Bette Quotes

“Two people, two hands, and two songs, in this case "Big Shot" and "Bette Davis Eyes." The lyrics of the two songs provided no commentary, honest or ironic, on the proceedings. They were merely there and always underfoot, the insistent gray muck that was pop culture. It stuck to our shoes and we tracked it through our lives.”

— Colson Whitehead

“To Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, Romy Schneider ... To all actresses who have played actresses, to all women who act, to all men who act and become women, to all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother.
- Dedication, Todo Sobre Mi Madre”

— Pedro Almodóvar

“Bette Davis lived long enough to hear the Kim Carnes song, 'Bette Davis Eyes'. The lyrics to that song were not very interesting. But the fact of the song was the proof of an acknowledgement that in the twentieth century we lived through an age of immense romantic personalities larger than life, yet models for it, too - for good or ill. Like twin moons, promising a struggle and an embrace, the Davis eyes would survive her - and us. Kim Carnes has hardly had a consistent career, but that one song - sluggish yet surging, druggy and dreamy - became an instant classic. It's like the sigh of the islanders when they behold their Kong. And I suspect it made the real eyes smile, whatever else was on their mind.”

— David Thomson

“We worked so hard," [Joan Blondell] said, "and hardly ever had a day off ... Saturday was a working day and we usually worked right into Sunday morning." Joan's good nature may have worked against her in the long run. While fellow Warner Brothers workers Bette Davis, James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland and Humphrey Bogart fought like lions for better roles and more creative input, Joan took things in stride, at least through the early 1930s. "I just sailed through things, took the scripts I was given, did what I was told. I couldn't afford to go on suspension-my family needed what I could make.”

— Eve Golden

“Wonderful. Visions of Aunt Bette McGyvering an explosive with that exposed nail, some lint from her pocket and spit filled my head just as the door opened quickly and shut just as quickly.”

— Kristen Ashley

“I was inspired more by early Bette Midler. I do wear a fancy dress and very high heels - and extra high hair. My goal is to obliterate all earnestness.”

— Ana Gasteyer

“There was an inquiry just last week about the new Bette Midler show, and I just didn't want to do that.”

— Robert Urich

“I could never understand the attraction of Bette Davis. I always preferred Jane Russell.”

— Richard Griffiths

“I kind of wanted to be a waitress in New York City. I thought it was fun and glamorous in its own way. Like in the movie 'Beaches,' when Bette Midler is banging on the radiator, and it's cold, and she's poor. I kind of thought that would be fun to be, like, a poor, struggling actor.”

— Kether Donohue

“I loved all those classic figures from the '30s and '40s ... Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, Rita Hayworth. They had such glamour and style. I loved the movies of those times too - so much attention paid to details, lights, clothing, the way the studios would develop talent.”

— Grace Jones

“In the movies, Bette Davis lights two cigarettes and hands the second one to James Cagney. It was just so glamorous and romantic.”

— Loni Anderson

“They always threw their arms around and hugged me while crying our Yiddish endearments. Yet none of them believed in God. They believed in social justice, good works, Israel, and Bette Midler. I was nearly thirty before I met a religious Jew.”

— Anne Lamott

“Liberace was a miracle. You talk about who he was and what he did, and then you look at who he inspired, from Elton John to Cher to Michael Jackson to Bette Midler. There are so many people that came to see him. Elvis was there, watching his shows.”

— Scott Bakula

“Any of Bette Midler's concerts should be required viewing for every actor/performer. She has the audience in the palm of her hands at all times and can switch emotions on a dime: Great singer, great actress, great comedian - fearless.”

— Bryan Batt

“I always loved the bad girls in the movies. I loved Bette Davis; I loved Katherine Hepburn. I loved Ava Gardner.”

— Imelda May

“I adore Bette Davis and Vivien Leigh, but more because they were good actresses. That's what makes me interested in them, that they didn't present themselves as idols; they were just doing their jobs.”

