanned 58 years, yet she also performed professionally as a vocalist in multiple settings that encompassed motion-picture sequences, stage productions, and commercial recordings. Born into socially prominent Boston families, with a father who practiced patent law, she experienced her parents’ separation at age seven and their divorce at age ten, after which her mother supported Davis and her younger sister through a series of jobs. In 1924, at 16, she entered Cushing Academy in New Hampshire and spent that summer at the Mariarden school studying drama, dance, and singing; she completed her studies at Cushing two years later. Relocating to New York afterward, she joined the John Murray Anderson-Robert Milton Dramatic School.
During spring 1928 she performed in summer-stock productions throughout upstate New York and Massachusetts, where she was occasionally required to sing. Her first professional stage appearance occurred on 5 March 1929 at the Provincetown Playhouse in The Earth Between, then regarded as an off-Broadway venue, followed by her Broadway debut in Broken Dishes, which opened on 5 November 1929 and completed 178 performances. Universal Pictures offered her a contract in 1930, prompting a move to Los Angeles in December; after a succession of small parts the studio released her in September 1931, but Warner Bros. signed her that November. Over the ensuing years she appeared in numerous studio productions and attained stardom, securing the Academy Award for Best Actress for Dangerous in 1935 and repeating the honor for Jezebel in 1938; in the latter she briefly sang a spiritual while portraying an 1850s Southern belle, though a chorus largely obscured her voice.
Her first substantial on-screen vocal performance arrived in 1943 with the war-themed Arthur Schwartz–Frank Loesser number “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old,” presented as a specialty in the all-star film Thank Your Lucky Stars. In that sequence and in subsequent efforts, she delivered melodies by emphasizing her singular speaking timbre and phrasing rather than conventional vocal technique, an approach comparable to that of Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich. After departing Warner Bros. in 1949 her assignments grew more diverse; in 1952 she assumed the lead in the musical revue Two’s Company, which premiered on Broadway on 15 December 1952. Although the production initially succeeded and yielded an RCA Victor cast album, it closed after 90 performances on 8 March 1953 when Davis suffered an infected tooth that necessitated surgery for osteomyelitis.
She returned to singing in 1962 with “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy” in the horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, earning her tenth Academy Award nomination for best actress. An MGM Records single paired her with singer Debbie Burton on the title song written solely for promotion and omitted from the picture itself. In the 1964 thriller Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte she performed the title song on camera. During 1965 she issued singles on two labels: Bell Records combined “Life Is a Lonely Thing” with “Mother of the Bride,” while Mercury Records released “Oh, What It Seemed to Be” backed with “Single.”
At 66, in 1974, Davis starred in Miss Moffat, a musical adaptation of The Corn Is Green—the same property she had filmed in 1945. After tryouts in Philadelphia the show closed without reaching Broadway. The next year EMI Records invited her to London to record an album; the resulting LP Miss Bette Davis revisited numbers she had previously performed, incorporated songs linked to her films, restated well-known dialogue passages, and included newly written material suited to her age.
Also in 1975 Jackie DeShannon issued “Bette Davis Eyes,” a composition she created with lyricist Donna Weiss, on the album New Arrangement; its lyrics evoked an alluring woman possessing one of the actress’s most notable physical attributes. The track attracted modest attention until Kim Carnes revived it six years later, when it held the number-one position for nine weeks and received the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. Davis herself undertook no further professional singing yet continued acting in feature films and television movies until her death from cancer at age 81.
During spring 1928 she performed in summer-stock productions throughout upstate New York and Massachusetts, where she was occasionally required to sing. Her first professional stage appearance occurred on 5 March 1929 at the Provincetown Playhouse in The Earth Between, then regarded as an off-Broadway venue, followed by her Broadway debut in Broken Dishes, which opened on 5 November 1929 and completed 178 performances. Universal Pictures offered her a contract in 1930, prompting a move to Los Angeles in December; after a succession of small parts the studio released her in September 1931, but Warner Bros. signed her that November. Over the ensuing years she appeared in numerous studio productions and attained stardom, securing the Academy Award for Best Actress for Dangerous in 1935 and repeating the honor for Jezebel in 1938; in the latter she briefly sang a spiritual while portraying an 1850s Southern belle, though a chorus largely obscured her voice.
Her first substantial on-screen vocal performance arrived in 1943 with the war-themed Arthur Schwartz–Frank Loesser number “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old,” presented as a specialty in the all-star film Thank Your Lucky Stars. In that sequence and in subsequent efforts, she delivered melodies by emphasizing her singular speaking timbre and phrasing rather than conventional vocal technique, an approach comparable to that of Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich. After departing Warner Bros. in 1949 her assignments grew more diverse; in 1952 she assumed the lead in the musical revue Two’s Company, which premiered on Broadway on 15 December 1952. Although the production initially succeeded and yielded an RCA Victor cast album, it closed after 90 performances on 8 March 1953 when Davis suffered an infected tooth that necessitated surgery for osteomyelitis.
She returned to singing in 1962 with “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy” in the horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, earning her tenth Academy Award nomination for best actress. An MGM Records single paired her with singer Debbie Burton on the title song written solely for promotion and omitted from the picture itself. In the 1964 thriller Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte she performed the title song on camera. During 1965 she issued singles on two labels: Bell Records combined “Life Is a Lonely Thing” with “Mother of the Bride,” while Mercury Records released “Oh, What It Seemed to Be” backed with “Single.”
At 66, in 1974, Davis starred in Miss Moffat, a musical adaptation of The Corn Is Green—the same property she had filmed in 1945. After tryouts in Philadelphia the show closed without reaching Broadway. The next year EMI Records invited her to London to record an album; the resulting LP Miss Bette Davis revisited numbers she had previously performed, incorporated songs linked to her films, restated well-known dialogue passages, and included newly written material suited to her age.
Also in 1975 Jackie DeShannon issued “Bette Davis Eyes,” a composition she created with lyricist Donna Weiss, on the album New Arrangement; its lyrics evoked an alluring woman possessing one of the actress’s most notable physical attributes. The track attracted modest attention until Kim Carnes revived it six years later, when it held the number-one position for nine weeks and received the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. Davis herself undertook no further professional singing yet continued acting in feature films and television movies until her death from cancer at age 81.
Albums
