Showing posts with label Jezebel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jezebel. Show all posts

Best Supporting Actress, 1938

Awards presented February 23, 1939

The nominees were ... 
... when they should have been ... 

Bainter, who was also nominated as best actress for White Banners, became the first person to receive simultaneous nominations in both acting categories. A theater veteran who made her Broadway debut in 1912, she didn't succumb to the lure of Hollywood until 1934. A reliable character actress throughout the 1940s, she made her last screen appearance in The Children's Hour in 1961, seven years before her death, and received another nomination. In Jezebel, Bainter has the somewhat thankless role of Aunt Belle, who tries to talk some sense into Julie, played by Bette Davis, after her headstrong niece disgraces herself by wearing a red dress to a ball to which all the women are expected to wear white.  
Bette Davis and Fay Bainter in Jezebel 

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Best Actress, 1938

Awards presented February 23, 1939

The nominees were ... 
... when they should have been ... 
One of the many times that a Davis performance, abetted by Warner Bros. production values, triumphed over questionable material: a cornball melodrama. It's often said that Jezebel was a consolation prize for Davis's not getting the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind -- polls had been taken that showed she was a popular favorite for the role -- but David O. Selznick never really considered her for the part. It's more likely that Warners used the opportunity to cast her as a Southern belle as a way to get a jump on GWTW. Though she had previously won an Oscar for Dangerous, Jezebel was the film that made Davis a superstar. It was her first major role after an epic battle with the studio. Infuriated by the poor quality of the roles she had been cast in after her first Oscar, Davis tried to break her contract, sailing for England, intending to make films there. A court ruling in the studio's favor returned her to the fold, but she had apparently gotten the message across: The studio paid her court costs and offered her a series of superior scripts. The lead in Jezebel had been sought by Tallulah Bankhead and Miriam Hopkins. The latter had played the role on stage, and losing the part to Davis touched off a famous feud that would rage off-camera when both were cast in The Old Maid. Though her second Oscar was her last, Davis would accumulate ten nominations.    
Bette Davis, Fay Bainter, and Henry Fonda in Jezebel 

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