Bette Davis well-known, particularly "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night". She was again nominated for an Academy Award, and critics such as Gene Ringgold described her Margo as her "all-time best performance". Pauline Kael wrote that much of Mankiewicz' vision of "the theater" was "nonsense", but commended Davis, writing "[the film is] saved by one performance that is the real thing: Bette Davis is at her most instinctive and assured. Her actress - vain, scared, a woman who goes too far in her reactions and emotions - makes the whole thing come alive." Davis won a Best Actress
All About Eve for Susan Hayward." Mankiewicz presented a film treatment of the combined stories under the title "Best Performance." He changed the main character's name from Margola Cranston to Margo Channing and retained several of Orr's characters — Eve Harrington, Lloyd and Karen Richards, and Miss Casswell — while removing Margo Channing's husband completely and replacing him with a new character, Bill Sampson. The intention was to depict Channing in a new relationship and allow Eve Harrington to threaten both Channing's professional and personal lives. Mankiewicz also added the characters Addison DeWitt, Birdie Coonan, Max Fabian, and Phoebe. Zanuck was enthusiastic and