Baby Jane Hudson

Baby Jane Hudson
Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson, in the 1962 film adaptation with Joan Crawford as Blanche.
First appearance	What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Created by	Henry Farrell
Portrayed by	Bette Davis Lynn Redgrave (1991 Remake) Matthew Martin (2010 Remake/Parody)
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Former actress

Bette Davis

Lynn Redgrave (1991 Remake)

Baby Jane Hudson is a fictional character and the antagonist of Henry Farrell's 1960 novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? She was portrayed by Bette Davis in the 1962 film adaptation and by Lynn Redgrave in the 1991 made-for-TV remake. The 1962 production is the better-known, with Bette Davis earning an Academy Award nomination for her performance.

At the chronological beginning of the story, Baby Jane Hudson is a highly successful child star in Vaudeville, billed as the "The Diminutive Dancing Duse from Duluth". In the film version, a prologue set in 1917 shows her performing with her father, while her mother and sister Blanche watch from backstage. She is evidently favored and spoiled by her father, while her mother attempts to soften Blanche's anger and envy, by promising that one day her chance at stardom will come. The novel reveals that the sisters move to Hollywood to live with an aunt who favors Blanche the way their father had preferred Jane. By the mid-1930s, Blanche and Jane are in Hollywood. Blanche is a successful actress while Jane gets film work only because her sister's contract demands it. While Blanche becomes the leading lady of her era, Jane is widely seen as a has-been, and her films are critical and commercial failures.

One night, an inebriated Jane mocks and humiliates Blanche at a party, provoking Blanche into running away in tears. That night, Blanche is paralyzed from the waist down in a mysterious car accident that is unofficially blamed on Jane, who was found three days later in a drunken stupor, with no memory of what had happened. The accident ends careers for both Blanche and Jane. Jane spends the next three decades living with and caring for Blanche.