Bette and mother Ruthie were planning to go back East when Warner Bros. offered Bette this role. Murray Kinnell, who worked with her in “The Menace” at Columbia, recommended her to the star, George Arliss. Arliss remembered her as Hedwig in Blanche Yurka’s “The Wild Duck” on Broadway and he asked that she be interviewed for a part in this picture. Warner bros. offered her a $300-a-week, one-picture deal and Ruthie quickly unpacked.

Bette was billed as a “new comer…The girl with the sad face”. She played Grace, the young fiancée of an aging musician (Arliss) who had lost his hearing. Grace had fallen in love with another man but couldn’t desert the old maestro.

When the film wrapped, Warner Bros, signed Bette to a 26-week contract renewable up to 5 years. It was just the beginning. Bette would remain at that studio for 18 years..

Bette had finally beaten down Jack Warner’s resistance to loaning her out to RKO. About the same time the studio capitulated, Bette realized she was pregnant. Although she discussed the problem with both her husband (Ham) and Mama Ruthie she already had her mind made up and terminated the pregnancy.

Leslie Howard was to play obsessed Philip Carey to her Mildred Rogers and, even after 24 films, Bette saw it to be her first substantial dramatic opportunity since playing Hedvig on Broadway in 1929. And luckily, director John Cromwell knew just how to use her expressive stances and movements

Both Life magazine and the New York Times concluded it was easily her finest performance.

Dangerous (1935) Directed by Alfred E. Green Warner Bros. B/W

Bette with Franchot Tone

It was pure soap opera and prime Bette Davis…and it won her the Academy Award!

E. Arnot Robertson wrote in the Picture Post: “I think Bette Davis would have been burned as a witch if she had lived two or three hundred years ago. She gives the curious feeling of being charged with power which can find no ordinary outlet.”

Bette played Joyce Heath, a down and out stage star attempting to seduce architect Dan Bellows (Franchot Tone) into giving her the money to make a Broadway comeback. She just forgot to tell him she was already married and her hubby won’t let her go. So she tries to do the poor fellow in and only succeeds in crippling him. Nice lady! She loses Franchot but gets her comeback and tries to make up to hubby.

Bette was astonished at her Oscar nomination for this role but immediately dispatched her attorney to wrangle a new contract from Jack Warner who learned just how “dangerous” she could be….!

…with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart

The Petrified Forest (1936) Directed by Archie Mayo Warner Bros. B/W

Overshadowed by Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart, both carryovers from the Broadway production of Robert E. Sherwood’s play, Bette still gave life and dimension to her role as Gaby, who waits on tables in her father’s service station lunchroom and dreams of studying art in Paris. This was her second picture with Leslie Howard, the sensitive British actor who played the martyr role of Alan Squier like a custom tailored suit. It was her third effort with Bogart (“Bad Sister” 1931 and “Three on a Match” 1932) who was an even more forceful and menacing Duke Mantee on the screen than across the footlights.

Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times wrote: “…And there should be a large measure of praise for Bette Davis, who demonstrates that she does not have to be hysterical to be credited with a grand portrayal…”

Jezebel (1938) Directed by William Wyler Warner Bros. B/W

Bette with George Brent

Bette was certain she was born to play…Scarlett O’Hara! When the movie rights went to David O. Selznick, Warner Bros. wouldn’t loan her out and the coveted role eventually went to Vivien Leigh. To appease their star, Warner Bros. gave Bette another willful, passionate Southern belle role and it won her an Academy Award.

Pal Humphrey Bogart told her “I’ll give you just two weeks before you blow up and quit” when he heard William Wyler was directing the film. But Bette responded well to the demands Wyler made of her as an actress. During the first rehearsal, Wyler sent her home with the leather riding crop and voluminous black riding habit to find some nuance or gesture that would define the character of Julie Marsden. The result was the scene where Bette catches up the train of her outfit with the crop and sweeps it up over her shoulder.

