Getting her postage due
“She did it the hard way.”
That’s how Bette Davis wanted to be remembered, and a new postage stamp honoring her does that image justice.
The 42-cent stamp, being released today in Boston, features a portrait of Davis as she appeared in the 1950 film “All About Eve” as an aging actress battling to save her career.
She was nominated for an Oscar for that performance, one of 10 overall. She won in 1935 for “Dangerous” and in 1938 for “Jezebel.”
Davis chose “She did it the hard way” for an epitaph because she viewed her life as difficult but rewarding, says her son, Michael Merrill.
“It isn’t that she was complaining, but that she had persevered … to achieve great things and satisfying things even though it wasn’t easy for her,” he explains.
“She could be intimidating,” Merrill added, but “there was a sharing there. She was Mom. She really filled that role well, she was very much a mother.”
Born Ruth Elizabeth Davis 100 years ago in Lowell, Mass., Davis won acclaim playing characters considered tough and unsympathetic. She died in France in 1989.
A noteworthy development
Jamie Lynn Spears’ mother found out her 16-year-old daughter was pregnant in a note.
Lynne Spears said on Wednesday’s “Today” show that Jamie Lynn handed it to her and told her to go into the bedroom and read it.
The note said she was pregnant but “everything was gonna be OK, Mom.”
“I was just truly in shock and then I started to cry. And then she started consoling me at that point,” said Spears, who writes of Jamie Lynn and older daughter Britney in her new memoir, “Through the Storm.”
Tweakin’ and tusslin’
Ryan O’Neal and his son Redmond were arrested Wednesday morning after authorities found drugs at the actor’s Malibu home.
Investigators suspect both men had methamphetamine, but the substances still need to be tested, a sheriff’s spokesman said.
Ryan O’Neal was arrested in February following a fight with another son, Griffin, but no charges were filed.
What’s new, pussycat?
After 15 years without a new album in the U.S., Tom Jones, 68, will release a disc of almost entirely original material this fall.
“The fire is still in me,” he says. “Not to be an oldie, but a goodie. I want to be a contender.”
Oh, unholy night
Stephen Colbert will host a musical Christmas special this fall on Comedy Central.
“A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!,” airing Nov. 23, will feature John Legend, Elvis Costello, Toby Keith, Willie Nelson, Feist and “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart.
Colbert will duet with Stewart on “Hannukah,” and with Nelson on a “Little Drummer Boy” takeoff, “Little Dealer Boy.”
The birthday bunch
Singer Jimmie Rodgers is 75. Actor Robert Blake is 75. Actor Fred Willard is 69. Singer-actor Frankie Avalon is 68. Actor James Gandolfini is 47. Actress Holly Robinson Peete is 44. Actress Jada Pinkett Smith is 37. Actor James Marsden is 35. Rapper Xzibit is 34. Actors Taylor and Brandon Porter (“Party of Five”) are 15.