Seventy-five years ago today, Bette Davis introduced the world to Margo Channing, the feisty protagonist of All About Eve (1950). It’s hard to imagine the film without Bette Davis, but it only came to be just two weeks before shooting, after the originally cast actress had been injured. Davis was doing writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz a favor by stepping in as Margo; in turn, he was doing her a favor by reviving her career, and the film turned out to be a favor for all to savor, three-quarters of a century later.
Margo and the titular character, Eve (Anne Baxter), embark on a pas de deux of adoration, competition, and deception in Mankiewicz’s love letter to the theater world. “Love” might seem like the wrong word for the film as he often depicts theater folk as cunning and cutthroat, but the film remains one of the few long-lasting odes to a bygone era, capturing both its feats and faults. All About Eve briefly peaks behind the velvet curtains, forever immortalizing Mid-Century Broadway in all its smoky, powdery glory.
All About Eve tells the tale of Margo Channing’s undoing and Eve Harrington’s rise to fame—the former caused by the latter. The film was adapted from the short story “The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr, first published in Cosmopolitan Magazine. Haunting backstage alleys for weeks, Eve Harrington runs into Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), the wife of a famous playwright and best friend of Eve’s idol, Margo Channing. After Margo takes her in, Eve casts herself as Margo’s understudy, not just on the stage but in life, by assimilating into her social crowd and manipulating those around her. Eve’s hopes to become the next Margo Channing are successful, but at the cost of many new enemies in her tracks.
The Merging of Margo and Bette
In the already established filmography of Bette Davis—she had acted in over 60 films before All About Eve—it’s hard to be the standout gem, but that’s exactly what Eve is. I believe one of the reasons why is how much truth Davis poured into the role. Margo’s life mirrored her own in many ways. It even ended up directly influencing a major life decision.
Mankiewicz wanted All About Eve to dramatize a pivotal moment in an actress’ career. As he recounted once, Mankiewicz aimed to capture “the trauma and terror with which so many [actresses] approach both age forty and the transition from actress to just married woman…from stage to home. And the rapid narrowing of roles available.” This is a situation that rang true for both Margo and Bette.
Fresh off her 40th birthday, Margo Channing is a Broadway star still playing twenty-somethings and knows it can’t go on much longer. Similarly, fresh off her 42nd birthday, at the time of filming Eve, Davis was a renowned film actress who felt the pressure of Hollywood’s biological clock ticking and was in deep need of a career boost. In 1949, she made one of her biggest flops, broke her contract with Warner Brothers, and was all but written off as retired. After Eve, she told Mankiewicz, “You resurrected me from the dead.” Just like Margo, if Davis wasn’t acting, was she even living? Her identity as an actress was intertwined with every fiber of her being.
One of my very few qualms with the film is the quiet notion that marriage fixes everything. Near the climax of the conflict between Margo and Eve, Margo surrenders from the fight by getting married to Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), the director eight years her junior. Davis decided to follow in Margo’s footsteps. Between the filming of All About Eve and its premiere, she married Merrill, the actor seven years her junior. The couple was together for ten years.
Come Oscar season, reality mirrored Eve’s narrative once more. The movie was an instant success, with most of its praise going toward Davis and Baxter, who both deserved their flowers. Unfortunately, there was a mix-up at the florist. Baxter had insisted on running for Best Actress, not Supporting, alongside her co-star Davis—pitting the two together, just like in the film. It would have been a cruel fate if Baxter had beaten Davis, but what might be even crueler is that the Academy thought both women were so deserving that nearly all of their votes were split between the two, and neither ended up winning. All About Eve was the first case of two Best Actress nominations from the same film—there have been only four more instances since then.
The Men & Women of All About Eve
The gender dynamics of the time period follow suit to some degree throughout the film. Still under the Hays Code, the script was subject to various censorships and edits. Despite these setbacks, the film glitters with sudden sparkles of subversion.
The women of All About Eve—my god, the women! You could write a book. All About Eve was not only a vehicle for Davis’ return to Hollywood, but it was also a boost for a slate of already extremely talented actresses. All three leading ladies had already won Academy Awards (twice for Davis in the late ‘30s, Baxter in ‘46, and Holm in ‘47). On top of that, one of the funniest characters in the film is Margo’s dresser and cheeky confidante, Birdie (Thelma Ritter), who steals every scene she’s in with her quips and one-liners. The role was written specifically for Ritter, who would go on to give an equally demanding turn in Rear Window (1954). All four women were nominated that year for Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress.