It was also no secret that the star and the director were in the midst of a torrid affair. Moreover, they were 28 days over schedule because they had to wait for a pimple on Bette’s face to heal. But what no one knew at the time, even Bette, was that she was pregnant with Wyler’s child. It would be her second abortion.

This film began shooting under a very dark cloud. Bette was served with divorce papers from hubby Ham Nelson and she heard that lover William Wyler had just married a young actress, Margaret Tallichet. Director Goulding was so concerned he even asked co-star Geraldine Fitzgerald to try and cheer her up with a bit of Irish humor. It must have worked enough to let Bette start an affair with leading man George Brent. Another friendly face on the set was Humphrey Bogart who played the stable man and Judith Traherne’s confidante.

“Dark Victory” became one of Bette’s most popular films. Her blue mood heightened the effect of character Judith death scene while her added chemistry with Brent served to add credibility to the love scenes. James Shelley Hamilton of the National Board of Review magazine said of it “…she has never before seemed to be so entirely inside a part, with every mannerism and physical aspect of her suited to its expression.”

“You would never have thought that this quiet, refined woman was capable of such a fiendish passion”. So said the author of this compelling short story, Somerset Maugham. Katherine Cornell’s controversial portrayal of Leslie Crosbie had fascinated a 19-year-old Bette Davis who was then a drama student in New York.

The controversy still existed as jack Warner was warned by the Production Code Administration about bringing the play to the screen in its present form. And, if that wasn’t complication enough, Bette would have to work with William Wyler again. But somehow all the loose ends came together and Bette gave one of the best performances of her career. The Hollywood Reporter declared “…the star was never better in a role that called on every ounce of her great ability.”

After the film wrapped, Bette quietly made plans for her New Year’s Eve marriage to Arthur Farnsworth.

Bette was determined that her Regina would never be confused with the character played on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead even to designing the costumes and make up. She arrived on the set with costume designer Orry-Kelly and Makeup wizard Perc Westmore. The calamine-cover she did on her face was considered “grotesque” by just about everyone else but what Bette wanted, Bette got. The conflicts between Bette and Wyler were abetted by the hottest spring in recent years with temperatures reaching 100 degrees on set and it made filming this picture very uncomfortable.

During the second week of filming news leaked out that Bette had accidentally drank household ammonia instead of the sedative her doctor had prescribed and immediate first aid saved her life. Her recovery time played havoc with the schedule.

But the audiences came in droves and it was another triumph for Bette and remains a classic film even today. Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune called it “flawless and fascinating…” while Bosley Crowther of the New York Times said it was “…the most bitingly sinister picture of the year “and one of the “… the most cruelly realistic characters studies yet shown on the screen.”

Note….. Just after she finished ‘In This Our Life” in October, 1941 Bette was elected as the first female president of AMPAS (American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) only to resign 2 months later. Her public comment was that she was too busy. Privately she claimed they only wanted her as a figure head.

It was the epitome of soap operas but a film appropriate to its name. In the throes of WWII the story of a repressed woman on the verge of emotional collapse who steps back from the edge to face her fears and the world at large spoke to women who had to take the reins when their men went off to war. The film remains a sentimental favorite and one of cinema’s most romantic movies.

Bette was much less flexible during this filming and director Rapper used a more cajoling approach to his temperamental star. But even Rapper was amazed when Bette, weeping and sobbing uncontrollably at the end of a scene, suddenly turned it off when he yelled cut, flashed a big smile and shouted “How’d I do, boys?”

The role brought Bette another Oscar nomination but Greer Garson took home the statue for “Mrs. Miniver”.

Again, a Bette Davis movie set was punctuated by endless bickering between the star and her director.Victor Sherman had worked with Bette on “Old Acquaintance” when director Edmund Goulding suffered a massive heart attack and had to be replaced. The two embarked on a short lived affair but Sherman broke it off and Bette was still seething. The young director called it “the worst experience I’ve ever had”. The crew complained that Bette wanted to be star, director and producer. The picture wrapped 59 days over schedule.

