April 5th: Bette Davis's birthday

Actress Bette Davis was born on this date in 1908. 10 things you might not know about Bette Davis:

1. Her given name was Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known from early childhood as Betty, She changed the spelling of her name to "Bette" after Honoré de Balzac's La Cousine Bette.
2. She was of English and Welsh descent, and learned to speak Welsh in advance of a 1975 theatre tour in Cardiff; but forgot most of it once she got there and found her relatives. The only phrase she could remember and use once she got there was "Good night".
3. She wasn't an instant success - she failed several auditions and screen tests before her career took off. She considered her first screen test for Universal Pictures to be so bad that she ran screaming from the projection room.
4. Her first film was The Bad Sister in 1931. Universal Studios were considering ending her contract until cinematographer Karl Freund suggested would be suitable for the role because she had "lovely eyes".
5. Universal Pictures wanted to change her name to Bettina Dawes. She refused, because she did not want to be stuck with a name that sounded like "Between the Drawers".
6. She changed the way Academy Awards were voted for. She earned critical acclaim for her role as Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage, but wasn't nominated for an award. Norma Shearer, who had been nominated, and others questioned this and campaigned for Davis to be included. The Academy president, Howard Estabrook, allowed, for the only time in the history of the awards, voters to write the name of their personal choice to win on the ballot paper rather than just ticking a box for one of the official nominees. Thereafter all the eligible members of the Academy could vote for nominations instead of a small committee, and the votes would be counted independently by the accounting firm Price Waterhouse.
7. Davis was married four times and had three children, two of which were adopted. One of her husbands died of a head injury after a fall; another left her for her daughter's nanny.
8. In January 1941, Davis became the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but she was not popular with the committee members, and resigned after just a few weeks.
9. Her fans wanted her to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, and she rather fancied the role herself - but David O. Selznick did not think she was suitable.
10. On her tombstone is written: "She did it the hard way."