Margo Channing
‘Margo Channing is the Star of the theatre. She made her first stage
appearance, at the age of four, in Midsummer Night's Dream. She played a
fairy and entered—quite unexpectedly—stark naked. She has been a Star ever
since. Margo is a great Star. A true Star. She never was or will be anything
less’.
Addison DeWitt’s voice-over introduces us to Margo Channing as Eve is being feted
as a star. By the end of the film, DeWitt’s description still rings true. But she has
changed.
Eve says, ‘Imagine... to know, every night, that different hundreds of people love
you...They smile, their eyes shine—you've pleased them, they want you, you belong.
Anything's worth that’. This is what Margo has, and it is what Eve wants, but the film
suggests that this sort of belonging and love are not enough. The cyclic ending of
the film enforces this, as do most of the scenes with Margo.
This film boosted, even saved, the career of Bette Davis. Margo is loud, brash,
talented, confident, insecure, cruel, and generous. Students should develop a word
bank of words to describe her, with examples to justify their selection. Mankiewicz’s
female characters are complex, and an appropriate vocabulary is needed to explore
them.
The film’s structure has Margo achieve a state of equilibrium at the end of the film
both similar to and superior to the state at the start. Now she and Bill are married,
she can accept touring rather than playing young girls. Margo both fulfils and to an
extent transcends the gender roles offered women at this time.
One critic has said that Davis ‘plays Margo like a walking bonfire’.12 From the
opening scene when her expressionless face sheds doubt on the accuracy of what
the old actor is saying, the audience is encouraged to sympathise with Margo. Her
vicious attacks are rarely aimed at the innocent, and her insecurity has been taught
her by a society which values the young and beautiful. Some of the film’s wittiest,
cleverest, and saddest lines are hers. She is often explained by others, even by
Karen who plays the trick on her. At the end of the film, she is not alone, while Eve is
not only alone, but, Mankiewicz suggests, at the mercy of another ‘killer’.
Margo is a professional. She never misses performances, her dressing room is
charmless but practical, until Eve ‘pretties it up’. When Karen ushers Eve in, Margo
looks nothing like a glamorous star; she is wearing a wrapper, her hair is bound up
after removing her wig, her face shiny with cold cream. Her utter lack of self-
consciousness, her confidence and her generosity are seen here, just as in other
scenes we see her childish wilfulness.
• What qualities do we expect in a star? Are stars different from ordinary people?
• Does Margo change in the course of the film?
• What is Mankiewicz’s attitude to Margo? How do you know?
VATE INSIDE STORIES 2014—ALL ABOUT EVE
Quotes from Margo
• "Everybody has a heart- except some people." - Margo
• "There are some human experiences, Birdie, that do not take place in a
vaudeville house - and that even a fifth-rate vaudevillian should understand
and respect!
"Suddenly, I've developed a big protective feeling for her. A lamb loose in our
big stone jungle." - Margo
• "Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the
ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you
get back to being a woman." - Margo
• "Lloyd, I am not twenty-ish. I am not thirty-ish. Three months ago, I was forty
years old. Forty. Four oh - That slipped out. I hadn't quite made up my mind
to admit it. Now I suddenly feel as if I've taken all my clothes off." - Margo
"Bill's thirty-two. He looks thirty-two. He looked it five years ago, he'll look it
twenty years from now. I hate men." - Margo
• [to Bill] "This is my house, not a theater. In my house, you're a guest, not a
director." - Margo
• "Am I going to lose you, Bill?"
• "The only thing I ordered by mistake is the guests...They're domestic, too,
and they don't care what they drink as long as it burns..."
• "In this rat race, everybody's guilty till they're proved innocent!" - Margo
• "...she won't get away with it, nor will Addison De Witt and his poison pen. If
Equity or my lawyer can't or won't do anything about it, I shall personally stuff
that pathetic little lost lamb down Mr. De Witt's ugly throat." - Margo
"Bill's thirty-two. He looks thirty-two. He looked it five years ago, he'll look it
twenty years from now. I hate men." - Margo
• [to Bill] "This is my house, not a theater. In my house, you're a guest, not a
director." - Margo
• "Am I going to lose you, Bill?"
• "The only thing I ordered by mistake is the guests...They're domestic, too,
and they don't care what they drink as long as it burns..."
• "In this rat race, everybody's guilty till they're proved innocent!" - Margo
• "...she won't get away with it, nor will Addison De Witt and his poison pen. If
Equity or my lawyer can't or won't do anything about it, I shall personally stuff
that pathetic little lost lamb down Mr. De Witt's ugly throat." - Margo
“Bill, don't get stuck on some glamour-puss... You're a set-up for some
gorgeous, wide-eyed young bait.”
• (To Bill) "A girl of so many rare qualities...So you've pointed out so often. So
many qualities so often. Her loyalty, efficiency, devotion, warmth, and
affection, and so young. So young and so fair."
