While she was the star pupil at John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School in New York, another of her classmates was sent home because she was "too shy". It was predicted that this girl would never make it as an actress. The girl was Lucille Ball.

Ranked #15 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]

In 1952, she was asked to perform in a musical, "Two's Company." After several grueling months at rehearsals, her health deteriorated due to osteomylitis of the jaw and she had to leave the show only several weeks after it opened. She was to repeat this process in 1974 when she rehearsed for the musical version of The Corn Is Green (1945), called "Miss Moffat" but bowed out early in the run of the show for dubious medical reasons.

On her tombstone is written "She did it the hard way".

She suffered a stroke and a mastectomy in 1983.

Attended Northfield Mt Hermon high school.

Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA, just outside and to the left of the main entrance to the Court of Remembrance.

Mother of Barbara Merrill and grandmother of J. Ashley Hyman.

Director Steven Spielberg won the Christie's auction of her 1938 Best Actress Oscar for Jezebel (1938) for $578,000. He then gave it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. [19 July 2001]

When Bette learned that her new brother-in-law was a recovering alcoholic, she sent the couple a dozen cases of liquor for a wedding present.

Bette was elected as first female president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in October 1941. She resigned less then two months later, publicly declaring herself too busy to fulfill her duties as president while angrily protesting in private that the Academy had wanted her to serve as a mere figurehead for the company.

She considered her debut screen test for Universal Pictures to be so bad that she ran screaming from the projection room.

Her third husband Arthur Farnsworth was killed in an accidental fall in which he took a blow to the head.

Her real true love was director William Wyler but he was married and refused to leave his wife.

In Marked Woman (1937), Davis is forced to testify in court after being worked over by some Mafia hoods. Disgusted with the tiny bandage supplied by the makeup department, she left the set, had her own doctor bandage her face more realistically, and refused to shoot the scene any other way.

When she first came to Hollywood as a contract player, Universal Pictures wanted to change her name to Bettina Dawes. She informed the studio that she refused to go through life with a name that sounded like "Between the Drawers".

Nominated for an Academy Award 5 years in a row for movie in 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943. She shares the record for most consecutive nominations with Greer Garson.

After the song "Bette Davis Eyes" became a hit single, Ms. Davis wrote letters to singer Kim Carnes and songwriters Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon and asked how did they know so much about her. One of the reasons Davis loved the song is that her granddaughter heard it and thought her grandmother was "cool" for having a hit song written about her.

Measurements: 34C-21-34 (as a "too busty" starlet), 36C-25-35 (in 1940), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

While touring the talk show circuit to promote What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), she told one interviewer that when she and Joan Crawford were first suggested for the leads, Warner studio head Jack L. Warner replied: "I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for either of those two old broads." Recalling the story, Davis laughed at her own expense. The following day, she reportedly received a telegram from Crawford: "In future, please do not refer to me as an old broad!".

Was one of two actresses (with Faye Dunaway) to have two villainous roles ranked in the American Film Institute's 100 Years of The Greatest Heroes and Villains, as Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes (1941) at #43 and as Baby Jane Hudson in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) at #44.

Was named #2 on The Greatest Screen Legends actress list by the American Film Institute.

She was voted the 10th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

After her first picture, Davis was sitting outside the office of Universal Pictures executive Carl Laemmle Jr. when she overhead him say about her, "She's got as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville. Who wants to get her at the end of the picture?".

Attended Cushing Academy; a prep school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. An award in her namesake is given annually to one male and one female scholar-athlete of exceptional accomplishment in both fields.

Joan Crawford and Davis had feuded for years. During the making of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Bette had a Coca-Cola machine installed on the set due to Crawford's affiliation with Pepsi (she was the widow of Pepsi's CEO). Joan got her revenge by putting weights in her pockets when Davis had to drag her across the floor during certain scenes.

Desperately wanted to win a third Best Actress Oscar for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) as three wins in the leading category was unprecedented. (Walter Brennan had won three Oscars, but all of his were in the supporting category.) It was the general feeling among Academy voters that while Davis was superb, the film was little better than a pot-boiling exploitation film, the kind of movie that doesn't deserve the recognition that an Oscar would give it.

Each of her four husbands were Gentiles, while her friend Joan Blondell's husband Michael Todd was Jewish. Blondell called Davis' brace of husbands the "Four Skins.".

According to her August 1982 PLAYBOY Magazine interview, in her youth, Bette posed nude for an artist, who carved a statue of her that was placed in a public spot in Boston, Mass. After the interview appeared, Bostonians searched for the statue in vain.

She was of Welsh and Scottish descent. She came to Cardiff in 1975 for a theatre tour and went to the Welsh Valleys in search of relatives - and found them. She had been learning Welsh in order to come to Wales; however, she only used the words "Nos Da" (meaning "good night") while in the country and had forgotten all the other phrases she had learned.

She claimed to have given the Academy Award the nickname "Oscar" after her first husband, Harmon Nelson, whose middle name was Oscar, although she later withdrew that claim. Most sources say it was named by Academy librarian and eventual executive director Margaret Herrick, who thought the statuette resembled her Uncle Oscar.

Murdoch University (Western Australia) Communications Senior Lecturer Tara Brabazon, in her article "The Spectre of the Spinster: Bette Davis and the Epistemology of the Shelf," quotes the court testimony of first husband, Harmon Nelson, to show what a debacle her private life was. During divorce proceedings, Nelson was successful in sustaining his charge of mental cruelty by testifying that Davis had told him that her career was more important than her marriage. Brabazon writes that Bette Davis, claiming she was beaten by all four of her husbands, believed that she should have remained single.

She was voted the 25th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine.

In 1952, she accepted the Oscar for "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" on behalf of Kim Hunter, who wasn't present at the awards ceremony.

Is one of the many movie stars mentioned in Madonna's song "Vogue"

Is portrayed by Elissa Leeds-Fickman in My Wicked, Wicked Ways... The Legend of Errol Flynn (1985) (TV).

She said that among the jokes told about her, her favorite came from an impressionist who, dressed up like her, commanded the audience "Someone give me a cigarette". When the request was granted the performer threw it on the floor and shouted "LIT!"

For many years she was a popular target for impressionists but she was perplexed by the often used phrase "Pee-tah! Pee-tah! Pee-tah!". She said she had no idea who Pee-tah was and had never even met anyone by that name.

While filming Death on the Nile (1978), aboard ship, no one was allowed his or her own dressing room, so she shared a dressing room with Angela Lansbury & Maggie Smith.

Her performance as Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950) is ranked #5 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).

Her performance as Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950) is ranked #11 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.

Is portrayed by Nancy Linehan Charles in Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996) (TV)

Declined a role in 4 for Texas (1963), to do Dead Ringer (1964).

Described the last three decades of her life as a "my macabre period". She hated being alone at night and found growing older "terrifying".

Had a long running feud with Miriam Hopkins.

When she died, her false eyelashes were auctioned off, fetching a price of $600.

Previously, she had said that her biggest secret was brown mascara.

In an interview with Dick Cavett in 1971, she said her salary at the time she shot Jezebel (1938) was $650 a week.

She was of English, French, and Welsh descent.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 232-235. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.

In Italian films, she was dubbed in most cases by Lidia Simoneschi or Andreina Pagnani. Occasionally, she was also dubbed by Tina Lattanzi, Giovanna Scotto, Rina Morelli or Wanda Tettoni.

Was first offered the role of Luke's mother in "Cool Hand Luke (1967), but refused the bit part.