Sarah Siddons painting. The film opens with a close-up of the statuette, and ends with a character holding it. Actress Bette Davis, who played Margo Channing in the film, posed as Siddons in a 1957 re-creation of the Reynolds portrait staged as part of the Pageant of the Masters. In April 2010, BBC Radio 4's "Woman's Hour Drama" presented "Sarah Siddons: Life in Five Sittings", a radio drama by David Pownall about the long relationship between Siddons and artist Thomas Lawrence, in five 15-minute parts. When the film "All About Eve" was released in 1950, the "Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement"
Bette Davis Giddens, a role originally played on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead (Davis had portrayed in film roles initiated by Bankhead on the stage twice before - in "Dark Victory", and "Jezebel)". Wyler encouraged Davis to emulate Bankhead's interpretation of the role, but Davis wanted to make the role her own. She received another Academy Award nomination for her performance, and never worked with Wyler again. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Davis spent the early months of 1942 selling war bonds. After Jack Warner criticized her tendency to cajole crowds into buying, she reminded him that her audiences responded most strongly