• “I'm fed up with both the young lady and her qualities. Studying me as if I
were a play or a blueprint, how I walk, talk, think, act, sleep...”
• "There are particular aspects of my life to which I would like to maintain sole
and exclusive rights and privileges.... For instance, you."
• “What about her teeth? What about her fangs?”
• “We haven't finished with the embalming. As a matter of fact, you're looking
at it - the remains of Margo Channing, sitting up.”
• You're in a beehive, pal. Didn't you know? We're all busy little bees, full of
stings, making honey, day and night. [To Eve]Aren't we, honey?
(To Lloyd) “[An actress decides they’re her words and thoughts she’s
expressing] usually at the point when she has to rewrite and rethink them to
keep the audience from leaving the theater.”
• (To Bill) “You're being terribly tolerant, aren't you?... But you needn't be. I will
not be tolerated and I will not be plotted against.”
• “What do you all take me for - Little Nell from the country? Been my
understudy for over a week without my knowing it, carefully hidden no doubt.”
• “A body and a voice!” (in reply to Bill calling her a beautiful and intelligent
woman)
• “It's obvious you're not a woman.”
• “I'll admit I may have seen better days, but I'm still not to be had for the price
of a cocktail, like a salted peanut.”
• “So many people know me. I wish I did. I wish someone would tell me about
me.”
“What is ["Margo"] besides something spelled out in lightbulbs?”
• “[What is "Margo"] besides something called a temperament which consists
mostly of swooping about on a broomstick and screaming at the top of my
voice?"
• "Infants behave the way I do...They carry on and misbehave...get drunk if
they knew how, when they can't have what they want. When they feel
unwanted or insecure or unloved."
• "Bill's in love with Margo Channing. He's fought with her, worked with her,
and loved her. But ten years from now, Margo Channing will have ceased to
exist. And what's left will be - what?"
• "Those [eight] years stretch as the years go on. I've seen it happen too
often."
• "About Eve, I've acted pretty disgracefully toward her... At best, let's say I've
been oversensitive to her...to the fact that she's so young, so feminine and so
helpless, too so many things I want to be for Bill."
"There's one career all females have in common - whether we like it or not:
being a woman. Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter how many
other careers we've had or wanted." And, in the last analysis, nothing is any
good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed - and
there he is. Without that, you're not a woman. You're something with a French
provincial office or a - a book full of clippings, but you're not a woman. Slow
curtain. The End."
appearance, at the age of four, in Midsummer Night's Dream. She played a
fairy and entered—quite unexpectedly—stark naked. She has been a Star ever
since. Margo is a great Star. A true Star. She never was or will be anything
less’.
Addison DeWitt’s voice-over introduces us to Margo Channing as Eve is being feted
as a star. By the end of the film, DeWitt’s description still rings true. But she has
changed.
Eve says, ‘Imagine... to know, every night, that different hundreds of people love
you...They smile, their eyes shine—you've pleased them, they want you, you belong.
Anything's worth that’. This is what Margo has, and it is what Eve wants, but the film
suggests that this sort of belonging and love are not enough. The cyclic ending of
the film enforces this, as do most of the scenes with Margo.
This film boosted, even saved, the career of Bette Davis. Margo is loud, brash,
talented, confident, insecure, cruel, and generous. Students should develop a word
bank of words to describe her, with examples to justify their selection. Mankiewicz’s
female characters are complex, and an appropriate vocabulary is needed to explore
them.
The film’s structure has Margo achieve a state of equilibrium at the end of the film
both similar to and superior to the state at the start. Now she and Bill are married,
she can accept touring rather than playing young girls. Margo both fulfils and to an
extent transcends the gender roles offered women at this time.
One critic has said that Davis ‘plays Margo like a walking bonfire’.12 From the
opening scene when her expressionless face sheds doubt on the accuracy of what
the old actor is saying, the audience is encouraged to sympathise with Margo. Her
vicious attacks are rarely aimed at the innocent, and her insecurity has been taught
her by a society which values the young and beautiful. Some of the film’s wittiest,
cleverest, and saddest lines are hers. She is often explained by others, even by
Karen who plays the trick on her. At the end of the film, she is not alone, while Eve is
not only alone, but, Mankiewicz suggests, at the mercy of another ‘killer’.
Margo is a professional. She never misses performances, her dressing room is
charmless but practical, until Eve ‘pretties it up’. When Karen ushers Eve in, Margo
looks nothing like a glamorous star; she is wearing a wrapper, her hair is bound up
after removing her wig, her face shiny with cold cream. Her utter lack of self-
consciousness, her confidence and her generosity are seen here, just as in other
scenes we see her childish wilfulness.
• What qualities do we expect in a star? Are stars different from ordinary people?
• Does Margo change in the course of the film?
