Prompted by Jos's efforts, I found the base image here: http://classicmoviefavorites.com/davis/davis051.jpg It also happens to be the image on the cover of "Bette Davis Speaks" as pictured on Amazon.com. Even though the image has differently posed hands, I overlaid one on the other and found that Davis's face is 100% identical in both. The problem is that there is no cigarette in this shot, so I'm left with egg on my face and with much diminished respect for Roger Ebert who has apparently misled me.
Still, I'm not too sure. WTF, I wonder, was the artist thinking when he altered Davis's hand to a position that seemed to hold an invisible cigarette when the "source" image unequivocally lacked a cigarette. But I'm not so certain that the book image is the source. The tonality of the glove is strange, and the coat looks patchy where Davis's hand would be according to the postage stamp version. I suspect that Bette Davis's smoking has been censored both times. The book cover version has concealed her smoking habit as much as airbrush retouching could achieve. Paradoxically, the modern artist has very likely made the truer rendition by leaving the cigarette's omission evident. It's a shame that the oldest findable version of this picture is the biography cover. The original studio release would settle any doubts. BTW the Robert Johnson portrait is without a doubt the same picture that has been massaged so that it fits better onto a postage stamp. Regards, Anthony > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > AlunFoto > Sent: Monday, 13 October 2008 9:42 PM > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > Subject: Re: OT - Govt Agency doctors photograph to sanitize history > > I will moderate my stance on this one. Spent the lunch break zooming > through a couple of internet databases on stills from Bette Davis > career. There was a link to a youTube clip from "All about Eve" on the > original blogpost, which came close as a possible inspiration for the > stamp, where she's wearing the same coat, haircut and mittens. However > if this is the source, the stamp must be regarded as an independent > work of art however photorealistic it seems. > > So only one question remains. Would depicting Bette Davis with a > cigarette in hand on a stamp actually promote smoking? I don't think > so, but I'm open to arguments... :-) > > best, > Jostein > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
