The then fictional ‘Sarah Siddons Award’, now a real award, is first referred to in the opening scene of which film starring Bette Davis?
Sarah Siddons Award Sarah Siddons Award The Sarah Siddons Award, established in 1952, is presented annually to an actor for an outstanding performance in a Chicago theatrical production. The winner receives a statuette of the Welsh stage actress Sarah Siddons. It is awarded by the Sarah Siddons Society, an American non-profit organization founded in 1952 by prominent Chicago theatre patrons with the goal of promoting excellence in the theatre. The Society and its award were inspired by a fictional award depicted in the opening scene of the Joseph L. Mankiewicz film "All About Eve", winner of the 1950 Academy Award for Best Picture.
Sarah Siddons Award The film opens with the image of an award trophy, described by character Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) as the "highest honour our theater knows: the Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement." The award was invented by Mankiewicz for the script. In 1952, a small group of eminent Chicago theater-goers, including actress Edith Luckett Davis, mother of future First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan, organized the Society and began presenting an award physically modeled and named after the one in the film. During the Sarah Siddons Society Anniversary Gala in 1973, an honorary Sarah Siddons award was presented to Bette Davis, even