The night of April 8, 1963, belongs to all three of them.
The legend of it has belonged too long to only two.
—
SOURCES AND REPORTING NOTES
This article draws on the following sources, which were directly consulted during research. Citations reflect sources actually accessed; no source is cited that was not read.
**Academy Awards documentation:** Wikipedia’s entry for the 35th Academy Awards (accessed October 2026), which records nominees, winners, venue, date, host, and Crawford’s proxy role. Cross-referenced with Wikipedia entries for *The Miracle Worker* (1962 film) and Anne Bancroft.
**Film production history:** Wikipedia’s entry for *What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?* (1962 film), which documents production dates, budget figures, cast negotiations, documented on-set accounts and their attributed sources, box office performance, and awards record. The entry distinguishes between documented accounts and rumored incidents, and those distinctions are preserved in this article.
**Biographical sources:** Wikipedia entries for Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, which provide career chronologies with sources and note disputed claims (Crawford’s birth year; the disputed “Franchot Tone” account; the contested severity of the on-set hit). The Davis entry attributes the “I have never forgiven her” quote to a 1987 interview.
**Anne Bancroft:** Wikipedia entry for Anne Bancroft, which documents her Broadway career, the *Mother Courage* run in 1963 that kept her from the ceremony, and that Crawford later presented the Oscar to her in New York on May 7, 1963.
**Crawford-Davis rivalry:** Far Out Magazine retrospective on the rivalry (accessed October 2026), which provides a timeline of key incidents and assesses source quality for each—noting which claims are on-record and which are unsourced. Feud: Bette and Joan Wikipedia entry, which confirms the show’s status as dramatization and the absence of independent confirmation for the Oscar-campaign narrative.