The film features one other woman in the small but significant role of Mrs. Caswell—the doe-eyed starlet who dangles on the arms of theater socialites in hopes of getting parts in productions. The role of Mrs. Caswell went to a young actress, in one of her first credited performances, by the name of Marilyn Monroe, cementing All About Eve’s casting as one of the most iconic lineups of actresses in a non-ensemble film.
With a resume and roster like that, how could the men of Eve compete? Well, simply, they don’t. Compared to the leading ladies, the men of All About Eve leave a lot to be desired. The husbands specifically are a bore, which is sort of refreshing for 1950! However, the gem amongst the male characters is one of Mankiewicz’s creations, a biting theater critic that did not appear in the original short story, and one of my favorite characters of all time: Addison DeWitt, played by the incomparable George Sanders.
In a film already dripping with drama, DeWitt’s second-act cynicism and sass bring the bitchiness to a new level. His sharp tongue, prying eyes, and smug puffs of his long cigarette emanate throughout each of his scenes, whether he’s center frame or lingering in the corner of the Cub Room.
Ironically, out of all five acting nominations (four actresses, one actor), only Sanders walked away that night with the Oscar. Unfortunate but fitting given his character, the story, and its time period—men were still very much in control of actresses’ careers, as they long had been throughout Hollywood’s history. This is yet again another motif reflected in both the film and reality, as the only thing tighter than Addison DeWitt’s grasp on his long cigarette holder is his eventual hold on the elusive Eve. Despite all of her tricks, Eve couldn’t escape DeWitt’s claws.
Seventy-Five Years Later…
Alongside its powerhouse performances, the enduring legacy of All About Eve stems from its timeless themes, cultural impact, and its sizzling send-up of the theater world.
A film about aging before plastic surgery and cosmetic injections is fascinating. If the movie were made today, it would have to be part of the conversation. In 2025, we scroll on our pocket-sized screens as beautiful women—real and AI—retouched to airbrushed godliness, stare back at us. The anxieties at the core of All About Eve remain true, 75 years later–the only difference being the tools the Margos of the world can equip themselves with in order to compete with the fresh-faced, bright-eyed, clawing Eves rising underneath them.
The impact of All About Eve on cinema, theater, and pop culture is immense. One of Eve’s most notable influences can be seen in All About My Mother (1999), directed by Pedro Almodóvar, with its title being a direct homage. More broadly, All About Eve has become a foundational text for any story about aging out of show business, from Magic Mike (2012) to The Last Showgirl (2024).
While not the first to explore it, but one of the best, Eve’s theme of a star being usurped by an understudy, or of a mentor by a protegee, can be found in many great films from Persona (1966) to 3 Women (1977). More than anything, it will always be known as one of the best films to portray the stage actress and the rarities and oddities of character that the theater world breeds.
To add to its cemented status in history, there is one more All About Eve Oscar factoid to boast. To this day, the film remains in an exclusive three-way tie for the most nominations for a single film. It set the record with 14 nominations at the 23rd Academy Awards Ceremony in 1951 and has yet to be beaten. Almost 50 years later, it was finally joined by the behemoth of a film, Titanic (1997). A couple of decades after that, La La Land (2016) danced its way into the legendary club with 14 nominations of its own. What will be the fourth film, and will it leave the same type of cultural footprints as its predecessors?
One thing is for certain, there will be and cannot be another film like All About Eve. It stands as a singular testament to the art of acting. Whether that’s through its explicit tribute to the theater world or the film’s role itself as an instrument for some of the greatest acting to have graced our screens, in each performance, an actor’s winks, smirks, and intonations are hidden tombs to an underworld of meaning, subtext, and intention. Even more poignantly, you can feel the weight of decades of masterful craft in every single frame Margo Channing commands. Without Bette, there is no Margo; without Margo, there is no Eve; and without All About Eve, there would be a world lost to posterity—an Atlantis of acting.
Retrospective Courtesy of Kasey Dunifer
Feature Image Credit to 20th Century-Fox via The New York Times