Dark Victory
The Life of Bette Davis
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The legendary Hollywood star blazes a fiery trail in this enthralling portrait of a brilliant actress and the movies her talent elevated to greatness
She was magnificent and exasperating in equal measure. Jack Warner called her "an explosive little broad with a sharp left." Humphrey Bogart once remarked, "Unless you're very big she can knock you down." Bette Davis was a force of nature—an idiosyncratic talent who nevertheless defined the words "movie star" for more than half a century and who created an extraordinary body of work filled with unforgettable performances.
In Dark Victory, the noted film critic and biographer Ed Sikov paints the most detailed picture ever delivered of this intelligent, opinionated, and unusual woman who was—in the words of a close friend—"one of the major events of the twentieth century." Drawing on new interviews with friends, directors, and admirers, as well as archival research and a fresh look at the films, this stylish, intimate biography reveals Davis's personal as well as professional life in a way that is both revealing and sympathetic. With his wise and well-informed take on the production and accomplishments of such movie milestones as Jezebel, All About Eve, and Now, Voyager, as well as the turbulent life and complicated personality of the actress who made them, Sikov's Dark Victory brings to life the two-time Academy Award–winning actress's unmistakable screen style, and shows the reader how Davis's art was her own dark victory.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The biggest surprise of Sikov's perceptive and superbly written new Bette Davis biography is that there are still fascinating details to be discovered after more than a dozen full-length biographies have been devoted to her since her 1989 death. Sikov (On Sunset Boulevard) follows the volatile actress's long career, specifying how her insecurities and craving for love "propelled her into the dueling self-medications of liquor and acting." Even she didn't seem to understand the anger that drove her to "battle everything she encountered, from Hollywood producers to the tarnished brass doorknobs in her many houses." Her personal life was littered with broken marriages, affairs, abortions, feuds and neglected family members, but professionally she created dozens of unforgettable performances. Both sides of her life make for compelling reading. Sikov spends two-thirds of the book documenting the grueling production of most of the 52 films Davis made under her 18-year contract at Warner Bros. These illuminating tales mix familiar lore with newly excavated material. Sikov loses some steam when Davis's film career sputtered in the late 1960s. The last 20 years (when she was "too ornery to die, too driven to sit still, too proud to recede into muted seclusion") is dismissed too quickly in 60 pages. Photos not seen by PW.
