Bette Davis her in the role of Margo Channing in "All About Eve". The First Day of Issue celebration took place September 18, 2008, at Boston University, which houses an extensive Davis archive. Featured speakers included her son Michael Merrill and Lauren Bacall. In 1997, the executors of her estate, Merrill and Kathryn Sermak, her former assistant, established The Bette Davis Foundation, which awards college scholarships to promising actors and actresses. Bette Davis became the first person to earn five consecutive Academy Award nominations for acting, all in the Best Actress category (1938-1942). Her record has only been matched by one other
Bette Davis admitted that her success had often been at the expense of her personal relationships. Married four times, she was once widowed and three times divorced, and raised her children as a single parent. Her final years were marred by a long period of ill health, but she continued acting until shortly before her death from breast cancer, with more than 100 film, television, and theater roles to her credit during her six-decade-long career. In 1999, Davis was placed second behind Katharine Hepburn on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema. Ruth Elizabeth Davis,