The epitaph on her tomb stone reads, “She did it the hard way.” A line suggested to her by Joseph L. Mankiewicz shortly after they made “All about Eve” together and those six words simply independently place some of why Bette Davis was one of the greatest of all of Hollywood screen stars.

Born Ruth Elizabeth Davis in 1909, she was always known as Betty but changed the spelling of her teams out of admiration for Balzac’s novel La Cousine Bette. Her 60-year acting career included two Academy Awards for best actress and numerous icon grows for her husband in and one notoriously ungrateful daughter but success never came easy to Bette. Although she had one of the most striking and expressive faces in cinema, she was never considered conventionally beautiful. And the first four years into Hollywood were not encouraging.

Production assistant left her at the train station because he didn’t see anyone who looks like an actress. She was with Universal for about three years and 20 media of films by low serving to small studios like Capital films the1932’s Hell’s House. Finally though, she signed with Warner Brothers, appeared in her breakthrough role as Mildred Rogers in 1934’s “Of Human Bondage” and her career began to take off.

The role was significant to Bette and always the one. It marked to Williams to play unsympathetic characters, portray unusual among the contemporaries and one that stood her in great stage around her career. The reputations soared when her widely acclaimed performance in the film was overlooked resulting into a campaign to change the way nominations were organized.

The following year, she won her first Academy Award for “Dangerous” and then was cast to the succession of second rate pictures courting her to eventually break her contract by appearing in a public English film. Warner Brothers sued their opinionated star with a barrister, Sir Patrick Hasting meeting the picture of the greedy actress who only cared about the pay package. Bette however claimed that the film she was being given would kill her career stand dead. She lost the case but pave the way to for stars like Olivia de Havilland in similar cases in subsequent year.

And despite her off screen battles and her lost of face, her career did improved again. “Marked Woman” in 1937 earned her excellent reviews and 1938’s “Jezebel” was one of her greatest hits winning her a second Academy Award. Off screen, she had a passionate affair with Director William Wyler and though he refused to leave his wife for her, she would nevertheless later refer to him as the love of her life.

In the late 30s and early 40s, she was nominated for an Oscar five times in a row and with 1962s “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” became the first woman to gain ten nominations. The career fell into the doldrums again in the late 40s but the woman who once described herself as uncompromising, peppery, intractable, woman of icon, tactless, volatile and often time disagreeable simply picked herself up and went back to work because as she said, “Someone had to pay her groceries.”

One of the most fortunate moments in Bette’s career was when she received the call of Claudette Colbert had pulled out of “All About Eve”. Bette recognized the screen play as one of the best she’d ever read and jumped to the chance to play Margo Channing. The part earned her another Academy Award nomination in her fourth husband, co star Gary Merrill.

Her career continued to peak in those times right up until her death from breast cancer in 1989. She was devastated in her later years to have been the subject of a particularly mean spirited biography by her daughter. In 1981, the first woman to receive a lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute experience the whole new level of fame with younger audiences as the subject of King Kong’s monster hit Bette Davis “Eyes”.