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All About Eve (1950)

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Eve and Addison in Margo's dressing room

Two more of EVE's outstanding cast members, George Sanders as Addison DeWitt, the self-important theatre critic, and Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, the acting ingénue.  Sanders' performance earned him the only Oscar of his career.

"Eve.  Eve, the golden girl.  The cover girl.  The girl next door.  The girl on the moon.  Time has been good to Eve.  Life goes where she goes.  She's been profiled, covered, revealed, reported -- what she eats and what she wears, whom she knows and where she was, and when and where she's going.  Eve.  You all know all about Eve.  What can there be to know that you don't know?" --Addison DeWitt.

More Memorable Quotations:

  • Click here "We're all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night. Aren't we, honey?" --Margo Channing (a .WAV file).
  • "So little.  So little, did you say?  Why if nothing else, there's applause.  I've listened backstage to people applaud.  It's like... like waves of love coming over the footlights and wrapping you up.  Imagine to know every night that different hundreds of people love you.  They smile.  Their eyes shine.  You've pleased them.  They want you.  You belong.  Just that alone is worth anything." --Eve.
  • "It's your party.  Happy birthday, welcome home, and we who are about to die salute you." --Margo Channing.
  • "It's about time the piano realized it has not written the concerto!" --Lloyd Richards.
  • "It's obvious you're not a woman." --Margo Channing.
  • Click here "I'll admit I may have seen better days . . . but I'm still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut." --Margo Channing (a .WAV file).
  • "Don't cry.  Just score it as an incomplete forward pass." --Bill Sampson.
  • "That cynicism you refer to is something I acquired the day I discovered I was different from little boys!" --Karen Richards.
  • "So many people know me. I wish I did. I wish someone would tell me about me." --Margo Channing.
  • Click here "I don't think that's funny." --Margo Channing (a .WAV file).
  • "There never was, and there never will be, another like you." --Addison DeWitt.
  • Click here "Nothing is forever in the theatre. Whatever it is, it's here, it flares up, burns hot, and then it's gone." --Karen Richards.
  • "You could sleep now, couldn't you? The mark of a true killer." --Addison DeWitt. 
  • "That I should want you at all suddenly strikes me as the height of improbability." -- Addison DeWitt. 
  • "Look closely, Eve. I am Addison DeWitt. Click hereI am nobody's fool -- least of all yours." -- Addison DeWitt (a .WAV file).
Eve, Margo, Miss Caswell and Addison at Bill's birthday party

Oscar-nominees Anne Baxter, Bette Davis and George Sanders with screen- newcomer Marilyn Monroe (as Miss Caswell) in only her fifth credited role, two years after Zanuck fired her for being unphotogenic.  Monroe's 1950 appearances in ALL ABOUT EVE and THE ASPHALT JUNGLE launched her film career.

When Oscar time rolled around, despite cajoling from Fox executives, both Davis and Baxter insisted on being considered for nominations in the Best Actress category, as opposed to the Best Supporting Actress category, and both received nominations.  Their dual nominations marked the first time in the history of the Academy Awards that two actresses from the same film were both nominated in the leading actress category.  As it turned out however, both Davis and Baxter ended up losing to Judy Holliday and her performance in the 1950 comedy BORN YESTERDAY.

Margo and Bill dine at the Cub Room

Margo and Bill in the Cub Room, announcing that Margo is about to become a "four-square, upright, downright, forthright married lady".

The tempestuous attraction between director Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill) and his leading lady led to off-screen romance as well.  Although Merrill and Davis were both married to others in 1950, by July 28, 1950, 34-year-old Merrill and 42-year-old Davis had won divorces from their respective spouses and were married to each other.  They adopted two children and eventually divorced in 1960.
"Aged in Wood" poster

A poster from Margo's play "Aged in Wood" featuring a now-famous caricature of those 'Bette Davis Eyes'.

"Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster.  You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman.  That's one career all females have in common whether we like it or not--being a woman.  Sooner or later we've got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted.  And in the last analysis, nothing's any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed and there he is.  Without that, you're not a woman.  You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings, but you're not a woman.  Slow curtain, the end." --Margo Channing.

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Last updated: March 10, 2011.
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