Bette Davis theatrical actress Margo Channing in "All About Eve" (1950). Davis read the script, described it as the best she had ever read, and accepted the role. Within days, she joined the cast in San Francisco to begin filming. During production, she established what would become a life-long friendship with her co-star Anne Baxter and a romantic relationship with her leading man Gary Merrill, which led to marriage. The film's director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, later remarked: "Bette was letter perfect. She was syllable-perfect. The director's dream: the prepared actress." Critics responded positively to Davis' performance, and several of her lines became
Emlyn Williams Green" (1938), partly based on his own childhood in Wales. He starred as a Welsh schoolboy in the play's London premiere. The play came to Broadway in 1940 with Ethel Barrymore as the schoolteacher Miss Moffat. A 1950 Broadway revival starred Eva La Gallienne. The play was turned into a film starring Bette Davis, and again into a made-for-television film starring Katharine Hepburn, under the direction of Williams's close friend George Cukor. An attempt to turn the play into a musical in the 1970s, with Davis again in the role of the schoolteacher with lyrics by Williams, failed. So did