• What is Mankiewicz’s attitude to Margo? How do you know?
VATE INSIDE STORIES 2014—ALL ABOUT EVE
Quotes from Margo
• "Everybody has a heart- except some people." - Margo
• "There are some human experiences, Birdie, that do not take place in a
vaudeville house - and that even a fifth-rate vaudevillian should understand
and respect!
"Suddenly, I've developed a big protective feeling for her. A lamb loose in our
big stone jungle." - Margo
• "Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the
ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you
get back to being a woman." - Margo
• "Lloyd, I am not twenty-ish. I am not thirty-ish. Three months ago, I was forty
years old. Forty. Four oh - That slipped out. I hadn't quite made up my mind
to admit it. Now I suddenly feel as if I've taken all my clothes off." - Margo
"Bill's thirty-two. He looks thirty-two. He looked it five years ago, he'll look it
twenty years from now. I hate men." - Margo
• [to Bill] "This is my house, not a theater. In my house, you're a guest, not a
director." - Margo
• "Am I going to lose you, Bill?"
• "The only thing I ordered by mistake is the guests...They're domestic, too,
and they don't care what they drink as long as it burns..."
• "In this rat race, everybody's guilty till they're proved innocent!" - Margo
• "...she won't get away with it, nor will Addison De Witt and his poison pen. If
Equity or my lawyer can't or won't do anything about it, I shall personally stuff
that pathetic little lost lamb down Mr. De Witt's ugly throat." - Margo
"Bill's thirty-two. He looks thirty-two. He looked it five years ago, he'll look it
twenty years from now. I hate men." - Margo
• [to Bill] "This is my house, not a theater. In my house, you're a guest, not a
director." - Margo
• "Am I going to lose you, Bill?"
• "The only thing I ordered by mistake is the guests...They're domestic, too,
and they don't care what they drink as long as it burns..."
• "In this rat race, everybody's guilty till they're proved innocent!" - Margo
• "...she won't get away with it, nor will Addison De Witt and his poison pen. If
Equity or my lawyer can't or won't do anything about it, I shall personally stuff
that pathetic little lost lamb down Mr. De Witt's ugly throat." - Margo
“Bill, don't get stuck on some glamour-puss... You're a set-up for some
gorgeous, wide-eyed young bait.”
• (To Bill) "A girl of so many rare qualities...So you've pointed out so often. So
many qualities so often. Her loyalty, efficiency, devotion, warmth, and
affection, and so young. So young and so fair."
• “I'm fed up with both the young lady and her qualities. Studying me as if I
were a play or a blueprint, how I walk, talk, think, act, sleep...”
• "There are particular aspects of my life to which I would like to maintain sole
and exclusive rights and privileges.... For instance, you."
• “What about her teeth? What about her fangs?”
• “We haven't finished with the embalming. As a matter of fact, you're looking
at it - the remains of Margo Channing, sitting up.”
• You're in a beehive, pal. Didn't you know? We're all busy little bees, full of
stings, making honey, day and night. [To Eve]Aren't we, honey?
(To Lloyd) “[An actress decides they’re her words and thoughts she’s
expressing] usually at the point when she has to rewrite and rethink them to
keep the audience from leaving the theater.”
• (To Bill) “You're being terribly tolerant, aren't you?... But you needn't be. I will
not be tolerated and I will not be plotted against.”
• “What do you all take me for - Little Nell from the country? Been my
understudy for over a week without my knowing it, carefully hidden no doubt.”
• “A body and a voice!” (in reply to Bill calling her a beautiful and intelligent
woman)
• “It's obvious you're not a woman.”
• “I'll admit I may have seen better days, but I'm still not to be had for the price
of a cocktail, like a salted peanut.”
• “So many people know me. I wish I did. I wish someone would tell me about
me.”
“What is ["Margo"] besides something spelled out in lightbulbs?”
• “[What is "Margo"] besides something called a temperament which consists
mostly of swooping about on a broomstick and screaming at the top of my
voice?"
• "Infants behave the way I do...They carry on and misbehave...get drunk if
they knew how, when they can't have what they want. When they feel
unwanted or insecure or unloved."
• "Bill's in love with Margo Channing. He's fought with her, worked with her,
and loved her. But ten years from now, Margo Channing will have ceased to
exist. And what's left will be - what?"
• "Those [eight] years stretch as the years go on. I've seen it happen too
often."
• "About Eve, I've acted pretty disgracefully toward her... At best, let's say I've
been oversensitive to her...to the fact that she's so young, so feminine and so
helpless, too so many things I want to be for Bill."
"There's one career all females have in common - whether we like it or not:
being a woman. Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter how many
other careers we've had or wanted." And, in the last analysis, nothing is any
good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed - and
there he is. Without that, you're not a woman. You're something with a French
provincial office or a - a book full of clippings, but you're not a woman. Slow
curtain. The End."