— Imelda Staunton

“Out into the staff quarters. Over to the entrance to the movie theater. Tohr stopped dead. "If this is another Beaches marathon, I'm going to Bette your ass until you can't sit down."
"Aw, look at you! Trying to be finny."
"Seriously, if you have any compassion in you at all, you'll let me go to bed-"
"I have peanut M&M's up there."
"Not my style."
"Raisinets."
"Feh."
"Sam Adams."
Tohr narrowed his eyes. "Cold?"
"Downright icy."
Tohr crossed his arms over his chest and told himself he was not pouting like a five-year-old. "I want Milk Duds."
"Got 'em. And popcorn."
With a curse, Tohr yanked open the door and ascended into the dimly lit red cave.”

— J.R. Ward

“So, I certainly subscribe to what Bette said about acting being very hard work.”

— Marie Windsor

“I don't think I have the image that say, Judy Garland has, or Bette Davis.”

— Julie Andrews

“I'd love to play a femme fatale in a film noir. I'm thinking of one of those roles that Lauren Bacall or Bette Davis might have played. What I wouldn't like is to suddenly find myself being cast, as many senior actresses seem to be, as the abbess in a convent.”

— Diana Quick

“I keep saying that, if Samuel L. Jackson and Bette Davis could have a baby, it would be Taraji P. Henson. To me, she's one of the greatest character actors of our generation, let alone leading ladies. She's just phenomenal in everything she does.”

— Jussie Smollett

“There will be no 'Mommie Dearest' in the lives of my children, and no books like the one the Crosby boy wrote about Bing, or Bette Davis's daughter has written. My children love me very much, and they are loved.”

— Don Ameche

“Beauty is subjective: Bette Davis wasn't beautiful, but she was more than beautiful.”

— Jacques Audiard

“I worked with Dionne Warwick, did shows with Bette Midler, and then I did the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Springsteen at the Garden. It was all important stuff because you want people to know you can work, you can sing, and you can still look good!”

— Darlene Love

“Smoke was a person with a sense of history. Do you know what I mean? ... in truth, I DID know what she meant. Da Vinci, Martin Luther King, Jr., Genghis Kahn, Abraham Lincoln, Bette Davis - if you read their definitive biographies, you learned even when they were a month old, cooing in some wobbly crib in the middle of nowhere, they already had something historic about them. The way other kids had baseball, long division, Hot Wheels, and hula hoops, these kids had History and thus tended to be prone to colds, unpopular, sometimes plagued with a physical deformity (Lord Byron's clubfoot, Maugham's severe stutter, for example), which pushed them into exile in their heads. It was there they began to dream of human anatomy, civil rights, conquering Asia, a lost speech and being (within a span of four years) a jezebel, a marked woman, a little fox and an old maid.”

— Marisha Pessl

“I'd watch old movies with Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and Bette Davis and long to be part of that glamorous world. A lot of that glamour is gone now. In my own small way, I hope I'm bringing some of it back. But it would be great if I could inspire women to dress up.”

— Imelda May

“It's weird, because American films in the 1930s and '40s, particularly melodramas, were made for woman, from Bette Davis to Joan Crawford to Barbara Stanwyck to Katherine Hepburn, and for some reason we've taken a step backward in this sense.”

— James Gray

“I always felt that Bette Davis was one of the great screen actresses who never really got her due - she won two Oscars, but the last was in 1938, and that was really before all the great work that she did.”

— Robert Osborne

“When I was a kid, it was Bette Davis. She was my idol. I used to cut school and sit in the back of the theater; of course, I would have snuck in because I couldn't afford a ticket.”

— Lauren Bacall

“I don't think I had the aspiration to be a star growing up. I loved Madonna and Bette Midler, and I had my karaoke machine and would sing their songs.”

— Mandy Moore

“We had a moment in the '40s and '50s, where female characters were very strong in film, where these incredible roles were written for women like Joan Crawford, like Bette Davis. But then there was a space of time where - I don't know why - it wasn't like that. It became difficult for women to find certain roles after a certain age.”

