--- title: Bette Davis Before the 'Feud' Years: Unpublished 1947 Photos description: “There are not many actresses who will come right out with the truth,” wrote LIFE’s Los Angeles correspondent in notes on a 1947 photoshoot. canonical: https://time.com/4693670/bette-davis-1947-photos/ author: Daniel D'Addario article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-17T16:00:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:01.238Z og:title: A Star at Ease: Unpublished Photos of Bette Davis Before the 'Feud' Years og:description: “There are not many actresses who will come right out with the truth,” wrote LIFE’s Los Angeles correspondent, in notes on a 1947 photoshoot og:url: https://time.com/4693670/bette-davis-1947-photos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f5a1e9adb8244ba/6988bd5e4dd2154ee2efe0af/170317-bette-davis-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1626 og:image:height: 915 og:image:alt: Bette Davis 1947 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Star at Ease: Unpublished Photos of Bette Davis Before the 'Feud' Years twitter:description: “There are not many actresses who will come right out with the truth,” wrote LIFE’s Los Angeles correspondent, in notes on a 1947 photoshoot twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f5a1e9adb8244ba/6988bd5e4dd2154ee2efe0af/170317-bette-davis-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A Star at Ease: Unpublished Photos of Bette Davis Before the _Feud_ Years > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Mar 17, 2017 4:00 PM UTC  Bette Davis with her dog in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "On terrace with blank spaniel." Bette Davis with her dog in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "On terrace with blank spaniel."Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Mar 17, 2017 4:00 PM UTC “There are not many actresses who will come right out with the truth,” wrote LIFE’s Los Angeles correspondent Alice Crocker in notes accompanying a September 1947 photoshoot, “when that means admitting a birthdate of April 5, 1908.” [Bette Davis](http://time.com/3672992/bette-davis-rare-photos/), frank and relatively unaffected throughout her career, was one of the few. Her freewheelingness and seeming lack of concern for her image shows through in this photoshoot, taken months after the birth of her daughter and three years before the first of her comebacks, as (ironically enough) a vain actress in the film [_All About Eve._](http://time.com/4672998/guide-to-random-oscar-facts/) The images by [Loomis Dean](http://time.com/4339243/life-fathers-day-print-sale-photography/) were never published in the pages of LIFE, but Crocker’s 11 pages of caption material and notes on the day, which were transmitted to Bob Girvin of the magazine’s photo department, survived in the LIFE archives. Davis in 1947 was not yet the hardened warrior of FX’s miniseries [_Feud_](http://time.com/4688225/feud-jessica-lange-susan-sarandon-fx/) (in which Susan Sarandon portrays the early-1960s Davis as a star fueled by nicotine and resentments, aware both of the status she’s earned and how little it’s respected). These photos show someone fully in control of herself, but far more at ease than the Davis who made _What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?_ such a lurid hit. The setups are startlingly intimate, for all that they follow the fairly typical framing of “a star in their downtime.” Davis seems not at all to be playing to the camera even when obviously posing with her husband, William Grant Sherry. She’s lost in reverie, or selling us on the idea that she is. The notes make clear just how difficult living in the public eye could be, even in a far less media-saturated age than our own. “There are not many people (much less actresses) with figures to worry about who at 39 would be willing to go thru \[sic\] the effort of having a baby,” wrote Crocker. “However, the common rumor is that she has wanted a baby for some time and husband number three was acquired for that specific purpose.” (She notes, without apparent irony, that this has “a malicious note which can probably be discredited.”) Davis seems unconcerned with any such speculation, even as the very fact of her opening her life to magazine cameras implies some sort of need to reclaim her narrative. Sitting on the wheel of a plane, she smokes in a pantsuit and loafers and looks away from us, as though something very enticing is happening just out of frame. These pictures depict her at the end of something — the age she freely admitted to was catching up with her, limiting the roles she and her studio, Warner Brothers, could agree on. But she was at the beginning of something, too, having only just become a mother and putting the pieces together for an unlikely second act, one that capitalized on her skill at framing herself in just the right light. The year after these photos were taken, Davis’ _June Bride_ would stanch some of the wounds her career had sustained after successive flops; then, in 1950, _All About Eve_ would relaunch her as a grande dame of the screen. It’s a role that would bear many similarities to the Davis we see just three years prior — _Eve_ protagonist Margo Channing is frank and bawdily witty in private, though in public she’s a glamour-puss in a way the trouser-clad Davis isn’t. If we saw the character at home, it’d be in full makeup and jewels, not a two-piece bathing suit. The _Eve_ role used what was best of Davis’ star persona but refracted it through the cinematic style of the time, putting hauteur and intellect in an Edith Head gown. Later on, _What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?_ was a “vanity-free” performance whose ghoulishness only emphasized the still-radiant beauty of the off-screen Davis, and got her plenty of accolades for her bravery. What’s startling about these photos, and what makes them a part of Davis’ legacy of clever self-invention, is their merger of un-cinematic openness — framing Davis as relaxed and calm in a way her brilliant, troubled characters never could be — with artifice. It may be un-diva-ish to wear trousers while pushing a plane to takeoff, but Davis is still making sure her plane is documented, and its name, “Now, Voyager,” is that of one of her biggest screen hits. As for husband Sherry, who seems unmoved by the camera’s gaze even as he shows off his well-developed physique, Davis made sure he came across in his best light. Crocker noted that due to his heavy stubble, Davis made him wear stage makeup for color pictures “so he won’t look like Frederick Barbarossa.” Davis would divorce Sherry in 1950, the year of _Baby Jane_’s release, and marry Gary Merrill, her _All About Eve_ costar. The spuriousness Crocker put forward in her notes was fair (if sharply worded). But Sherry barely registers in the photos — it’s all, always, about Bette, who manages to make you feel as though you’re intruding on private moments even with all the stage-management of a photoshoot around her. It’s another brilliant performance. _Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk._  Bette Davis in California, 1947. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis with her dog in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "On terrace with blank spaniel." Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "Natty bicycling outfit consists of brown jersey shorts, pale gray shirt, blue cap." Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband William Grant Sherry bike riding in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "Bicycling within calling distance of the beach home." Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband William Grant Sherry at the beach in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "Drying out on retaining wall in twin bathing suits. When Sherry heard a low whistled response to his blue, tie-at-the-side trunks, he liked them because they were the closest to wearing nothing. And that's the truth, from the looks of it." Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband William Grant Sherry boating in California, 1947. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband William Grant Sherry boating in California, 1947. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband William Grant Sherry boating in California, 1947. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband, William Grant Sherry, at the beach in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "Looking north from point near house. Boxer Schatze chose to sit there to kibitz about painting." Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband, William Grant Sherry, at the beach in California, 1947. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis working at her desk at home in California, 1947. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband, William Grant Sherry, playing billiards at home in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "This does not show intimate row about how one holds one's thumb close to one's index finger." Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis and her third husband, William Grant Sherry at home in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "Bette thinks if one manages to read 1\. The New York Times 2\. Time 3\. The New Yorker 4\. Life every week, one will be pretty well informed." Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Silhouette of Bette Davis at home in California, 1947. Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis in front of a plane with her third husband, William Grant Sherry in California, 1947\. From Alice Crocker's notes: "Sherry is studying to become a pilot under the G.I. Bill and has 36 hours to his credit. He wants to get a commercial license so they can take advantage of Bette's time off for vacations. She also hopes he can fly her to Warner's studio at Burbank from Laguna." Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bette Davis smoking and sitting on the wheel of a plane, 1947. 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