Jack Warner decided it was time to make the contractual leash long enough to allow Bette to make some independent decisions of her own in addition to her obligations to the studio…5 films under “B.D. Inc.” and 9 films under Warner Bros direction. But first, she must do a picture of their choosing and they chose “The Corn is Green” with Irving Rapper as director. Bette, anxious to get it done and get on with her own choice, was almost saintly during that filming.

This was the first independent film under the B.D. Inc banner, a remake of Elizabeth Bergner’s 1939 movie. It is the story of two sisters, one evil and one good with Glenn Ford co-starring as the light house inspector who gets the bad end of a sister swap. The story and the script had little going for it either the first time or in this version.

Bette, who was gung-ho to produce her own films, failed painfully with this one. She took no hand in the actual production, staying instead in Georgia where her latest beau, a wealthy New York real estate man, was awaiting combat orders with the Signal Corps. She arrived just on time for shooting to start. Despite the fact the bucks were in her corner, the movie was 33 days behind schedule including the 7 days Bette took to be with Corporal Riley before his departure

Bette Davis had left Warner Bros after 18 years as a contract player. And, after one failure, she had dissolved B.D. Inc., her independent film company. She needed a good film role desperately and she got one as Margo Channing, a temperamental stage star director/screen writer Mankiewicz described as “a woman who treats a mink coat like a poncho”.

Mankiewicz created a stunning introduction to the character allowing voice-over narration to take the audience into the scene and allowing Bette as Margo to make her entrance with her eyes alone. And, once taking hold of that scene, she never once loses control of the film. Leo Mishkin (New York Morning Telegraph) said: “Bette Davis gives the finest, most compelling, and the most perceptive performance she has ever played out on the screen”. She received an 8th Academy Award nomination.

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford hated one another so the fireworks began before the set for this movie was even built. Crawford wanted the role of Baby Jane Hudson, the one time vaudeville star who constantly tortured her invalid sister Blanche. Bette was quoted by Paula Lawrence: “If she thinks I am going to play that stupid bitch in the wheelchair, she’s got another think coming.” So it was Joan that eventually took the part of Blanche but during filming both stars made their feelings known. Bette had Coca Cola put in all the vending machines (Joan was married to the head of rival company Pepsi-Cola) and Crawford had weights sown into her costume to make it more difficult when Bette had to push or pull her around. A good time was had by all.

Again, Bette was nominated for an Oscar. Again, she lost out…this time to Anne Bancroft for “The Miracle Worker”.

Bette and Olivia De Havilland

Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) Directed by Robert Aldrich Aldrich/20th Century Fox B/W

This picture was the closest Bette would get to real box office success since “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” in 1962.

Bette plays aging Charlotte Hollis, a recluse on the edge of dementia who lives in the house where her married lover was brutally murdered and beheaded years before. Now the old house was to be demolished to make room for a new highway and she believes her father will be accused of the murder. So she invites cousin Miriam (Olivia de Havilland) to come visit and begs her to stop the project. A web of intrigue and murder follows from there.

Gene Ringgold in “Sound Stage” said: “Bette Davis’ 76th screen performance is as rousing as a rendition of “Seventy-Six Trombones.”

This was Bette’s last feature film. Her co-star was Lillian Gish. Lillian was called “The First Lady of the Silent Screen” while Bette was referred to as “The First Lady of the Silver Screen”. Lillian played sweet younger sister Sarah to Bette’s waspish Libby in a story about two sisters growing old together in coastal Maine. Vincent Price and Ann Sothern made up the fine supporting cast.

Bette had her usual problems on the set. She fought with the director and was incredibly testy and rude to Lillian, who took the abuse graciously. Anderson’s direction, done his way to Bette’s consternation, brought out her finest performance in years.

Variety said of it: “..(The) muted but engrossing tale about the balance of power between two elderly sisters boasts superior lead performances from two of the screen’s most legendary actresses…”