This adage has been credited to Academy Award winning actress Bette Davis. In this context, the words sissy and wimp refer to a weak or cowardly person. Here are four versions of a spirited adage: Whelan? Paul Newman? Anonymous?ĭear Quote Investigator: One grows in wisdom as the decades accumulate, but the challenges to health and intellect also increase. Good!”īelow are additional selected citations in chronological order.Ĭontinue reading Nothing But Good Should Be Said of the Dead - He’s Dead. I was always taught never to say anything about the dead unless it’s good. She says her father forced her to marry an older man when she was only a child. Miss Mabley thinks people should marry only for love. She aimed the barb at her former husband: 1971 June 17, Philadelphia Daily News, Cherry Hill scene of ‘Tony rewards’ by Charles Petzold, Quote, Column 5, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

A columnist stated that Mabley was in town to tape a syndicated television talk show. The comedian Jackie ‘Moms’ Mabley received credit for a version of the joke in the “Philadelphia Daily News” of Pennsylvania. Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in June 1971. Yet, the joke may have been in circulation earlier. This quip has been attributed to Bette Davis who supposedly was commenting on the demise of Joan Crawford. Therefore, I will only say this, ‘She’s dead at last, good!’ I was taught that you shouldn’t speak of the dead unless you have something good to say.

When one died the other said something like the following: Davis was bent on proving her father wrong, setting her on a path to become one of Hollywood's most legendary battlers.Jackie ‘Moms’ Mabley? Bette Davis? Joan Crawford? Craig Russell? Anonymous?ĭear Quote Investigator: Two stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age were combative rivals.

But while Ruthie was supportive, Davis' father, Harlow, wasn't. Davis was so affected by Entwistle's performance that she immediately told Ruthie that she wanted to become an actress. Davis' mother, Ruthie, took her and her sister Bobby to see Henrik Ibsen's play 'The Wild Duck.' It was her first taste of serious theater, and the character of the daughter Hedvig so moved her that she 'lost herself' in her experience, just as the actress portraying her, Peg Entwistle, seemed to. Things didn't get much easier once she got there, either.Īccording to Bette Davis' memoir ' The Lonely Life,' the birth of her acting ambitions can be traced to a single evening in 1926, when she was just 18. But the future icon - who was also well-respected in her own lifetime as a campaigner for war veterans, earning a Distinguished Civilian Service Medal for her work with the Hollywood Canteen (via Biography) - didn't have an easy route to Hollywood stardom.

The lonely life by bette davis