Just the other day I was talking to a friend about Bette Davis. My friend is a guy who loves movies, but who had never seen any of her movies.
I was trying to explain to him just how radical she was. You see, there were certain ironclad assumptions in old Hollywood.
One of those assumptions was that a movie star must always lead with attractiveness. It’s ok to play a dark and problematic character (Bogie did that quite a lot, for example), but underneath it all, your audience is still supposed to secretly want to sleep with you.
Davis blew all of that out of the water. Unlike her contemporaries, she leaned into embracing the realities of aging.
As the years went on, she boldly transitioned from being a glamorous leading lady to becoming one of the greatest character actors of all time. In fact her greatest performances were in that latter part of her career.
Just this morning I learned that today is her birthday. Please join me in wishing a very happy 118th birthday to one of the greatest legends of the silver screen.