More fairly successful movies followed, but it was the role of Mildred Rogers in RKO's Of Human Bondage (1934) that would give Bette major acclaim from the film critics. She became a star after this appearance, known as the actress that could play a variety of very strong and complex roles. Her first film with them was The Man Who Played God (1932). In 1932, she signed a seven-year deal with Warner Brothers Pictures. An official at Universal complained she had "as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville" and her performance in "Bad Sister" didn't impress. When she arrived in Hollywood, the studio representative who went to meet her train left without her because he could find no one who looked like a movie star. Late in 1930, she was hired by Universal, where she made her first film, called Bad Sister (1931). She was in the off-Broadway play "The Earth Between" (1923), and her Broadway debut in 1929 was in "Broken Dishes". She enrolled in John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School and was the star pupil. After graduation from Cushing Academy, she was refused admittance to Eva Le Gallienne's Manhattan Civic Repertory. To her, it presented much more of a challenge. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but then she discovered the stage, and gave up dancing for acting. She and her sister were raised by their mother. Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ruth Augusta (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney.
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