— Monica Bellucci

“I'm a great believer in conversational rhythm. I think in terms of rhythmic dialogue. It's so easy, you can talk naturally. It's like peas rolling off a knife. Take the great screen actors and actresses, Bette Davis, Eddie Robinson, Jimmy Cagney, Spencer Tracy. They all talk in rhythm. And rhythm and movement are the life of the screen.”

— Lorenz Hart

“I think one of my favourite films is 'Dark Victory' with Bette Davis. Why? She was so wonderful in that film. And maybe I just want a good cry once in a while without having to go through a divorce.”

— Debbie Reynolds

“Clearly, in an infinite universe every possibility must exist, including Balzac's. Imagining Cousin Bette called her into beaing, although only potentially. The universe is merely a quantity of information; imagining a fictional character does not add to that quantity
it cannot do so by definition
but does reorganize it slightly. The Bette-ish universe has not material existence, but the initial idea in Balzac's brandy-soaked brain then spreads outwards: not only to those who read his books, but also, by implication, backwards and forwards. Imagining Cousin Bette also creates, in potential, her ancestors and descendants, friends, enemies, acquaintances, her thoughts and actions and those of everybody else in her universe.”

— Iain Pears

“Bette Davis taught Hollywood to follow an actress instead of the actress following the camera, and she's probably the best movie actress there's ever been.”

— Elaine Stritch

“When asked what it takes to succeed in the acting profession, Bette Davis would answer, "the courage to be hated."”

— Frank Langella

“I just loved Bette Davis and the fact that I had a chance to work with her [on the 1979 TV movie Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter] was momentous.”

— Gena Rowlands

“Bette Davis had very strong opinions and was not afraid to express them. She wasn't afraid of anything that I ever saw. And she was so funny. She's just funny and she was laughing all the time.”

— Gena Rowlands

“It's more interesting to put yourself in the place of Bette Davis than Irene Dunne, I guess.”

— Charles Busch

“If Mr. Vincent Price were to be co-starred with Miss Bette Davis in a story by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe directed by Mr. Roger Corman, it could not fully express the pent-up violence and depravity of a single day in the life of the average family.”

— Quentin Crisp

“You know, you have Scorsese who worked with De Niro and - or DiCaprio. You have William Wyler who worked with Bette Davis. You have George Cukor who worked with Katharine Hepburn. I just - people get to be friends and then there's a - that's a - you can take risks together and each time out you take a different risk.”

— David O. Russell

“The only street I like is Rue Honore de Balzac, because 'Balzac' sound so gay, and I love my gays. I might like Parisians more if they named their streets only for gay icons, like Rue Liza Minnelli or Rue Bette Midler or, my favorite, Rue McClanahan.”

— Joan Rivers

“Bette Davis had a phrase that called it "cigarette smoking acting" .”

— Joe Eszterhas

“I had never done a Director's Cut narration on Beaches so I did in time for the release of the DVD. It was a great visit and I do a whole-behind-the-scenes thing and I tell stories about Bette [Mudler] and Barbara Hershey and everybody and that was fun. It made me cry again.”

— Garry Marshall

“[Beaches] is a pretty picture and I just liked having somebody like Bette [Mudler] who can be flying in the big comedy scenes and have her do more like a realistic part.”

— Garry Marshall

“For a long time, way back in the '30s and '40s, there were fabulous female roles. Bette Davis and all those people had incredible, great roles. After World War II, something happened where it was not only "get out of the factories," but "get out of the movies." That's when women's roles started to really [change].”

— Geena Davis

“People talk about the golden age of Hollywood because of how women were lit then. You could be Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and work well into your 50s, because you were lit and made into a goddess. Now, with everything being sort of gritty, women have this sense of their use-by date.”

— Cate Blanchett

“I think mystery is kind of great. I don't know anything about Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner - not really - and I like that. I love watching their movies because they're my personal movie stars. I don't know what they eat and who their trainer is.”

— Rachel Weisz

“I get up at seven for the make-up, Rita Hayworth at six, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis at five. I don't want to know the time when I'll have to come to the studio even earlier.”

— Grace Kelly

“There's like this great thing that Bette Davis said when someone asked her, "How do you get into Hollywood?" "Take Fountain!"”

— Winona Ryder