STUDENT ESSAY

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What a Real Piece of Americana is

     "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night"- It's known as one of her most famous expressions in all her movies. Character, charisma, talent, energy and beauty were the descriptions which made her The First Lady of the American Screen. I'm referring to Bette Davis of course.

Bette Davis was born Ruth Davis on April 5, 1908 in Lowell, Massachusetts. She started her career on off-Broadway and little by little made it to Hollywood. Bette Davis created a new kind of screen protagonist with drama and character in her movies. She was the synonym of an actress able to play diverse, difficult and powerful roles on the big screen as well as off-screen. Bette Davis's acting left her footprints all over the United Sates and the entire world and created a new standard for actresses. Few actresses can be compared with Bette Davis whose appearances on the screen lasted for six decades. "Old age isn't for sissies" expressed Davis, when she realized Hollywood didn't create good and challenging roles for actresses later in life.  But she broke this tradition working into her eighties and still had the same success. Bette is the example of a fighter making dreams real starting from the bottom in boarding schools to the top in being the highest paid woman and best actress in America by 1942. Bette Davis's death was just a small event when compared to the innumerable scenes, which were filmed in black and white, but are in full colors in Americans' hearts. Betty Davis is a big immovable piece of American culture that will last forever.

     Acting was Bette Davis's life and through it she made herself known. Her first contract in Hollywood was with Universal Pictures late in 1930 when she made her first movie "Bad Sisters." After this film she began getting more movie roles appearing in four to six movies per year. Even though she was getting famous, her roles at Universal weren't what she was looking for. Bette wanted more important roles and Universal didn't have them for her. In 1932 she signed a seven-year deal with Warner Brothers and here is when the action begins. Bette Davis was nominated for 10 Oscars in her career of 100 movies and won two of them for her performances in "Jezebel" (1939) and "Dangerous" (1935.) Bette Davis was known as the queen of Hollywood because she showed how much she loved acting in her way of speaking, moving and walking- so alive, so real. She gave all her life, all her energy from her very early years to her last days of life. It's there when a human shows passion for something- Bette's passion was movies "my favorite subject for conversation is work and the second is men" said Bette in an interview for Vanity Fair magazine. William Wyler was the director of "Jezebel." He was one of the greatest American directors who helped Bette Davis achieve her full potential sending Bette Davis to the highest stardom. Wyler became her close friend and the success of her career -"because of him, my name was above the line for the first time, and it's stayed there ever since" exclaimed Bette Davis. People were really excited to see what the next film would be with Davis. She was so different from other actresses- Bette Davis had something that Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford and others didn't have; she was an actress "living" the lines of the movie and not actresses trying to be alive "following" lines of a movie.

    Besides, being full of energy as an actress, her contributions to society were also part of her active life. Bette Davis organized "The Hollywood Canteen" during World War II for soldiers passing through Los Angeles. The Hollywood Canteen was the result of the need for a club for servicemen who frequented Hollywood. Davis with her friend Jules Stein (president of the Music Corporation of America) opened the canteen on October 3, 1942. Many different organizations donated more than $3,000 weekly for food. Now, over 60 years later The Hollywood Canteen continues to serve as a place for entertainment and good times with lots of history. Betty Davis also created the Bette Davis Foundation, which has been perpetuating the ideas and remarkable spirit that Davis personified by awarding scholarships in her name to talented acting students in college and universities across America. The students in this foundation are supported by Davis's son and her longtime friends who work to help achieve students' dreams of obtaining stardom. They take Betty Davis's performances as examples of integrity in films. Davis always was a leader and a pioneer for all young actresses who wanted to take their own path. Bette had a very sweet heart. She wanted to help people who were in the same position she was before; a teenager without money wanting to be a star.

     If a characteristic can define Bette Davis apart from being an excellent actress is that she was a person of strong mentality not only in her professional life but also in her private. Bette changed what Hollywood used to be- a world dominated by men. She ended the idea that women in Hollywood were represented by men and not by themselves, while she was the first woman who broke the taboo of intimidated shy woman to a revolutionary free Bette Davis culture. Now, actresses are able to say and express themselves without a man figure to depend on. Bette braved all her life as an independent woman. Women, and surprisingly also men, admire her because of her hard-as-an-ice-cube strength but also sensible heat. Even though her private life wasn't as successful as her professional life, she was going straight up to the peak of fame. She was married four times and had three children two adopted and one daughter from her second marriage, B.D. Hyman who wrote two tell-all books about her mother's destructive behavior. "Finding out that my only natural child not only didn't love me but detested me was the most terrible thing in my life" said Bette in one of her interviews. However, all of those sad event were happening, there she was - behind the camera acting what in many times she dreamed of her life to be like, a movie of happy endings. That was what everybody is astonished about her path in her life.

     "I'd love to kiss you but I just washed my hair." How can someone forget those words said by Bette Davis in "Beyond the Forest"? She really knew how to put a smile into her words. On October 6, 1989 Betty Davis passed away of many health problems in her life including breast cancer and a stroke, which was the cause of her death. She died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France and she is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Before her death the singer Kim Carnes in 1982 hit "Bette Davis Eyes" and immortalized her forever.  Many years after her first movie, American Culture still has a big space to place Bette Davis as The Diva of all times. She is what Hollywood means, and what a good actress and a good movie is about: power, talent and beauty. Bette Davis is a piece of Americana living in almost every corner of the world; nobody can forget Betty Davis's eyes.

Juan Pablo Gomez
2006

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