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 second radio version of "All About Eve" starring Tallulah Bankhead as Margo Channing was presented on NBC's "The Big Show" by the Theatre Guild of the Air on November 16, 1952. Bankhead and many contemporary critics felt that the characterization of Margo Channing was patterned on her, a long-rumored charge denied by both Mankiewicz and Davis, but attested by costume designer Edith Head. Additionally, Bankhead's rivalry with her understudy (Lizabeth Scott) during the production of "The Skin of Our Teeth" is cited as an alternative hypothesis for the origin of Mary Orr's "The Wisdom of Eve," the original short story