Actresses Susan Sarandon and Lauren Bacall received awards commemorating their acting achievements from the Bette Davis Foundation Thursday in the George Sherman Union.
The Foundation unveiled a postage stamp to celebrate Davis, who won Academy awards for her roles in “Jezebel” and “Dangerous” in the 1930s, in Metcalf Hall Thursday afternoon, where Bacall gave a speech about the movie star.
“Nobody walked like her, nobody talked like her,” Bacall said.
Bacall, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in “The Mirror has Two Faces,” told an audience of less then 100 about how Davis inspired her to go into acting, and how her husband “Bogey,” Humphrey Bogart, used to love working with Davis.
After the awards ceremony Thursday night, which drew close to 400 spectators, Sarandon participated in a question-and-answer session for BU students, in which she told them to question accepted wisdom. She said she tried not to advocate any agenda, but said she supports Barack Obama and encouraged students to vote.
“As long as we are divided, we cannot see the problems,” Sarandon said.
Sarandon, who won the 1996 Academy Award for her role in “Dead Man Walking,” also spoke out about violence against women, the importance of activism and the state of the national media. Reporters often focus on trivial issues when they cover her, Sarandon said.
“Some times it is like playing Russian roulette when I do interviews,” Sarandon said. “If you don’t want to listen to the positions I take on important issues, why do you care who I am sleeping with?”
Sarandon told the audience how she started acting, how she refuses to take her career too seriously and how she looks for completely different roles in movies.
At one point, Sarandon shocked the audience into laughter when she was asked about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, saying Palin’s inexperience was less of an issue than her right-wing political opinions.
“We want a woman, but let’s be serious,” Sarandon said. “We don’t just want any vagina.”
Many students showed up to see the stars, despite what they called poor advertising.
“The Facebook event had the wrong time, and there were no signs anywhere,” College of Communication junior Lisa Zelig said. “Even BU Today buried it at the bottom. If I didn’t love Lauren Bacall so much, I would never have put this much effort into finding this.”
College of Arts and Sciences freshmen Andy Cheng and Ankit Agarwal said they saw Sarandon in the GSU and followed her up to the ceremony.
“We called a friend. He didn’t believe us,” Cheng said. “So we came upstairs to prove him wrong.”
Seating in Metcalf Hall was divided, with students seated to the side and adults who had paid for the $50 tickets seated in front of the stage. The seating situation came because allowing students to attend for free was a last-minute decision, two days ago, BU spokeswoman Lauren Domingos said.
Many students said they did not appreciate the setup.
“We can’t really see,” COM freshman Taylor Miller said. “We are separated from the people who could get dressed up. I, unfortunately, did not bring my tuxedo to Boston.”
The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center holds the Bette Davis collection and opened a new exhibition last night.
The Foundation offers scholarships to students in the College of Fine Arts and stipends to promising CFA graduates. The 2001 recipient of this scholarship, Ginnifer Goodwin, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2005 Academy Awards for her role in “Walk the Line.”