35th Academy Awards 35th Academy Awards The 35th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1962, were held on April 8, 1963, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California, hosted by Frank Sinatra. The Best Actress Oscar occasioned the last act of the long-running feud between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. They had starred together for the first time in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", a surprise hit the previous summer. Davis was nominated for her role as the title character, a faded child star who humiliates the wheelchair-bound sister who eclipsed her fame in adulthood, while Crawford
Bette Davis an English teacher who saves a young Welsh miner (John Dall) from a life in the coal pits, by offering him education. The part had been played in the theatre by Ethel Barrymore, but Warner Bros. felt that the film version should depict the character as a younger woman. Davis disagreed, and insisted on playing the part as written, and wore a gray wig and padding under her clothes, to create a dowdy appearance. The film was well received by critics, and made a profit of $2.2 million. The critic E. Arnot Robertson observed: Only Bette Davis...could have combated so