The Best Actress of the 1960s: Bette Davis

If you've been following my series on the best actress of each decade, that rumbling sound that's been growing in the distance is the sound of Bette Davis fans wondering how on earth I could have left their hero out. Bette Davis certainly was a finalist in the 30s and 40s, though I feel her work in the 50s peaked with All About Eve as the decade opened. I've always felt there was a certain element of the creepy about Bette Davis even in her early days when she could get away with being cast as the sexy young thing in movies like Of Human Bondage and The Petrified Forest. On the other hand, I've never bought the idea that Bette Davis is one of those actresses you either love or hate. At her best she was almost on par with Barbara Stanwyck. At her worst she could dip down to the level of Katherine Hepburn. (Just in case you misunderstand me, let me clarify: I think Katherine Hepburn is the most overrated actress of all time.)

Getting back to the creepy quality of Bette Davis, I just think that there was something about her-maybe her infamous eyes-that destined her for the work she would turn in during the 1960s. While Elizabeth Taylor turned from a sex symbol into a bona fide actress during the 60s, and while the decade witnessed the birth of new superstars from Anne Bancroft to Faye Dunaway, when one looks back upon the actress who really defines a decade only slightly better for actresses than the 1950s it is Bette Davis.

Gothic horror became her specialty, starting with A Pocketful of Miracles. I know, I know, this movie isn't really considered a gothic horror movie, but what would you call it? Bette Davis' Apple Annie contains definite hints of Baby Jane. In fact, really, when you think about it all the characters that Bette Davis ever played contain hints of Baby Jane. Of course, it is the gothic horror and horror parodies that really define Bette Davis as the best actress of the 1960s. From Whatever Happened to Baby Jane to Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte to The Nanny and even The Anniversary, Bette Davis found a niche in this decade that nobody else could even come close to playing to such perfection. She is by turns pathetic and malevolent in these films and no one who has ever watched it is likely to forget the scene in Baby Jane where she serves dinner to her sister, played by another actress whose every role seemed to lead her straight to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Joan Crawford. (An interesting bit of trivia: In what must rank as the most ironic name change in movie history, Joan Crawford was actually born with the name Lucille LeSeur. I ask you, if you were given those two names and had to pick which was the real one and which was the Hollywood screen name, wouldn't you think Joan Crawford was the real one?)

The part of Baby Jane was no doubt enhanced by the macabre makeup job which was entirely prescient; Bette Davis eventually came to resemble Baby Jane as she grew older. It is quite obvious that Davis was having a grand old time in these movies. You get the distinct feeling that almost any character that she played earlier could have grown into the characters in her 60s movies. The most obvious might be Dead Ringers, which almost functions as a mirror image of an earlier Bette Davis classic called A Stolen Life. Both movies feature plots about twin sisters trying to pass themselves off as the other. But even her ambiguous character in The Nanny harkens back to some of Bette Davis' earlier roles. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that her Nanny character is really not all that different from Margo Channing in some ways. That may sound like a leap, but watch them back to back and you'll see what I mean.

Maybe it is simply because I have a built-in view of Bette Davis that is less than flattering; I just was always kind of scared of her as a kid. Whatever the reason, I am far more comfortable and impressed with the Bette Davis of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane than the Bette Davis of Jezebel. Not that I don't think you shouldn't watch her earlier movies. Do so by all means, but you simply cannot afford to miss her come into her prime in the 1960s.