Let's Celebrate 117 'Goddam' Years Of Bette Davis

That's not a typo.

The adorable and sleepy Patch, courtesy of our pal Kevin!

Happy Weekend!

Today would have been Bette Davis’s 117th birthday if she were an actual immortal, which she would have been if there were any justice in the world. Clearly, there is not.

You know how there are just certain topics that you know so much about and have so many feelings that you have absolutely nowhere to begin? That’s me with the subject of Bette Davis. So I’m just gonna start in a random place and go from there, hmm?

As you may know, Bette Davis didn’t really do musicals (unless you count “I’ve Written A Letter To Daddy” from Baby Jane) — however, your first present this week is this bit from a picture called Thank Your Lucky Stars that was made during WWII, in which she sings a snappy little number called “They’re Either Too Young Or Too Old.”

I think she did pretty well! The stars of the film, which included Davis, Eddie Cantor, Dinah Shore, Errol Flynn (ick), and Olivia de Havilland (fine, but obviously we are Team Joan Fontaine forever), donated their salaries to the Hollywood Canteen, a club founded by Davis and John Garfield for enlisted men and women. (It was also an integrated club, which was notable given that USOs were still segregated at that point.)

Another thing Bette Davis didn’t do was TV, at least not until much later in her career — and then only in television movies and miniseries. But she almost did. In 1965, she made a pilot for a TV show called “The Decorator,” in which she portrayed an interior decorator who moves in with her clients. It was produced by Aaron Spelling and written by Mart Crowley, best known for having written the play The Boys in the Band. Co-starring was the fabulous Mary Wickes, who had appeared in three films with Davis, including Now, Voyager, in which she played Dora the Nurse.

Tragically for all of us, me in particular, no one bought it.

She also appeared in the pilot for another show, ABC’s “Hotel” (which starred her All About Eve co-star Anne Baxter), but had a stroke right afterwards and was unable to continue with it.

Anyway, the reason it says “Goddam” in the headline is because of Mother Goddam — both the name of a (very good and interesting) book about her career and the various roles she played, and the name of the most coveted role. A role we should all just be eternally grateful that she never got, because oh boy, it would have aged worse than Jezebel. Which, if you’ve seen Jezebel, is really saying something. The role of Mother Goddam comes from the play The Shanghai Gesture, which was later turned into a Gene Tierney picture. In the movie, which was practically Hays Coded to death, the character of Mother Goddam is changed to, swear to God, Madame Gin Sling and played by Ona Munson (Belle Watling in Gone With The Wind) in full yellowface. Also Victor Mature as an Arab man. I haven’t actually seen it, but it sounds embarrassing and I am glad Bette Davis was not in it. (If you want to see Gene Tierney in a film noir, go with Laura instead.)

Regardless, Mother Goddam, independent of context, is a pretty great name.

There aren’t really a whole ton of quirky videos featuring Bette Davis in any capacity, but there is this hideous “Inside Edition” clip featuring her bitch of a daughter, BD Hyman (who is now a Christian minister or something), accusing her of having practiced witchcraft.

Honestly, I kinda wish that were true, because that would have been cool as hell, but Davis was actually just an Episcopalian. She didn’t even really have any major scandals the way so many movie stars have and did even back then. Hell, I don’t think Kenneth Anger even bothered to lie about her in Hollywood Babylon. It seems like she was usually too busy working or trying to work, so it’s hard to figure out when she’d find the time to go around cursing anyone — even Joan Crawford.

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