All rise...

...it's Miss Bette Davis's 115th birthday today...

...and she's looking good on it!

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (5th April 1908 – 6th October 1989)

Words of Wisdom

Happy Monday from today's birthday girl, Miss Bette Davis!

Indeed.

Monday's breakfast sorted

Our Patron Saint (and another birthday girl yesterday) Miss Bette Davis (5th April 1908 – 6th October 1989), doing what she does.

Miss Davis expects...

It is our Patron Saint Miss Bette Davis' birthday today! Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect...



To celebrate, here are a couple of choice extracts from The Devil in Miss Davis, a rather marvellous anecdotal article by veteran director William Frye that was published in Vanity Fair in 2010:

...when Bette Davis decided she wanted to go somewhere, you went. Naturally, we didn’t have a reservation, and [the club] Mocambo was jammed. There was a line of people standing behind a red rope waiting to get in. Bette was no more going to join that queue than fly to the moon. She marched up to the maître d’ and said, “We want a table for two.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Davis, there’s not an empty table in the room. Would you like to go to the bar and wait until one becomes available?”

“No,” she said haughtily. “Put one up.”

Moments later, we were escorted into the main room. Right next to the stage, where everyone could see us, they had put up a table about the size of a silver dollar. As Bette was being seated, she spotted two people at the door who were also having trouble getting in - Esther Williams and her husband, Ben Gage. “Esther! Ben!” she called across the room. “Come join us! There’s lots of room!”

They, too, jumped the line, and two more chairs were brought to our table. We danced and drank until the club closed.

And this [on the aftermath of Miss Davis being upstaged by Miss Crawford at The Oscars]:

Olivia de Havilland became very upset. She said it was terrible that Bette had lost, terrible that Joan Crawford had stolen the night, terrible, too, that the world would wake up the next morning to pictures of Crawford clutching an Oscar and assume she’d won it for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? ...

At that moment I made the most inappropriate comment I’ve ever made in my life - the wrong thing at the wrong time in front of the wrong person. I still cringe to recall it. I suddenly said, “Well, you have to admit, when Crawford came out on that stage, with that dress and that array of diamonds, she did look like the movie star of all time.”

There was dead silence. Olivia stopped commiserating. Bette stopped slicing bread. I stopped rocking.

“What did you say?” Bette asked, looking up. When I didn’t reply, she came at me with the knife. Pressing it to my chest, she repeated, “What did you say?”

I sat frozen in the rocker, imagining blood dripping down my pleated evening shirt, and repeated the monumentally stupid - but accurate - thing I’d said a few seconds earlier. After another interminable silence, she took the knife away. “You make me sick” was all she said.

Then she went back to slicing bread, and the party resumed. After more drinks, everybody had scrambled eggs and toast. I got home at five a.m. The “evening” had started 12 hours earlier. Neither of us ever mentioned the knife incident again.

There was only one Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (5th April 1908 – 6th October 1989)

A Camp Diva Xmas

Cheers from Jean Dawnay, Princess George Galitzine, last of the 50s "supermodels" (22nd March 1926 - 21st December 2016).

Seasons Greetings from Cher (and the Lennon Sisters):

Cher with the Lennon Sisters - Santa Baby

...from the marvellous Noele Gordon:

Noele Gordon - We Need a Little Christmas

...from Signorina Raffaella Carrà:

Raffaella Carra - Medley Canzoni Natalizie

...from Conchita Wurst (with a little help from Dame Shirley Bassey):

Conchita Wurst - Diamonds Are Forever

...from Miss Mitzi Gaynor:

Mitzi Gaynor and the Toy Soldiers - White Christmas

...and from Miss Bette Davis [actually 'Miss' Jimmy James, but we shan't quibble]!

Jimmy James as Bette Davis - Feliz Navidad

Now that's what I call a carol service!

It's my birthday...

...drinks are on Mother!

Inspired by Dolores Delargo Towers...

"Show Girl"


"Hollywood Affairs"


"Hollywood Hassle"

...these rather marvellous creations are the work of Robert "Bobby" Woods, a pop artist from London now residing in South Africa.

A little while ago I received a private message via my YouTube account from him: "I came across your blog Dolores Delargo Towers - Museum of Camp, as I am working on a new piece using Bette Midler as Deloris Delargo. I was having trouble trying to make this work until I saw your blog, it has lots of fabulous old star glamour. I would like to feature you and your blog in the tag.."

Of course, I said yes - and these are the result. I am flattered! They are gorgeous.

Visit Bobby's pop.art.place pages on Instagram for more.

Smile!

...It's Miss Crawford's birthday, bitches!

Show.

Those.

Teeth.

Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur, 23rd March 1904 – 10th May 1977)

I Do Not Wish To Be Told What To Do!

From a classic interview with the icon by Jim Emerson:

Bette Davis must have a cigarette.

For without a smoke, she cannot entirely be Bette Davis. The iconographic image is incomplete, like a bareheaded Gloria Swanson, an unarmed John Wayne, or a clean-shaven Bogart.

In her elegant fourth-floor apartment, just off Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, Miss Davis (she prefers the courtesy title) chain-smokes Vantage filters and, with stubborn ferocity, grinds her butts into the ashtray. Once snuffed by Miss Davis, those crooked stubs would not dare to continue smoldering.

She lights into the current nationwide anti-smoking movement with a mixture of glee and withering disdain, almost as if defending her legend against unruly hordes of nosy tobacco-haters.

"I Resent It More Than I Can Tell You!" she says at a rapid clip, delivering every word distinctly and discretely, as though each one were capitalized. "I Do Not Wish To Be Told What To Do!

"I wish to have my own life. All this whole thing has to do with people who gave up smoking and can't stand it! I think it's a big farce myself. And I think it's our own business what we do. Who has the right to say 'You can't smoke'? Makes me smoke MORE! Ha-HA-ha. No. I don't like it."

Shove that in your pipe and smoke it, Jane Ellison.

Miss Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (5th April 1908 – 6th October 1989)

Cheers!

...tomorrow is Mother's Day!

Xmas with the Stars

Jane Greer


Ann Miller


Sophia Loren


Cyd Charisse


Rita Hayworth


Shirley Jones pretends to touch a Christmas tree made of Joseff jewellery


Bette Davis

It's Bette Davis's anniversary...

...so CELEBRATE!

Or she will hurt you.

Bette Davis (5th April 1908 – 6th October 1989)

"I am just too much"

"Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life."

"An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring... I ought to know."

"When a man gives his opinion he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion she's a bitch."

"Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I'm not a bitch. Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies."

"Everybody has a heart. Except some people."

"In this business, until you're known as a monster you're not a star."

"Old age is no place for sissies."

"That's me: an old kazoo with some sparklers."

"I am just too much."

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (5th April 1908 – 6th October 1989)

Celebrate!

Cheers!

Over at Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle, we're celebrating FIVE YEARS...