Baby Jane Hudson characters, "Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte", also starring Davis as a mentally unstable recluse lost in her delusions. Jane and Blanche's story is parodied in an apocryphal comic strip in "" by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. In this film, director Robert Aldrich mined the careers of his two stars, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (who played Blanche), by using their early (circa 1930s) film clips when the story called for examples of their characters' work. The other characters react to clips of Bette Davis's early roles with dismay at her "bad acting", and when clips of Joan Crawford's old movies
Bette Davis of Margo Channing in the film as fifth on their list of 100 Greatest Performances of All Time, commenting: "There is something deliciously audacious about her gleeful willingness to play such unattractive emotions as jealousy, bitterness, and neediness." While reviewing "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) in 2008, Ebert asserted that, "No one who has seen the film will ever forget her." A few months before her death in 1989, Davis was one of several actors featured on the cover of "Life" magazine. In a film retrospective that celebrated the films and stars of 1939, "Life" concluded that Davis