Bette Davis (Portrait from Dark Victory Poster)

Bette Davis — Hollywood Icon Tee

Few actresses in Hollywood history possessed the talent, attitude, or sheer terrifying presence of Bette Davis. With those enormous eyes, that unmistakable voice, and a talent for delivering insults that could permanently damage a person's self-esteem, Davis became one of the greatest stars of Hollywood's Golden Age.

And she didn't get there by playing nice.

Born in 1908, Davis rose to fame during the 1930s, earning Academy Awards for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). At a time when Hollywood expected its leading ladies to be beautiful, agreeable, and preferably uncomplicated, Davis specialized in playing women who were difficult, ambitious, manipulative, emotionally unstable, and considerably more interesting than the men around them.

Her filmography is practically a greatest-hits collection of classic Hollywood drama. Dark Victory (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), Now, Voyager (1942), All About Eve (1950), and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) established her as an actress willing to be glamorous, grotesque, vulnerable, or downright monstrous if the role demanded it.

And then there was Margo Channing in All About Eve. Davis delivered one of cinema's most delicious performances as an aging Broadway star surrounded by ambition, betrayal, and people who really should have known better than to cross her. The film gave us the immortal warning, “Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.”

Naturally, the gays adored her.

Davis became a towering gay icon, beloved for her theatricality, defiance, camp appeal, and magnificent portrayals of women who refused to disappear quietly. From Margo Channing's acid tongue to Baby Jane Hudson's deranged makeup and increasingly questionable behavior, she gave generations of drag queens and queer movie lovers enough material to last several lifetimes.

And offscreen, she was every bit as formidable. Davis famously battled the Hollywood studio system for better roles, fought with directors and costars, and developed a legendary rivalry with Joan Crawford. Whether every story was true hardly mattered. Bette Davis had become an entire genre of Hollywood mythology.