DVD Tuesday Fasten your seat belts All About Eve elevates backbiting betrayal and world-class bitchiness to an art formThere are mean girls and then there are grade-A world-class take no prisoners bitches and no one played them better than Bette Davis As All About Eves vain thin-skinned high-handed hard-drinking chain-smoking Margo Channing a veteran Broadway headliner whose star is losing its luster shes an absolute monster of the most entertaining kindThe role revitalized the 41-year-old Davis then-flagging career and she only scored it after Claudette Colbert hurt her back Davis always said she modeled Margo on the legendary hell-raiser Talullah Bankhead but she could have found plenty of inspiration closer to home Addison DeWitt George Sanders Margos nemesis is more than her match Who better than a man who called his autobiography Memoirs of a Professional Cad to play a drama critic whose barbed tongue is dipped in poison Simon Cowell is an ama
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She's calm, cool and classy — and not too big for a behind-the-scenes gig. Between making movies and her upcoming guest arc on the new season of Rescue Me (premiering May 30), Susan Sarandon still found time to narrate a revealing documentary on one of the industry's legends, Stardust: The Bette Davis Story (tonight at 8 pm/ET on TCM), and she was gracious enough to chat with TV Guide about the film, fame and Oscar.
TV Guide: You know I have to say it: You've got
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Question: I know the Oscar statuettes are about a foot tall and weigh 8 pounds, but what are they made of, and is it true that they got their name because someone said it looked like their Uncle Oscar? That sounds like a made-up story.
Answer: Last part first: The official story is indeed that Margaret Herrick, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' first librarian in 1931 and its executive director from 1943 to 1971 (and for whom the Academy's Los Angeles library, where I've done my share of research, is named), saw one of the statuettes (designed by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons for the first ceremony in 1929) on a desk and exclaimed that it looked just like her Uncle Oscar. Which is sort of alarming in that it implies that her uncle was a bald nudist with a thing for (perhaps compensatory) swords. Many people prefer the slightly ruder version in which Bette Davis sugge
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Question: My father and I were chatting about Clint Eastwood's talent for directing actors to Academy Awards, now I'm wondering which director has directed the most actors to Oscar victories. My father is thinking William Wyler. Is he right?
Answer: Yes, he is: It's William Wyler. He directed 31 actors and actresses in performances that earned them Academy Award nominations. Bette Davis (Jezebel), Fay Bainter (Jezebel), Greer Garson (Mrs. Min
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Question: I remember seeing a movie, I think made in the '60s, about a mother who for some reason is holding her son's fiancée/girlfriend hostage in a basement or cage or something like that. It was extremely suspenseful, but can't remember the title! It's driving me nuts, because I'd like to see it again. Ring any bells?Answer: My vote goes to Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), one of a string of films starring golden-age movie divas as deranged and/or terrorized crones, notably Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), with Joan Crawford and Bette Davis; Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), with
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