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 known from early childhood as "Bette", was born on April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of Harlow Morrell Davis (1885 - 1938), a law student from Augusta, Maine, and subsequently a patent attorney, and Ruth Augusta (née Favór; 1885 - 1961), from Tyngsboro, Massachusetts. Bette's younger sister was Barbara Harriet. In 1915, Davis' parents separated, and Bette attended a spartan boarding school called Crestalban in Lanesborough in the Berkshires. In 1921, Ruth Davis moved to New York City with her daughters, where she worked as a portrait photographer. Betty later changed the spelling of her name to "Bette"