If you ask anyone who lived in the 1980s, or since, the name of actress Bette Davis will immediately make you sing about her eyes like the chorus of the song Bette Davis Eyes, singer Kim Carnes‘ biggest hit. In 1981, when Bette was 73 years old, it was necessary to introduce her to new generations. More than forty years later, this becomes even more relevant!
The legend: the best, the most stormy and dedicated to art
Bette Davis has always been the benchmark of perfection, the Meryl Streep of her time. While actresses were for Fame first, Art later, Bette was Art, Art, and Art always, never worrying about looking beautiful (often going the opposite way) and placing herself as the Best Actress, not a star. With that, she reigned as exactly one of Hollywood’s greatest in the grandest sense of the term.
With 10 Oscar nominations, winning two and naming the Academy Award as a tribute to her ex-husband (Oscar), Bette Davis was synonymous with perfectionism. Her big blue eyes were exploited by her and the directors precisely because they were extremely expressive. And the characters? Strong, mysterious, bold. Murderous, rebellious, and confident, Bette Davis would never be a woman taken by surprise. Uncompromising and foul-mouthed, people adored and feared her in equal measure.
Without the obvious beauty expected by Hollywood, Bette arrived and grew up quickly precisely because she was determined and fearless. As she got older, she started working in television, more distant and almost forgotten in recent years. When Kim Karnes exploded onto the charts she sparked a new wave of curiosity about Bette, who iconically responded that she loved the success because she became more popular with her grandchildren.
The 1970s song, inspired by one of his best films
I know, I know… EVERYONE thinks Bette Davis Eyes is the “Kim Carnes song from the 1980s”, but it’s not. In fact, it was another woman, a fan of the actress, who wrote what would become the soundtrack to make Bettte definitively “immortal”.
Bette Davis Eyes was written in 1974 by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, two women who were inspired by the strength that Bette Davis represented for many women at the time. Jackie was a huge success in the 1960s, having toured and played with the Beatles when they exploded into the United States in 1964.
Jackie, who has been in the Composers Hall of Fame since 2010, composed Bette Davis Eyes in the jazz style of the 1920s, very different from what would be immortalized years later. She recorded the song on her album, New Arrangement, in 1975. According to her, impacted by the 1942 film, Now Voyager, she wrote the song, which in fact is not exactly “complimentary”, since the mysterious woman with expressive eyes like Bette’s, is somewhat dubious.
“Donna Weiss and I were writing a lot at the time, and we both liked black and white films. Donna had written a lot of pages, and I was playing around with the melody, and we put together ‘Bette Davis Eyes,'” she said years later.
The 1942 film is one of Bette’s best, which tells the transformation of a spinster Charlotte Vale into a glamorous and independent woman, with a stint in Rio de Janeiro (laughs, but seriously!), legendary phrases, and iconic costumes.
Although immediately delicious, the song didn’t make any waves in 1975. Six years later, when Kim Carnes was preparing to record her first solo album, Donna Weiss sent the demo to the singer who was immediately obsessed with it.
Apparently, the demo sounded like “a Leon Russell track” and not exactly the sound I was looking for, so they tried the now-famous keyboards to modernize it. In just three takes, a classic was born.
When it hit the radio and MTV, Bette Davis Eyes became an immediate success, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for nine consecutive weeks and winning the 1981 Grammy Awards for Song of the Year. And the best part was Bette Davis’s own reaction to the success.
Oblivious to the radio and MTV, the actress was surprised by the pride of her grandchildren, who told her about the biggest hit of the year. She immediately wrote letters to Carnes, Weiss, and DeShannon thanking them for making her “part of modern times.” More so, making her seem interesting to her grandchildren. In fact, what the song did was reinforce his immortality.
Bette Davis died in 1989, just as she was about to be honored at the San Sebastian Festival. She was 81 years old.
The curious thing is that Bette Davis Eyes also references other legends, such as Jean Harlow and Greta Garbo, but no one forgets the great actress’s eyes. An anthem that unites pop, music, and cinema. Perfection formula. Listen here:
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